xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (08/29/90)
drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) writes: > What IS ridiculous is a 900 number at $2 per minute for > technical support. I'd rather call long distance. But your long distance dollar goes to AT&T, which does nothing at all to pay to support a customer call in line at SAS. The "no free lunch" principle works fine here. > I heard Lattice C wasn't making much money, maybe they > figure the 900 number will get the profits up. Nope. The problem is the huge base of customers that can't be bothered to read the manual if they can just get on the horn and get support without paying for it. Put a realistic cost on customer support, and a lot more customers are willing to do a little digging on their own before jumping on the phone for "free" advice. > What a CROCK...you could spend hundreds and get NO answer to > your problem. THIS IS NOT CUSTOMER SUPPORT, because no > customer in his right mind (and I make the assumption that > anyone with an Amiga and programmin in C has a right mind) > is going to use this ignorant setup. Ha! Another poster noted, this is the system that MicroSlime uses to support the world's buggiest widely distributed code. A radio special yesterday said they were getting so many calls they had _500_ people answering the 900 line phones in their Bellevue, Washington offices. Of course, I must qualify that with a statement that I will not go into court and testify to the sanity of anyone who would actually put out good money for a product from such a long line of losers, but that's another story. Whatever you think of their products, having customers pay for customer support on a "pay as you go" basis gets their user community a _lot_ of customer support staff, without factoring that cost into the shrink wrap price for the folks who _will_ bother to dig out the answers for themselves from the manuals. > I for one have pen in hand to register my distaste for such > treatment! Register away, but abuse by users who spent "hundreds" of dollars of customer support time makes a system like this a necessity for the vendor. RTFM is still the rule, widely violated, but now enforced by a cash outlay. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
drtiller@uokmax.uucp (Donald Richard Tillery Jr) (08/31/90)
WHOA big fella! Don't get me wrong. Paying for support is not my favorite idea, but they do need remuneration for their expertice. BUT (and this is a big BUT), $2 a minute is beyond ridiculous. I DO RTFM, and I shouldn't have to pay through the nose when TFM doesn't answer my questions. _______ __________ _/____) ' __ /_/ / ' / / __ _ "N.I.N.J.A.J.I.S."-Me / \___/__/___/ |_ /__/__/__/_/_-_/__/_/ The Displaced Razorback. ___________________________________________/ Founder: IDGAFF Ltd. The Amiga Computer - "...a more fiendish disputant than the Great Hyperbolic Omni-Cognate Neutron Wrangler of Ciceronicus Twelve..." -D.Adams; Well, almost.