Symbolics' attitude problem

[Stephen Robbins <Stever@ivory.s4cc.symbolics.com>]

    Date: Sat, 23 Jul 88 13:16 EDT
    From: cjl@WHEATIES.AI.MIT.EDU (Chris Lindblad)

        Date: Fri, 22 Jul 88 23:57:47 PDT
        From: gyro@kestrel.arpa (Scott B. Layson)

           Date: 22 Jul 1988 01:15-EDT
           From: NCRAMER@G.BBN.COM

              > Date: Tue, 12 Jul 88 10:52 EDT
              > I realize that this sounds arrogant, ...
           Yes, it does sound arrogant and more than a little so.
        It doesn't just *sound* arrogant -- it *is* arrogant.
    Now hold on.  I have found that Symbolics is the most responsive computer
    company I have ever dealt with.

Responsiveness is a good thing.  And I'm glad to discover that customers are
finding SMBX responsive.  I know when I was a customer (around a year ago),
I was 1extremely0 frustrated by responsiveness I didn't sense from the company.
But then, I wasn't conveniently on the internet.

The other half of responsiveness is how we put our responses.  In short, the
gentle art of diplomacy.  Like it or not, most of the business world centers
around it.

Some places I've worked, managers have been very reluctant to shell out $50K
for a Symbolics machine.  If those managers had received a copy of the
aforementioned "arrogant" response, it alone could have been enough ammunition
for them to decide that Symbolics wasn't a company we should be dealing with.
At the very least, it would have generated an irate call to sales people, VPs,
etc.

I'm glad Symbolics is being responsive.  And I think we can get better, both in
promptness and accuracy of our responses, 1and0 in how we present ourselves to
our customers.

Who, after all, pay our paychecks.

-- Stephen