Re: Calling Customer Service for bad sectors

[Brad Miller <miller@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU>]

I think you misinterpreted my position...

    Date: Tue, 29 Nov 88 09:53 PST
    From: seddighslug-liaison%VERMITHRAX.SCH.Symbolics.COM%VERMITHRAX.SCH.Symbolics.COM@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM
	  (SLUG Liaison)

	Date: Tue, 22 Nov 88 17:39 EST
	From: miller@CS.ROCHESTER.EDU (Brad Miller)

	    Date: Tue, 22 Nov 88 09:29 EST
	    From: Reti@WESER.sreti.symbolics.com (Kalman Reti)

	    This1 is0 distressing, it has happened to me, and I was similarly annoyed.
	    However, in my opinion, calling or writing Symbolics management in
	    a position to do something about it would be a better way to improve this
	    situation than complaining at/to SLUG.

    Correct.

Wrong. If symbolics is screwing customers, I want to know about it, because
then that's going to influence my dealings with symbolics. That's one of the
things a user group is for.. to put pressure on the company to fix problems.
If we don't share what the problems are, then there is no mutual
understanding of the problem areas.

	problems here are much more visible than a letter to some PO box in
	Cambridge, and besides, having 1000 customers mutually know you're screwing

    Mail to SLUG-liaison is either resolved by me or routed to the
    appropriate organization at any appropriate level of management within
    Symbolics and tracked for response. If need be, the Symbolics Corporate
    Operating Commitee may be informed. I kindly reinvite you to use
    SLUG-Liaison@Vermithrax.

I'm not arguing that SLUG-Liason isn't a good idea: it is. I'm arguing that
havine SLUG-Liason isn't the same as having managers inside Symbolics
reading the SLUG mailing list. SLUG-Liason is going to forward specific
problems to appropriate managers, and that's terrific; but thats still not
the same thing as having the company management completely in touch with
reality by their listening to what their users are saying --- directly.

Every time someone asks a (software) question, someone in the documentation
department should be wondering why it wasn't easy to find in the written or
online documentation, or whether more examples should have been provided.
Every time someone reports a bug (which I usually like on this list, because
then I can take steps to avoid it, other than piddly things...) this raises
the visibility level of that particular bug. 

A lot of sites when they have problems with a vendor seeth quietly. This
does neither the vendor, nor present and potential future customers any
good, since nothing improves. With more complete communication amoung the
users, sites may be more willing to speak out about their problems, and
other sites will join in to put pressure on the company to change. The
visibility of the problem to the community as a whole is a disincentive to
sales, which means the sales staff will also put pressure on the company to
change the (perceived) problem, or at least explain what is going on.

A case in point of where communication did NOT occur and maybe SLUG could
have helped: Stanford University. Nobody won here, not Stanford, not
Symbolics, and as far as I can tell from recent traffic about customer
service, things may still be just as bad... so noone has yet learned
anything either.

Communication is what it's all about... Clearly specific problems should be
taken to SLUG-Liason first, but general problems, or continuing problems
deserve a wider forum.

----
Brad Miller		U. Rochester Comp Sci Dept.
miller@cs.rochester.edu {...allegra!rochester!miller}