Future of Customer Support???

[buff%pravda@gatech.edu (Richard Billington)]

    Date: Tue, 29 May 90 17:00 EDT
    From: attila@flash.bellcore.com (Leslie A. Walko)

	    [main text deleted]

	I expect to have more concrete information about the upcoming changes
	during the next couple of weeks, and a full report at SLUG. As we get
	issues resolved, you will be notified. The goal of the software support
	function (and the group performing that function) is to provide at
	least the same quality of service you currently receive.

	Johanna Rothman

    The only thing that I would hope for is some means of communicating this
    sort of information to the users.  There is probably little or no
    "marketing advantage" in keeping this secret so more timely communication
    with users would avoid users getting all worked up over rumors.
   
    Leslie Walko

Just to rub it in, I'll sure second this. Everytime there's a meeting between
the SLUG board and Symbolics management, at every SLUG conference, and on
the SLUG newsgroup, it is repeatedly said "why don't you (Symbolics) keep us
abreast of things that concern us"? Like the above discussion. Symbolics does
the right thing, without informing us, and gets tons of bad publicity. Now
instead of getting to tell us how smart and better organized you are, the
presentation style (get ripped, then react) makes it sound like the whole
reorg. is reactive, rather than proactive.

Why am I going on like this? Because we (the SLUG board and membership) have
been asking to be included in on this type of news as soon as possible - we're
all watching Symbolics for a sign that sensible things are happening there.
And everytime that this is raised, the response is "do you really care about
this sort of low-level organizational news?" The answer is a resounding YES!
And here's another piece of evidence that it can be used effectively by
Symbolics. It would be more to your advantage if you'd treat us (at least
through this newsgroup) as co-conspirators rather than as customers.