Subject: Re: Open Letter to Franz Inc. From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1997/02/10 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3064560945314668@naggum.no> * Chris Bitmead -> Michael Rounds | Calm down. I know it's easy to get frustrated with some of the morons in | customer support organisations. But if we stopped using every product | that we ever once had bad support for, then we wouldn't get very far. when you think about how many morons call customer support, I think it is safe to say that there is a lot of frustration all around. even so, the _only_ gripe I have with Franz, Inc, is that it sometimes does take two iterations to get past the "canned answer for dummies" stage, even with what I think are obviously non-dummy questions. however, once past that stage, they do treat their users really well. maybe every customer support organization needs to make their people more alert to the difference between a simple question from someone who does include a trail of details and someone who asks vague questions, but it may be prudent to consider that the first answer you get is from someone who is trying to go through a lot of mail in a short time, and that you need to make your questions stand out: touch base with them on a personal level, compliment them in some way that turns off the depersonalized answers. I don't do customer support for pay, but I have helped a lot of people on the Net over the years, with SGML, with C/Unix stuff, with Emacs, with Lisp, and I know that I remember the names of people who thank me, who say something positive about the stuff they need help with, etc. I also know that if somebody makes an effort to go into the class of "nameless whining moron", there is _nothing_ to stop me from being harsh. actually, I think people who don't do their homework before they ask questions should just _go_away_, and it takes effort on my part to resist from communicating that message. I guess this is why I don't do customer support for pay. #\Erik -- my other car is a cdr