Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM!derstad
From: derstad@CIM-VAX.HONEYWELL.COM ("DAVE ERSTAD")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re:  The deafening silence
Message-ID: <8910072136.AA02071@umix.cc.umich.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 89 22:20:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 82

>     
>     In the past few weeks I have noticed a marked discrepancy between
>     the amount of questions asked on this newsgroup and the amount of
>     answers received.   
>     
>     I have recently posted an article to which I have gotten no response.
>     
>     This leads me to ask "Is this newsgroup alive?" "Does APOLLO listen?"
>     "Does APOLLO care?" 
>     
>     I can see that there may be some questions which have no real answers.
>     But fully half of the queries posted here are met with the kind of
>     silence that makes one think that one's post did not get through to
>     everybody. 
>     
>     Certainly if none of us users know the answer, someone from APOLLO (and
>     some of these people have posted in the past) would be in a position 
>     to provide needed answers. Or at least a "Well, hey, got your message
>     and we're working on it/looking at it/thinking about it/etc."
>     
>     But, alas, maybe I have too much faith in the good side of human nature. 
>     For certainly no one has to respond to anything. Maybe I expect too much.
>     
>     -Dave Hayes
>     dave%jplopto@jpl-mil.jpl.nasa.gov

I would not necessarily bash those people from Apollo who have responded in 
the past.  As far as I'm aware, those folks are all interacting with this
news group in an unofficial capacity.  Thus, when I get a response from
a system programmer at Apollo, I regard that as a privilege, not a right.
I appreciate the fact they spend time to help us out, and don't expect them
to solve all of our problems.

One might argue that Apollo should have someone officially monitor the group,
but that's not necessarily better than sending E-Mail APRs directly to
Apollo since probably the same group of people would handle it (although
it sure wouldn't hurt).

I'd rather see Apollo spend effort and money improving the customer service
group on hotline.  I realize the volume of calls they get require some
form of "triage," but 

In the last three months, I've had the following experiences:

   o  Had a support person admit he doesn't know the answer, run down the
      hall to ask someone else, return with another question, have me
      provide the answer, run down the hall again, return with another
      followup question, etc., without allowing me to talk directly to
      the second person involved.  (I'm pretty sure I know who he was
      talking to;  I've talked to her before and in a small fraction 
      of the time it actually took we could have resolved the issue)

   o  Had a support person answer a question with a fairly definite 
      response ("I'm almost positive that...") and, after a half hour
      of followup discussion, I finally realized that he didn't 
      understand the question, didn't actually have the foggiest
      idea what the answer was, and should have known he was
      speaking out of his depth.

   o  Had difficult times getting in touch with a number of different
      support people on different occasions, leading me to suspect
      that they're understaffed, at least in the areas of most 
      interest to me (DSEE, Domain/Dialog, Compilers, and OS)

I don't expect every support person to know everything, but it would be
nice if the recognized the cases where the customer knows the 
product area better than they do, and pass the call promptly to
someone who can help.

In summary:

   o  I personally consider this newsgroup more of a user forum, rather
      than a vehicle for communication with Apollo

   o  The fact that there are questions unanswered should reflect on 
      Apollo's customer service, rather than this newsgroup.  What
      experiences do other have?

Dave Erstad
Principal Design Automation Engineer
Honeywell SSEC
DERSTAD@cim-vax.honeywell.com