Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!abair
From: abair@turbinia.oakhill.uucp (Alan Bair)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: Re: the deafening silence (and archive sites)
Message-ID: <ABAIR.89Oct12235416@turbinia.oakhill.uucp>
Date: 13 Oct 89 04:54:16 GMT
References: <1989Oct5.224148.19484@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov>
	<1341@clyde.Concordia.CA> <1614@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu>
	<462f7f81.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Sender: news@oakhill.UUCP
Organization: SPS CAD, Motorola Inc., Austin, Texas.
Lines: 46
In-reply-to: tim@apollo.HP.COM's message of 12 Oct 89 16:15:00 GMT

In article <462f7f81.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM> tim@apollo.HP.COM (Timothy R. Giebelhaus) writes:
                    ..... Deleted .....

I agree with what you described in the sections I have deleted.

   Please feel free to use the news, but please remember it is not an
   offical way of getting help.  Customer service is the offical way of
   getting help.  If anyone has suggestions for how to make news help practical,
   please let me know and I'll make sure it is seriously considered by 
   Apollo/HP management.

Since you asked for ideas here is one, which may be available, but I am not
aware of it.  We use both Apollo and Sun equipment in the area I work.
Since I have had trouble getting timely responses from Sun on phone calls,
I starting using there email service address.  I found that I was able to
get a reasonably fast response and if follow up was required by phone I
usually got direct access to the people with the answer.  Going the route
of calling generally meant you had to deal with a middle man.

Now I am not saying Apollo has the same problem, but many times it may be
more convenient to seek information through email, like the people are doing
that started this discussion.  There was a mention of sending in APRs(?)
by email, which I have done.  However, as I understand it, you are only
suppose to do this AFTER discussing the problem through the support center.
Please correct me if I am wrong about this policy.

As far as assuring that the support is mainly going to paying customers,
Sun handles this by requiring certain information about your equipment to
validate that you have a service contract.  Apollo/HP could do the same
thing, with the site ID being one of those pieces of information.

One final note, Mentor goes even a step further by having a BBS.  With this
system, you can get the latest bug reports, release notes, etc.  Problems
can be uploaded and fixes or other helpfull items can be downloaded.  I
have heard of other companies providing this capablilty.  Again to keep
this restricted to service contract holders, before using the service
you have to request an ID and password.

I think this covers some of the possiblities of handling support
by electronics means.  Please consider these ideas in any discussions
you may have on improving user support.

Alan Bair
SPS CAD  Austin, Texas
Motorola, Inc.
UUCP cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!turbinia!abair