Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!decwrl!shelby!ucscc.ucsc.edu!gorn!filbo
From: filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Dealer location hotline (Was: Amiga Ads)
Message-ID: <75.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us>
Date: 3 Nov 89 15:22:47 GMT
References: <4460@abaa.UUCP>
Organization: R Pentomino
Lines: 48
X-Claimer: I >am< R Pentomino!

In article <1891@jolnet.ORPK.IL.US> Joel Swan writes: [Hotline: 800-627-9595]

In article <73.filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us> I write:
>Reading the above, I picked up the phone and called the 800 number.  [...]
>She then named the 4 nearest dealers.  [...]  All in all, I would rate it
>an above-average "800" product information line.

In article <4460@abaa.UUCP> Lawrence Esker writes:
>Now that is what I call a 24 hour hotline.  Bela actually received an answer
>at 6:30 AM on Saturday.  [...]  Bela, please tell us more about the product
>information you receive.

Well, I haven't gotten anything in the mail yet, but I did receive a phone
call yesterday from the closest dealer.  It went something along the lines
of:
  "Hi, this is Rudy from The Computer Room in Scotts Valley.  You called
   Commodore about the Amiga computer.  Would you like to come in for a
   demo?"
  "Hi, Rudy... I've been in there before, you should remember me.  I already
   have an Amiga; I really only called the hotline to check up on how well
   Commodore was doing it.  They seem to be doing it very well."
  "Oh"

If they're really generating a demo/sales call from every hotline call, this
whole thing could REALLY work well.

On a related note, I was in Fry's Electronics in Sunnyvale earlier this
week.  There were 3 Amigas on display (A500, A2000, A2500).  All three were
running WorkBench and nothing else.  The nearby Macs and PC clones were
running slide shows and other demos.  On each machine, I opened the hard disk
and looked for a demo; each had only one easily located demo, so I left those
running: the Space Ace demo on the 500, DigiPaint III with "Fashion" loaded
on the 2000, "Walker" (? -- the animation of the Empire Strikes Back walking
tanks) on the 2500.  After adjusting the sounds to a level that I thought
would be noticable in front of the machines, but wouldn't annoy the hell out
of the salespeople, I stood back and watched for a while.  The effect was
striking: where people had just been walking by, earlier, now they were
stopping to watch for a while.  One couple with a 6- or 7-year-old boy
started discussing it and sounded like they were going to buy an A500.

So: any time you see an Amiga sitting in the store running WorkBench, or,
worse, looking for something to boot, do something about it.  Even if there's
only one demo around, get it running.  No machine is particularly impressive
sitting at a DOS prompt -- or a WorkBench screen.

Bela Lubkin    * *    //  filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us  CompuServe: 73047,1112
     @       * *     //   ....ucbvax!ucscc!gorn!filbo  ^^^-VERY slow [months]
R Pentomino    *   \X/    Filbo @ Pyrzqxgl +408-476-4633 & XBBS +408-476-4945