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From: bkuo@girtab.usc.edu (Benjamin Kuo)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: The future of the past mac
Keywords: obsolescence
Message-ID: <13119@chaph.usc.edu>
Date: 12 Nov 90 19:15:37 GMT
References: <11390.273bec86@ecs.umass.edu> <273C9EE2.28338@orion.oac.uci.edu> <1990Nov11.114837.26676@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
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Just a note on your comment:
>Let's put it this way: "Call your dealer." By having an inadequately prepared
force of people (dealers) take the full burden of support, customers feel that
there is no one to properly answer their questions.

Having run a small Apple-registered users group for two and a half years, I
know where Apple is now referring users... They are foregoing the usual "call
your dealer" route and saying "call your local users group"--I was fielding
four to five Mac questions or more a day from fed up users (who somehow got
the Apple corporate phone number...) And I wasn't even paid by Apple. I even
received several newsletters/etc (QuickConnect, other in-house) Apple
publications for developers, users groups, and the like, and they stated that
their new policy was to use USERS GROUPS as their customer support.

Why doesn't Apple just set up a customer support group, a support line, and
man it with 50 knowledgeable Mac experts? Relying on a very nebulous source
of aid to users (user groups, nonprofit, already suffering from lack of
volunteers) is no way to go about customer support.

Benjamin Kuo
(former) President, Macintosh Salt Lake Users Group