Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!adnan
From: adnan@NCoast.ORG (Adnan Yaqub)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Customer Support (was Re: copy protection)
Summary: You get what you pay for.
Message-ID: <1991Feb3.193317.18716@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 3 Feb 91 19:33:17 GMT
References: <9101272223.AA08327@desktalk.com> <6207@rsiatl.Dixie.Com>
Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast)
Lines: 33

In article <6207@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) writes:
>Customer Service will make or break your product.  You'd damn well better

I agree.

>plan for it as an integral feature of your product, fully as important
>as the software not crashing.  Here's an example of how to and how not to
>do customer support.  I have used 2 brands of intelligent async cards in
>Unix systems for my customers.  One brand is Comtrol and the other is 
>Stargate.  I no longer use Stargate because of customer support.
>
>When I opened the first Comtrol box, the first thing I saw was a plastic gold 
>card just like a credit card.  On this card was printed the 800 toll free 

This sounds like you bought the box from Comtrol.

	[stuff about Comtrol's good support deleted.]

>My Stargate experience was a bit different.  I inherited my first card 
>in some surplus stock I bought.  The card uses address decode PALs that

This sounds like you got Stargate's board at a garage sale.  While I believe
that customer support is important and a company should strive to support
all its products, I don't expect the same support from a company whose
product I inherited with one whose product I bought and is still under
warranty.  Do you?

	[stuff about Stargate's bad customer support deleted]

I suggest that this thread be moved to another newsgroup.  (Which one, I
don't know.)

Adnan Yaqub (adnan@ncoast)