Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tikal!hplsla!tomb
From: tomb@hplsla.HP.COM (              Tom Bruhns)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore loses a customer!
Message-ID: <5160008@hplsla.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Jan 88 18:11:41 GMT
References: <517@ra.rice.edu>
Organization: HP Lake Stevens, WA
Lines: 47

> / papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) /  8:43 pm  Jan 15, 1988 /
> in the mentioned case.  Parts were broken by the user.  Installing a board
                          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     I think I read all the original note and responses; it certainly
     was not clear to me that parts were broken by the user, and not
     just DISCOVERED to be broken by the user (or, as someone else
     suggested, perhaps not broken at all??)

> on an IBM is at the user's risk.  This is lifted from the IBM PC AT Guide to
> Operations (probably Copyright by IBM):
>  
> ... "This limited warranty does not include service to repair damage 
> resulting from accident, disaster, misuse, abuse, or non-IBM modification of 
> the product..."                    ^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^
     Again, the words of the poster did not make me think "misuse"
     or "modification," but his words did make me think "less than
     optimal customer support at perhaps several levels."  That is,
     if the original account was accurate, the customer could have
     been told in a much better way what the real problem was.  It
     SOUNDED TO ME like he met up with quite a bunch of folk whose
     answers were in the vein of "It's your problem until you
     convince me otherwise," instead of "What can I do to help
     straighten this out and determine where the problem really
     started?"  If I have a choice between those two approaches,
     even if the answer comes out the same in the end, which do
     you think I will choose??  (Just this sort of interaction
     really turned me off to Scribble! recently and turned me on to
     Wordperfect.  When I complained of defects, MicroSystems Software's
     response was, "Get off our case -- those are enhancement requests."
     [a request for a fix for lost data is an enhancement request??]
     WordPerfect's response to a query about a workaround for a small
     printing defect was to tell me they were aware of it, working
     on it, and would send an update -- three weeks later, a whole
     new set of discs arrived.)

     To those of you who deal directly with customers:  NEVER
     underestimate the effect that your APPROACH and the WORDS YOU
     USE have on your customers!!

     Please note that I am not taking sides in the issue of, "Did
     he break his computer or not?"  To me, that wasn't the point
     of this discussion at all!
> 
> -- Marco
> ----------
     Tom Bruhns
     uucp:  !hplabs!hplsla!tomb