RE: [cobalt-users] Re:Cobalt Technical Support

["Doug Forman" <doug@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hyrb,

 

I thought your comments were interesting and insightful, and I almost completely agree.

 

Having now participated in this industry for over two decades, I have observed that one of the giant differences between then and now is the speed of information dissemination. 

 

Enter the Internet and entities like slashdot.org, cnet.com, zdnet.com and others.

 

In today's world, if any particular vendor makes a "killer" product that is enthusastically reviewed on electronic forums like these, the positive "news" can spread exponentially and sudden demand for the product can outstrip supply almost instantly (causing the vendor to experience the wonderful nightmare of far more orders than they can fill).  Then, if the vendor does not handle this situation *very* carefully, the widely-held enthusiasm for the "killer" product can *transmorgify* into a widely-held perception that the vendor can't be counted upon to deliver it's products.

 

Now, consider the plight of a vendor with an increasingly unhappy customer base.  It begins, one-on-one, with support staff.  Then it spreads to customer forums like this one.  Maybe then to user groups. 

 

Then next thing you know, millions are reading (and further commenting) about it on slashdot.  The entire progression from "one-on-one" to slashdot can take months.  Or minutes. 

 

This scenario would probably be a little different if the vendor made wheelbarrows or water pumps.  But this vendor makes "internet appliances" which, by design, serve to propogate information!

 

CUSTOMERS are at the TOP of the corporate food chain...  *then* comes investors, stockholders, management and staff.  If customers are not happy, everyone else is affected.  ("If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy...")  In a sense, everyone associated with a vendor ultimately reports to the vendor's CUSTOMERS.  It's amazing to see that this concept appears completely lost on some vendors.  Worse, we live in a world where the level of service provided to customers is now widely considered to be more critical than the actual products a vendor offers.  Differentiation is achieved more upon level of service than uniqueness of product.  Someone once did the math and discovered that existing customers were FAR less expensive to retain (by servicing and supporting them properly) than to replace.

 

It also seems obvious to me that before a vendor can have happy customers, it needs happy staffers to support those customers.  Management is responsible for making staff happy, and staff are responsible for keeping customers happy.  My personal experiences with Cobalt Tech Support clearly indicate to me that those staffers are probably *not* happy people.  Duncan's description of "life at Cobalt" certainly reinforces that... 

 

I'm going to go one step further and make a wild guess to illustrate a point:  a week or so ago, someone named "Raymond" from Cobalt responded to a Cobalt Support message thread on this list.  Although I never saw him identified as such, I would bet that Raymond is associated in some meaningful way with Cobalt Support.  This guess is based upon the tone of his posting:  terse and defensive.  Coincidentally, each contact I have personally had with Cobalt support has also been terse and defensive.  And usually inaccurate. (Raymond, if you're listening, and I'm wrong about your association with Cobalt Support, I apologize in advance.)

 

Why am I bothering to say all this?  Simple; I don't want to see the products that I've purchased and recommended from Cobalt to become orphaned in an untimely way...  and because I believe that Cobalt products are innovative and hold huge untapped potential to do good things for many people.  I think most of Cobalt's support and customer struggles could be solved within days with bold leadership decisions by Cobalt management.  Will it happen in time?  I hope so, but I'm not buying more Cobalt stock yet.

 

Just my views.

 

Doug

---
Doug Forman, MCSE, MCSD (doug@xxxxxxxxxxx)
Incline Systems, Inc. - Vancouver, WA 

 -----Original Message-----
From: cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Hyrb
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2000 7:35 AM
To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; sdewitt@xxxxxxxxxx; pconte@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [cobalt-users] Re:Cobalt Technical Support

I would be surprised to learn that anyone from our support department
reads this
list-  Cobalt is a corporation, and like any other corporation it is
expected  to make money.  The investors demand it, the shareholders demand it,  and  therefore the executive staff and management demands it from us.

instead we must wait while an OS update is prepared and bugs are fixed, and then wait again while it passes SQA--which hasn't been very effective lately.

As a new Cobalt owner, I continue to be amazed!  The response from Duncan i.e. is typical of a company that has lost site of it's primary focus.  I train corporate execs, one of the examples of poor management practices leading to loss of market share I use is that of Epson (remember Epson?), which during the 80's was THE printer company.  Until it frankly ignored it's customer base.  Their tech support was abysmal, (like Cobalt's), with unsupported users groups trying to do the job of company tech support with only the help of a very few helpful employees (like Jeff) on their spare time. When it came time to replace the printer, the former loyal customers bought ANYTHING else.  How did Epson turn around?  One of the first steps was to ASSIGN a tech support person to be part of every users group, they still do this today.  And sales are still improving.

When I went to buy my raq3 as a web server, the sales company tried to sell me something else!  Their words were "It's a good appliance, but WE don't support it, and we've had so many complaints about support and people trying to return them to us we've about stopped selling them."  But, it got good reviews (and the price was right) so I bought it.  Thank God this company did go out of their way to answer questions and help with the initial set up.  Cobalt sure as hell did not.

I need another server.  It won't be a cobalt, and that's kind of sad.  They have good engineers and a good concept, but until the management wakes-up and realizes a company like this doesn't fail do the tech problems, but because of  PEOPLE problems, I believe they will see a distinct lack of repeat customers.  This, combined with retailers offering other solutions to avoid listening to their customers gripes, makes it look bad for the future.

Wake up Cobalt, there is still time.

Ray Nelson
 
 
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