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

[Kris Dahl <kris@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

For the love of God man, can you PLEASE follow standard mailing list and
news server guidelines and post in PLAIN ASCII TEXT?

I don't know how many times this has been hashed over on this mailing list,
but apparently its being ignored.

Possible solutions:
-Have a short 'guidelines for posting' when subscribed to the mailing list
be sent to your email.
-A mailing list FAQ that explains this sort of thing
-A short blurb on the Cobalt webpage explains what a mailing list is and the
common conventions.
-I am thinking about setting up a bot/script that checks to see if you are
not using plain text, automatically emails the owner of the message and then
promptly deletes the message off of my machine.

I don't want to seem like a jerk, but seriously, this is like at least the
fifth time we've gone over this in the past 6th months.

-k


on 2/5/00 12:36 PM, Doug Forman at doug@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> 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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