Comments on: Technical Assistance – Must Have or Differentiator

By: Alina Popescu

Alina Popescu — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 08:51:51 +0000

Hi bro, thanks for the comment. You make a very good point on how the support level should be pretty much the same for all products. Yes, some response time differences are acceptable, given that one product might have more users than another, but that’s when the differences should stop. The quality should be a constant concern for all services.

Yes, local partners are greatly important when it’s a hardware product. Vaio for example takes its laptops to the Netherlands. But they come and take the laptop from your house and handle everything. When it is down to just software, they are less important if you have staff speaking the language of your partner.

I like you ranting here, don’t worry!

By: Alina Popescu

Alina Popescu — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:51:28 +0000

Bogdan, this was in no way limited to Romania. And also, i think it depends on the company. I’ve worked for two providing free or affordable support services. I know of others where it costs so much it makes your mind explode

By: b0gdan

b0gdan — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:24:07 +0000

Alina, what you wrote is very nice. Theoretically.
But i believe that most companies in this country still have a long way until reaching these points.
I am under the impression (sustained by my experience) that maintenainence costs are much bigger in this country than the product it self.
And most companies get the big turnovers from post-sales services, rather than the sales.

By: Theo

Theo — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 04:23:59 +0000

Don’t get me started on the support, sis. I’ve had it. Mostly with the one coming from the East (A-Data, Asus, Kworld), but also with the ones from the West (such as Advantek Networks). One thing you forgot to mention is that you should provide the same quality level for support services on *all* your products. I mean, sure I got straight to the point and very informative replies from Asus regarding my wifi router, and in less than 24h, but that didn’t amount to much when I had some issues with my tuner card, which I eventually had to just change as trying to find out a solution proved impossible, especially as talking with the support guys at Asus was like talking to a cactus this time. But at least they were pure and plain uninformed (sound familiar, sis? ), unlike the technical support crew from KWorld which I still wonder if it has at least one person who has basic English skills (or browsing skills to use a free online translation service ). Conversations with those guys were usually something like this: Me: “Manual says this does that, but it doesn’t” Them: “Please read manual to see how to do that” Me: “I just told you I read it and it’s not working. I’m using the latest drivers/tools available from your site” Them: “Please download latest drivers/tools from our homepage” [...] Me (after many such emails): “So if this should do that but it doesn’t and it’s not the software and not the drivers and not incompatibilities with other hardware and not an unsupported feature with my OS, then it’s the hardware and I should take it in for warranty?” Them: “Please use latest drivers, you can find them attached”. I download attachment, driver version is much newer than that on the homepage and, believe it or not, they have the bug fixed. Me: “Everything’s ok now. Thank you very much for your help and taking you only six weeks to give me a solution”.

And also I don’t think you stressed the importance of local partners enough when providing customer support. The guys from A-Data wanted me to ship the hardware for warranty all the way to Taiwan because they have no local representative in Romania, and that takes 16-20 working days to be delivered apparently, so approximately two months are wasted on shipment alone. By what standards is that acceptable?

I should stop rating on your blog, shouldn’t I?

By: Alina Popescu

Alina Popescu — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 03:02:27 +0000

Mig, I know! They all offer it, the quality varies. None of them will say we give no support! And there’s nothing worse than chatting with a bot that has never received your question

By: Mihaela Lica

Mihaela Lica — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:35:07 +0000

There’s something about that “all companies” that really bothers me. Probably because I know from personal experience that it is not entirely true? He he… buy an Xbox!