[ale] Re: This bites (was Re: [ale] More on Mozilla/Java)

[Thompson Freeman]

On 25 Mar 2002, James P. Kinney III wrote:

> On Mon, 2002-03-25 at 05:40, Joseph A Knapka wrote:
> 
> > And what's a "happy customer"? One who's so utterly overjoyed
> > to use the product that they actually take the time to
> > mention it to someone else. It takes a *lot* of joy to make
> > a customer that happy, whereas the amount of frustration it
> > takes to produce a "pissed-off customer" is fairly small.
> > 
> > On the other hand, having millions of pissed-off customers
> > doesn't seem to be a problem for MicroShaft.
> > 
> 
> My definition of a happy customer is one who is not pissed off. OK, so
> that may be a bit circular. A happy customer feels that they have been
> involved in a transaction where they got what they wanted at a price
> that is acceptable. That is _still_ nebulous, I know. But quantifying
> happiness is not my area :)
> 
> I don't know how M$ manages to keep pissing off so many people and stay
> in business. It must be the clout they have with their market position. 

Possibly they do it by seldom selling directly to the end customer. If
memory serves, even back in the days of MSDOS Microsoft sold most of their
OS product to OEM's, who were also then obligated to the customer for
support. Even with Windows, I was under the impression that has largely
remained the same. Therefor, the aggrivated end user is not a Microsoft
customer, and MS has only indirect responsibility to them. 

YMMV of course, and I'm _sure_ some important stuff is left out.

> 
> Prior to win95, I ran into some DOS problems. I was actually able to get
> an engineer on the phone at Microsoft. I explained the problem (I don't
> remember what it was, but it was a show stopper for what I was working
> on), he couldn't answer it right away as it would involve some research
> on his end. He called me back later in the week to update me on the
> status. That was good customer service. The direct problem was not
> resolved, but he did find a work-around that was sufficient which he
> both phoned me about and faxed the details to me as well. 
> 
> Later, I had a problem with locking down the user preferences on NT4 for
> kiosk use in a classroom setting. I called M$, sat on hold for 4 hours,
> was referred to an outside party for that type of support at $175/hour,.
> OK, not my money. I submitted the service request on the M$ paid tech
> support page and submitted the required P.O. forms as well. No one got
> back with me. Ever. I had to call them (remember, I'm paying them
> $175/hour) to find out the progress. The end result, they didn't find a
> solution and I didn't pay them.
> 

However, did you get the kiosk running? And under what software?

> 

-- 
===========================================
The harder I work, the luckier I get.
                    Lee Iacocca
===========================================
Thompson Freeman          tfreeman at intel.digichem.net


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