In a message dated 6/5/99 5:41:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: > I would like some inputs and advice from the Tech-Net community at large. > > Consider the following: > > I recently purchased a piece of electronic manufacturing process equipment. > The cost of the item was between $10 - $30 K. I would like to inform the > community about the very poor service and technical support from the > manufacturer and sales rep. The intent of disclosing this kind of > information is to inform others who may be considering a similar purchase to > be aware of these shortcomings when purchasing this item. > > This is not a "single event" occurrance, this is month after month of not > responding to e-mails, faxes, and phone calls. I am frustrated beyond > tolerable limits. > > What then are the risks disclosing this kind of information on this forum? > Is it important for us to share bad experiences with the hope that perhaps > corrective action from the offending party may take place if disclosure > results in "lost sales"? Maybe this is not the right place for this? > > Your thoughts and comments are welcomed. > > Bill Kasprzak > Moog Inc. > Hi Bill! Boy I hear ya'! I think all of us at one time or another have been totally frustrated with the support from equipment vendors after they've sold us their wares. Before the sale is made, the story always is that you'll be supported 24-hours a day, 7-days a week should you ever have any problems, which you won't because their equipment never breaks and it does whatever it's supposed to do better than any other equipment out there. While all are more seasoned than to buy that line, there are those vendors out there that truly do try as hard as they can to make sure that their customers are supported well and that they are happy with their purchase. On the other hand, there are times that a company that has been known for it's outstanding customer support can get into a bind for whatever reason. They've had a mass exodus of Field Service Engineers so they're short handed, or for some reason when the machine was originally built there was some errors made. But if they're up front about those kinds of things to their customers, and let them know that they're honestly trying to correct the poor support situation, I think most of us are reasonable enough to understand, and will cut them a little slack while they're trying to correct the problems. But there's absolutely no excuse to ignore their customers, or try and "suger-coat" a bad situation by not being up front about their problems. You lose a great deal of credibility by doing something like that, and once you lose credibility, it takes a long,long time to regain it. Actually, I don't think it's a bad idea to expose a company that is marketing something that doesn't work as they say it does, or doesn't support their customers like they promise before the sale. Just as long as it's based in fact, and all other avenues have been exhausted to try and get some satisfaction. Maybe even the threat that you may let all of your colleages know about the poor support that you've been receiving will be enough to light a fire under their butts and get them to start taking care of you the way they should. I don't know how Jack feels about doing something like this on the TechNet, but I feel that if something is being marketed to those of us in this industry that is really no good and a waste of good money, I would appreciate knowing about it before I fell for the same trap. Maybe just a post like: "If any of you are considering buying a "XYZ Machine", send me a email and I'll share with you privately the experiences I've had with it and the support I've recieved." That way you won't be out and out flaming them publically, but you'll still be able to get the point across to other people that maybe thinking about buying the same thing. Companies can spend a lot of money on "glitzy" marketing and advertising, but the most effective advertising out there is word of mouth...and sometimes they forget that. With the advent of the INTERNET, word of mouth goes a lot farther and reaches a lot more people than it has in the past... -Steve Gregory- ################################################################ TechNet E-Mail Forum provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8c ################################################################ To subscribe/unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the body: To subscribe: SUBSCRIBE TechNet <your full name> To unsubscribe: SIGNOFF TechNet ################################################################ Please visit IPC's web site (http://www.ipc.org) "On-Line Services" section for additional information. For technical support contact Hugo Scaramuzza at [log in to unmask] or 847-509-9700 ext.312 ################################################################