It makes you realise what a wonderful job Hanko Streifender did back about 40 years ago when Glassflugel went under. I can still remember sending a telegram from post office back early80s ordering a spring trim for a Libelle and 6 days later it was in PO box.with a bill to pay.
Barbara S would never go home from work without sending out every single order. Must have spoken to her 50 times on phone over the years but it is not quite the same now that she las left us (died from dreaded breast cancer maybe 5 years ago) More recently I have had wonderful service from Katja who with her husband have taken over Scheibe service. Germans at their best!!!. Ian McPhee 2010/1/27 DMcD <[email protected]> > HA > > It's an interesting little topic this and one which appears to have > raised some irrational feelings. > > I don't have any firm answer to this problem, but I do know for sure > from personal experience that manufacturing companies cannot afford to > support "legacy" equipment for ever. At some point in time, the number > of machines out in the market will result in enough support calls to > swamp the service and tech support department. > > At that stage, several options are available: > > 1. Put on more support people. These are obviously an increasing > financial drain on the company. The other problem with this is that > frequently, in any company larger than one or two people, those who > know the facts about the legacy products are now old, senior, retired > etc. and those charged with the responsibility of doing the support > can't get the facts without talking to these (more expensive) people. > Unless support is charged for, this course of action will kill the > company dead. You find many successful software companies are killed > by their own success unless they change their charging model. > > 2. Stop support for legacy products or sell the rights to service the > legacy products to a third party. > > In many machinery related companies, this happens quite early… > possibly as short as 4 years. For example, spares on the Rotax 505 are > no longer handled by Rotax, but by some company in France with the > result that most people don't use the certified part for spares. Many > car companies seem to have a 12 year parts policy. I think Landrover > had 25 years until bought by Ford. This won't work too well for > gliders since the service life is at least 25 and possibly more than > 50 years and will result in the customers getting very annoyed. > > 3. Charge for support. > > a: Make sure you have got the credit card details of the customer and > then use some call centre in some hot country where the people who > answer the support calls have no idea about what they are talking > about and just frustrate and annoy the customers. Increasingly this > seems to be the business model of most companies… Telstra, Adobe, > Microsoft etc. > > b: Use qualified people inside the factory who know what they are > talking about and charge a reasonable rate for their work on a per > minute or per part of an hour basis. Charge for every item of support > and add a figure to every spare part and support item to cover the > costs. > > c: Charge an annual support fee, normally called a maintenance > contract which covers all the support items and give service and spare > part prices at a discount as an incentive. > > d: Add a support cost into the price of each glider to cover service > for ever. There is a fairly well known attrition rate of gliders and > eventually there will be only a few left and the support costs can > theoretically be calculated. This is almost impossible to work since > it would increase the cost of the gliders to an unacceptable level. > > All the above is complicated immensely by things like EASA who appear > to be increasing the costs of certification etc. by a huge amount… > something which could not have been foreseen. It is also complicated > by the fact that although DG bought the rights to the LS products, > they are being asked to support ancient gliders such as the LS1 and > LS4 which they had nothing to do with and probably know little about. > Have a look at the DG tech support fora to see the nature of these > questions. > > My opinion, for what it's worth, is that a maintenance agreement sort > of thing is the only acceptable solution. It provides something for > both the customer and the manufacturer. The difficulty is setting a > price for this which gives value to both sides. Again, I think DG have > come up with a fairly reasonable rate. > > An example of this is the spindle motor for the DG 400. The old > electric motor became unavailable and DG had to source a revised motor > and gearbox… AND get it certified which is quite a cost to the > company. The new motor will cost you heaps. But it is legal and it is > available. The alternative is to do nothing and force DG400 owners > into using either illegal solutions, individually certified mechanisms > or to not use their engines. > > We have several expensive German CNC machines with Siemens software. > There is no maintenance contract offered, probably because the Siemens > software is so awful that you could not possibly offer to support it > in any contractually binding way! However, I would gladly pay a > maintenance contract on these machines for the peace of mind of > knowing that they will continue to work and earn their keep, > especially while the lease contract is current. (When I rang several > owners of these machines to get references, the best referral I got > was "Things could not get any worse". The most common comment was > "class action".) > > Another good area of similarity is software. You know that most > software from folk like Adobe will stop working sooner or later > because of some change in system software… so you keep upgrading. Same > story with CAD software. Upgrades are a fact of business nowadays and > something which is costed in each year. What's the difference between > paying for support on your glider and paying upgrades on software? > > As I said, there is no clear and easy answer, but free tech support > for life is not a commercially viable option and anyone who thinks so > is trying to sell you something (or is that the Princess Bride?) > > D > > _______________________________________________ > Aus-soaring mailing list > [email protected] > To check or change subscription details, visit: > http://lists.internode.on.net/mailman/listinfo/aus-soaring >
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