Tyler Turner wrote:
--- dhbailey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Compare this to MakeMusic, which has several
employees who monitor this
list on their own time (we do appreciate that), but
since there is no
official monitoring of this list we have to follow
"official procedures"
to submit feature requests or bugs. And on the
Sibelius list, if Daniel
doesn't know the answer to the problem, he will give
specific e-mail
addresses of Sibelius employees who can provide
those answers.
If you want to talk on a forum where MakeMusic
officially participates, you should go to the forum
they set up. If people specifically create a
communications group AWAY from the Finale people, why
should they feel they are invited to officially
monitor those conversations? The Finale forum is much
more active with actual Finale topics. A lot of the
discussions here would be a waste of company time
since many don't relate to Finale at all. Daniel
doesn't usually hand out specific company employee
e-mails - I wouldn't say any more often than Carla
does on their own forum. It's generally bad policy for
a number of reasons, the most important being that
when e-mails are sent to customer support they are
picked up by the people who get to them first. If that
employee can't answer it, he/she goes and gets help
from someone at MakeMusic who can.
Sibelius also maintains an in-house forum populated by their
tech-support personnel, same as MakeMusic does.
They go the extra-mile and also officially participate in the
out-of-house group. MakeMusic does not.
Submitting a request to support SHOULD be the way it's
done. The forum can get messy, and if people believe
that by mentioning something there they can be sure
their request will be seen, even when buried in long
threads, then there's a good chance their request will
go unnoticed. It's responsible behavior for MakeMusic
to ask users to make official requests rather than
give them the impression the forum works for that.
Daniel's method on the Sibelius forum seems very
personable, but the guy does go on vacations from time
to time, and I'm willing to bet a few requests have
been missed.
I'm not saying that submitting a request shouldn't be a part of a
company's feeling the pulse of their user-base. It is an important part
of the procedure.
I'm willing to agree that some requests have been missed also.
And may I be so bold as to say that if a person can't
be bothered to write an e-mail for something they want
the company to spend time developing, they perhaps
shouldn't be given as much priority as those who are
kind enough to do this? It's certainly easier on the
employees if they can go through and log multiple
feature requests at one time.
The old "prove that you're worthy of our notice by being the one to go
out of your way to contact us" approach to customer support? Many
companies use this approach. Many customers stay away from such
companies. It's a toss-up -- the company never knows what it has missed
from people who haven't gone out of their way. The customer who doesn't
follow that official path for feature requests or bug fixes never knows
what might have been accomplished.
I would, however, think that a company would go out of its way to use
any and all means at its disposal to track down bug reports, rather than
the "we'll think about it only if you report it through official
channels" approach to bug-reporting.
And if they aren't really bugs, but rather customer mis-information
about how some feature works, I would think that a company would go out
of its way to squash such misinformation and correct perceived errors
wherever they occur (much of Finale's undeserved reputation for being
hard to learn and hard to work with is based on this widespread
rumor-mongering, which if it maintained a presence outside its own
in-house channels, it could work to squash and build its reputation for
ease-of-use, something which it has certainly improved upon.)
Obviously my corporate publicity model isn't MakeMusic's -- they're
still here after all these year, so they obviously feel they're doing
something right and my opinion is only worth what they're paying me for it.
Engraving competition to show the comparative
strengths of engraving
programs?
Sibelius -- eager participation
MakeMusic -- yawn! why bother?
Would you mind telling me where it is that you have
seen any mention of the fact that MakeMusic was even
TOLD this was going on????? You're insulting people
who I KNOW care a ton more about Finale than you do -
and as far as I can tell you're doing it without
having solid facts.
I don't know that Sibelius was even TOLD of this event, either! Somehow
an official representative found out about it (probably because he was
maintaining an official presence outside in-house channels).
Sibelius -- instant, courteous response with helpful
information, even
on a non-company-sponsored e-mail list
MakeMusic -- another round of tech-support ping-pong
Geico's satisfaction rate stands at 97%. MakeMusic's
customer support is similar. You can talk about your
personal experiences, but most people have been
extremely happy.
Compare this to MakeMusic, even with the unofficial
participation on
this list, we have to go through the interface of
their tech-support
personnel, whose first response is
frequently/usually "I can't recreate
the problem"
This is wrong. When I worked in customer support, I
computed the number of customer e-mails finished in
one response vs. those that took multiple e-mails to
resolve. I personally was resolving over 90% of the
issues to the satisfaction of the customer in the
first response. None of the staff was much under 80%.
That's pretty solid when you consider that there are
many times that you HAVE to be able to see the file to
know what's going on, and other times that the
customer leaves out extremely critical information
(like the fact that they are using NotePad).
I bow to your empirical data on resolution rates. It just seems that we
hear about a lot of the "I can't recreate the problem" responses. I
know I've had a few of those, even when I had outlined the steps.
I have had to repeat the outline of the steps and include the file (the
file was a simple one in which I had recreated the steps for the support
personnel, nothing more, no huge orchestral file within which I couldn't
get something to work) before I got an "oh, yeah, now I see what you
mean" reply, followed by a "sorry, that's obviously something that's not
working properly, but there's no fix for that" reply.
Geico's satisfaction rate, as MakeMusic's satisfaction rate, are based
on the responses to a questionnaire, I would assume, although I've never
received one. How else does a company measure customer satisfaction? I
do know that when companies I am angry at or dissatisfied with and
choose no longer to do business with, send me a questionnaire, I usually
don't fill it out, since I would already have formed the opinion that
they won't respond to anything I say anyway. Most of the people I know
are similarly inclined. So most customer satisfaction data is collected
from a sample base which is already skewed towards those who are satisfied.
I have ordered every upgrade since I began using Finale 3.5, something
like 13 years ago. I am very satisfied with the product.
Does that mean I'm satisfied with every aspect of the corporation which
produces the product? no. Does that mean I don't see room for
improvement? no. Does that mean that I agree with the procedures
required for bug-reports and feature requests? no. Does that mean that
I mastered the program with help from the corporation? no.
I have gotten far better, quicker response to the problems I encountered
in learning the program from this list. I followed every post
responding to every problem, even though I hadn't begun working with
that aspect of the program, and so learned much about the program so
when I needed it, I already had the answer.
This all without the support of Finale -- I did send some requests for
help to them, and got some helpful answers as well as some unhelpful
answers, but by far and away, my requests for help on this list were
answered quickly and accurately, and when I needed further explanation
it was instantly forthcoming.
By the way, I don't use Geico auto insurance, but I am certainly aware
of them because they're in my face all the time with amusing
commercials. How many musicians can say the same about Finale? Where
are Finale products at the www.jwpepper.com site? Not on the home page,
where the visitor first looks around -- on that page is a link to
download Sibelius' Scorch plug-in. Not either of the first two products
on the Music Technology page, either. Finale is the third product down.
The first product, Sibelius Student Edition has a yellow,
capture-the-audience's attention banner proclaiming: The Notation
Solution for Students! Second product is Sibelius, which has a yellow,
capture-the-audience's attention banner proclaiming: Intuitive and
Powerful! Third product is Finale2005, which has a yellow,
capture-the-audience's attention banner proclaiming: Finale2005 in stock
now. What did Sibelius do to get those sorts of listings that MakeMusic
did not do? Were I an interested newcomer to computer notation basing
my trust in the Pepper web-site since I have always had good service and
good recommendations from them concerning the music I buy for my band, I
would buy Sibelius, either edition, before I bought Finale. Read the
descriptions -- why is Sibelius made to seem much better? Is it really
the world's best-selling notation software?
MakeMusic isn't doing itself any good, remaining cloistered within its
in-house forum, sticking it's head in the "report it to us or we won't
pay it any attention" sand.
If Sibelius' claim is true, MakeMusic have already lost the battle and
the war. If the claim isn't true, MakeMusic should be fighting back in
public!
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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