John About the last thing someone who reports frustration with a program wants to read is being taken to the woodshed for reporting that difficulty. Keep in mind that, more often than not, someone writing here is exceedingly frustrated at that given time and place. It's hard enough for them to compose the msg, hopefully including enough relevant info to uncover what may or may not be happening. When well-intentioned apologists ridicule such postings, all you are accomplishing is hurting not helping GwMicro. I doubt that Dan, Doug, Aaron, or Mike take user complaints as personal. They well understand that, at a given time and place, that user is frustrated, up a wall and perhaps loosing valuable time in attempting to accomplish something that they just cannot do. Telling someone that they verbalized things wrong, their issue is not an issue only hurts the company you are trying to help. I only wonder how many folks don't report issues -- I know I have -- due to the unfriendliness of some here or the fear that they will not be treated with sympathy rather than with derision. The feel of this list is that of an unfriendly place, a place where a lot of folks haven't checked their egos at the door, where one upmanship is key, where reporting problems must be done with an eggshell mentality, et al. And that attitude isn't coming from the staff; it is coming from fellow users who presumably are hear to share and assist each other and report difficulties. This isn't an advertising list; it is a support list. Support, by its very nature, is complaint driven or difficulty driven. Few folks would post a msg today saying "Another perfect day using WE. No crashes, no difficulties -- just thought I would let everyone know." They tend to post when something goes awry -- as they should -- as that is one of the means the software developers have of uncovdering things that may have worked flawlessly in the lab but not quite in the real world where there are a endless number of configurations, compatabilities, hardware, other software and the myriads of other things that make each pc running WE somewhat unique. The more unique situations that are uncovered, and dealt with, the greater the possibility of remedying things. And remember, one user's difficulty may well represent many many more that have not been reported or yet experienced. And if those gaps can be filled before others experience them, the better customers view GwMicro. So protecting GwMicro is hardly a positive thing on a support list; they need to hear the problems, whether legitimate fixes are required or users need direction, so that others down the road can either be instructed or unknown holes in the software can be plugged.
Grandstanding is for marketers and advertising people and the province of the pr department. Addressing customer issues is the realm of support. Anyone who has ever dealt with support realizes the need to comfort and reassure and solve and not deride or chastize. That's the way to send those customers to the competition. The Great Commission is not an option to be considered; it is a command to be obeyed. Hudson Taylor If you reply to this message it will be delivered to the original sender only. If your reply would benefit others on the list and your message is related to GW Micro, then please consider sending your message to [email protected] so the entire list will receive it. All GW-Info messages are archived at http://www.gwmicro.com/gwinfo, and can be searched through and sorted using the search form at the bottom of the page. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and include leave gw-info in the body of the message.
