Hi Rob,
late to the party this time.
So regarding your question
@Rob schrieb:
Would you consider CS services as a major differentiator / competitive advantage?
No, definitely not. This is not a major driver in any decision – for me.
It is the icing and the cherry (or one of 'em) on top.
At the same time a good customer relation is the very foundation of a successful business.
Let me explain: In your question you mix a hell lot of different things, that only superficially belong together. I wouldn't throw them in the same basket, just because you can slap the "CS" tag on it.
I don't care for 1st level support at all. The hotline knows less than I do – they are usually gaslighting or just uninformed at best. Most of the time you will get a variation of "You hold it wrong" back from them.
They can not handle "real" cases at all. What I want and yearn for is proper access to the devs. Give me the responsible dude, mate!
Until any issue reaches them (IF it reaches them, and that's a super big if) it has already been watered down so much, that all meaning has been lost. (The issue that nobody at GS seems to use their own software is another culprit.)
There is this old joke about communism, that comes to mind:
"The workers report that an accident has obliterated a new tractor at the factory.
The undersecretary receives a telegram from the factory supervisor, saying 'Comrade, everything is running smoothly at the tractor factory; a minor technical incident was resolved immediately and production continues as normal.'
The undersecretary then relays to the central committee: 'Thanks to the exemplary work of the comrades at the tractor factory, an additional new tractor was produced today.'"
The forum is so much better in yielding results. Even if its "hey that will never work, you need this workaround for this workaround".
I am very happy however that you FINALLY have a proper web portal where at least you have some data to work on and not an flimsy email thread.
This is the way forward, I believe. What's missing is the link that an item becomes actionable.
I think I never got an update on any bug/issue I have relayed via email over the years. With the web portal it's at least easier to circle back, and I have even got some confirmations on my bugs, but still no "hey so were working on it and it will be done by xxx". That's what I want.
I just have to reference McNeel again, where they post links to their JIRA in the forum and you can see the progress live, as it happens. That's great!
On the other hand: AI is a dimwit.
Nobody likes it. Honestly. If you ever had to be on a call with a company, you know. As if being on hold with questionable music is not bad enough, so many companies now let you do an entire AI questionnaire before you can reach anybody. Suddenly you're two hours in with no way to reach somebody.
So for the really bad situations we do need to reach a human who is competent and capable. Who can resolves things. That is essential and no longer the icing on the cake – which also makes it very much no "competitive advantage" – it just should be the norm (but that might be a different topic altogether).
Of course you have better insight on how the distribution of customer support requests is.
And I can understand that sometimes some questions would have been not asked if the caller would had undergone at least some kind of rudimentary training. Still not really sure AI could handle that much better.
Thinking that AI is a dilemma is wrong however. It will not solve any of your problems.
Honestly, all of this does not even matter, if you not finally start to concentrate on the very basics and on the things that are there already.
Like, listen to your own employees and resellers!? (let alone, god forbid, the users)
They know what the users want and need. But I have heard so many examples by now that this simply does not happen.
Until you do not resolve this internally, everything else becomes a nothingburger.
I honestly have never understood the dynamic between corporate, the local identities, and the resellers. That's at least one and a half too many parties involved in my opinion.
What I mean is: Nobody talks to each other, yet everybody does pointing fingers at everyone else. This has to end, full stop.
And honestly this is opaque to the Users, too. We do not really care who is on the other end, again, as long our requests and questions are met and answered.
But man, if I ever hear again "oh..., weee are not responsible for this" I'm gonna scream.
Also the resellers are wildly different. There should have been at least a common standard. But with the new licenses they will probably drift into obscurity anyway.
Enough talk about support, I think you got the gist, Rob.
Picking "training" as topic, I can only say that while I understand you want and need to make money it really rubs me wrong that the training on the portal is paid, and not even that good.
It's really basic, which is okay, if it would be free, but if we need to pay, I'd like to have some usual problems we architects face to be taken serious and shown in it. (That would also expose all the cases that are not straight forward right now and where the software breaks...)
But accessible training will also lead to less frustration and to fewer users asking "stupid" questions blocking suppport, which will lead to less wondering if AI is the silver bullet for this.
I think, that's how you need to view it from a business perspective.
You can't have the cake and eat it.
Still looking?
