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1993-11-19
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Citation: InfoWorld, June 7, 1993 v15 n23 p51(1)
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Title: Zooming in on a tale of positive, helpful technical support.
(From the Editor) (Editorial)
Authors: Foster, Ed
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Subjects: Support Services; Modems; User Needs; User Behavior
Companies: Zoom Telephonics Inc._Services
Reference #: A13933593
==============================================================================
Full Text COPYRIGHT InfoWorld Publishing Company 1993
Yes, it's true. Not all stories about technical support are bad ones.
In fact, just to get in practice for all the positive stories about good
technical support I'll be able to tell once we get the InfoWorld Corporate
Support Alliance rolling, I thought I'd tell one this week. (I'm still
accepting volunteers, by the way, along with your vote for the one vendor who
gives you the best support, at ally@infoworld.com. See my May 24 column, page
63, for details.) As master of the gripe line, of course I'm a bit rusty when
it comes to good news, so bear with me here.
Don Deming, a self-employed Orlando, Fla., stockbroker, had a problem. He had
purchased a fax/modem from Zoom Telephonics and installed the accompanying
communications software. Yet he found he still could not read the incoming
faxes, so he called Zoom's technical support for help.
His call wound up being passed to Andrew Stern, one of the more senior support
techs at Zoom. After listening to him describe the situation, Stern realized
one problem was that Deming assumed that the software would be capable of
recognizing the characters on the fax and translating it to ASCII text. While
OCR capabilities are starting to show up in fax software, Stern explained,
it's still an extra feature you're not likely to find included in a low-cost
fax/modem.
Stern started to recommend some Windows fax programs that he knew come with
OCR capabilities, but Deming told him he could not use Windows, and why.
Deming is blind.
Up until this point, this had been a pretty typical support call. A customer
who does not know all the ins and outs of technology doesn't realize the
product he has bought can't be expected to do all the things he wants. He
receives some information about the type of product he needs to find. Now that
Stern understood what Deming wanted and why, though, there was an additional
complication.
Among other things, Deming uses his PC to help him read. For years he has
downloaded stock quotes and other information and used a voice synthesizer to
read the data out loud. He needs the data in ASCII format for his voice
synthesis, and a graphical user interface is of no use to him.
So he needs a DOS program with OCR capabilities. Once he gets it, his ability
to quickly research various subjects will expand considerably because he will
be able to get faxes of magazine articles, journals, etc. and have his PC read
them to him.
But in order to find his DOS OCR package, Deming would need to scan a few
magazine articles. Stern didn't know off the top of his head which software
vendors to recommend. Realizing it would be harder for Deming to find out than
it would be for him, though, Stern took it on himself to do a little research
into the subject.
Now, as we've heard from several quarters recently, life on the front lines of
technical support is not a leisurely, tranquil existence. "It can get really
frustrating at times," says Stern. "At peak hours, we know we're having to
blow away some calls because the phone system can't handle them all, and we
get all these people with basic questions that have nothing to do with our
product. When someone like Don calls, where you can make an impact, we can
spend an hour or so helping him, which is about all I did."
Perhaps that is all Stern did, but in doing so he saved Deming considerably
more than one hour. And Stern did more than skim a few magazine articles. I
heard about his effort through one of our Test Center test developers, Victor
Garza, whom Stern called to find out what we could tell him about the DOS
capabilities of the products in our recent Windows OCR product comparison.
"All I did was get Don some company names and phone numbers he could call,"
says Stern. "He was a customer with a problem, and we're in the business of
customer support." (Of course, just to confirm the cynic's adage that the only
good support tech is the one who's just been promoted to engineering, Stern
has just left Zoom to take a design job at another firm.)
"They were very helpful," says Deming about the support he received from Zoom.
He has not yet settled on an OCR package but has several in mind.
I hope he gets one soon because I want to fax him this column so he can read
it.
Ed Foster is editor of InfoWorld. He gets electronic mail at MCI account
584-3453. Or, you can call (800) 227-8365, Ext. 710, to report a gripe you
have with a vendor.