Subject:
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Re: Customer service
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Sun, 9 Feb 2003 15:54:10 GMT
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Original-From:
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Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail!AntiSpam!.net>
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Viewed:
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717 times
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Bruce Boyes wrote:
> But the quote was about customer service, and I think it matters not
> whether it's a hamburger or a new car, people expect the same quality of
> service. We learned this years ago selling software. It didn't matter if
> the package was $50 or $500, people have almost identical expectations
> about customer service and support. I know that may sound crazy, but we
> found it to be true. What this taught us is that the support on a $50
> product can kill you. This is why there is an industry trend to reduced
> support, customer "call centers", endless waits on hold, etc. It's hard
> to provide $20 worth of support on a $50 network card.
>
> As engineers, we can't and won't do that to our customers, since we
> don't want to be treated that way.
For a product like this, I'd expect the majority of the support activity
to be associated with the software.
The way to avoid the software support hassles is to release the software
as OpenSource - then let the community enhance and maintain it.
You can still make your profits on the hardware.
> What do you mean -- Lego Mindstorms come from one place and they seem
> to be doing fine, and Bill Gates has done pretty well with Windoze.
There is a difference between a single-sourced device from a very large
company like Lego or Microsoft and a single-sourced device from a very
small company. A small company can go under at any time with very little
warning leaving you stranded with no support and no future source of parts.
That's MUCH less likely with a very large company - although it *can* still
happen. So when dealing with a smaller company, it's good to have multiple
sources for the same part.
> > I'm sure that in your world of dealing with college funded projects,
> > what you ask for the JCX seems reasonable.
>
> Comparable robots are $1500-$2000 and are nowhere near as open and modular.
But in our context on this mailing list, comparable robots are $150 to $200.
If I were dealing with big industrial robots, I'd be much more interested
in JCX - but we are talking about hobbists here - and it's long been
established that people will spend $300 in one purchase to support a serious
hobby - but rarely any more.
As far as we on this list are concerned, we've been buying adequate computers
with about $100 worth of Lego parts for between $150 and $200 - so your JCX
is costing about 5 to 10 times more - is it any wonder that people are
somewhat horrified by the price.
> We will probably never be *price* competitive with 20-year old 8-bit
> technology.
No? Most other computer systems are. I paid the same amount for my latest
2GHz PC as I did for my very first TRS-80. It's not at all an unreasonable
expectation.
---------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------
HomeEmail: <sjbaker1@airmail.net> WorkEmail: <sjbaker@link.com>
HomePage : http://www.sjbaker.org
Projects : http://plib.sf.net http://tuxaqfh.sf.net
http://tuxkart.sf.net http://prettypoly.sf.net
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Customer service
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| (...) But the quote was about customer service, and I think it matters not whether it's a hamburger or a new car, people expect the same quality of service. We learned this years ago selling software. It didn't matter if the package was $50 or $500, (...) (22 years ago, 9-Feb-03, to lugnet.robotics)
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