I now wonder if the problems are related to the message deliver systems
themselves - I began to suspect this when a message left by my service
engineer to his own management regarding an urgent problem was not acted upon
for two days (I was standing next to him when he left the message so I know
when it was left and what it said) . I have also noticed that some calls
placed to non-service departments in ABD don't get returned for days, either
(and in some cases, require us to follow up three and four times before
getting the info we need). I should note that two areas with which I have had
no problems with timely communications are techincal support and sales.
I really believe that the ABD folks respond to our calls when they actually
GET the messages. What I don't trust now are the messaging systems within
ABD. In the last year I have gotten various explanations for why messages
aren't received, and why calls are not returned. We have implemented every
suggestion ABD has given us for optimizing our calls, but we still have
intermittent lingering problems. I also know that for a few years now ABD
has been spread very thin in the field, which causes many problems in
prioritizing and scheduling service visits, which they are still trying to
fix by hiring and training new engineers (Sorry Laurey - your loss is our
gain!). And some parts are hard to get (I, too, have had the 477 computer
board issue delay us for several weeks).
I hope this issue can be discussed further with ABD at ABRF'98 and some
resolution can be obtained. It is in all of our best interests (ABD and
their customers) to work together to solve these kinds of problems. If ideas
for improvements in communications emerge, maybe they can be posted on the
listserver following the meeting for those of us who couldn't attend?