>I guess I'm the one who started this email thread although I had no >idea
when I
>asked about others' service experience that I would see so MANY angry
>responses.
>You commented:
>"Over the next few months we are planning to put in place some more
>direct ways
>to measure and monitor customer satisfaction. These will include some >more
>formal feedback channels such as regular surveys, follow-up calls after >a
>service visit, and some Web-based response mechanisms."
>I can't tell you how discouraging it was to read that. It gives me the
>feeling
>that you guys just don't get it. This is NOT a PR problem. It is very
>evident from
>the email responses that this is a REAL problem of too few service
>technicians.
>Loading up the technicians with another responsibility to do follow-up
>calls will
>just make it worse.
>Listening to a problem, providing soothing feedback and measuring our
>satisfaction
>or dissatisfaction will not solve the problem when the problem is an
>instrument
>sitting there with the stage motor broken.
>Linda
--Linda, I don't know you, but I couldn't agree with you more. When I read Roger's response quoted above I thought to myself,: "Great, more phone calls to answer, more survey's to complete, more time wasted!" Like you said, the problem is not PR or engineer competency, it's lack of engineers. I am in southern Connecticut, and for many years the closest ABI (at the time) hub was Boston. Now it's some where in New Jersey, but it's still a 2-3 hour drive each way for the engineer. And there were times when of the 3 assigned to us, 2 were at a training meeting and one was answering other calls. So we had to wait with idle machines.
My experience has been excellent with the Technical Support available by phone. Everyone is polite, willing to help, and MANY times I have been able to solve our problems on the phone. But when a real person is needed, the only problem is for that person to be free to come to us. In my experience, the service has been better than what I have been reading here. But there are times when no one is available for 2 or 3 days, and our work piles up, and our customers get frustrated and go to other sources, and we sometimes waste time and reagents trying to fix the problem ourselves.
I hope the right people are reading this. HIRE MORE ENGINEERS!
Monica Talmor Path. Dept. DNA Synthesis Lab Yale Medical School 310 Cedar St. New Haven, CT 06510
203-785-4309 203-785-7467 (fax) monica.talmor@Yale.edu http://info.med.yale.edu/pathol/crittech/ctdna.htm