Frankly I'm surprised she's still employed with 3Com. She's the reason I
don't buy support contracts anymore. But maybe she's just a symptom of a
much larger problem.
Matthew Stainforth || Technical Services Manager || BrunNet Inc.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Farber [mailto:farber@admin.f-tech.net]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 02, 2000 11:41 AM
> To: usr-tc(a)lists.xmission.com
> Cc: bruce_claflin(a)mw.3com.com; karl_swanson(a)mw.3com.com;
> thomas_goodman(a)mw.3com.com; george_ebert(a)mw.3com.com;
> glenn_gibney(a)mw.3com.com; irfan_ali(a)mw.3com.com
> Subject: Re: (usr-tc) Support Contract survey
>
>
> Add my results:
>
> NO I WILL NOT RENEW (see below) ANY SERVICE CONTRACT
>
> and
>
> NO I WILL NOT BE PURCHASING ANY NEW 3COM EQUIPMENT.
>
> I just got off the phone with Ms. Michelle Catalano who said my
> $1200 support contract would not be honored... even though
> they got the
> money for it already.
>
> I have 3 chassis at 3 locations and only *want* coverage for
> a specific
> site with specific needs. It's a simple chassis, 2 DSP's, 1
> arc.... plain
> jane setup.
>
> Needless to say I have contacted 3 ASCEND/LUCENT vendors and
> will not be
> purchasing ANY more 3Com equipment. Sorry 3Com.... that's 1
> new site you
> won't be at (96 ports) and one site I will be converting (48
> ports). Does
> the business unit understand that loosing $15K-20K over a
> $1200 software
> upgrade (who actually calls support anymore... I think we've
> all learned
> the 'value' of phone based support)
>
> Since this message is being CC'ed to (hopefully) some understanding
> management at 3Com, there is a person on the xmission list (krish?)
> that has been worth thier weight in gold.... give that person
> a raise and
> maybe learn a bit from how that person does support us.
>
> I will add the 2.0.51 DSP code seems to have calmed down the chassis a
> bit... to bad it took the 2.0.60 and 2.0.81 'tries' to get it.
>
> Paul Farber
> Farber Technology
> farber(a)admin.f-tech.net
> Ph 570-628-5303
> Fax 570-628-5545
>
> On Wed, 2 Feb 2000, Jeff Mcadams wrote:
>
> > OK...here are initial results of the support contract
> informal survey.
> > I only heard from 13 people (including myself :)...a mere
> fraction of
> > the number of people on the list in total. Keep sending the
> > information...I'll continue to tabulate and have more
> updates as I hear
> > from more people.
> >
> > The current count is 9 people don't have support contracts,
> and 4 do.
> >
> > Some notes:
> >
> > - One "yes" only had software coverage even though they
> would have liked
> > to have greater coverage. They had to settle for software-only
> > because of the cost
> >
> > - One "no" actually has coverage on a chassis, but only because that
> > chassis was bought new and came with
> coverage...apparently you can't
> > buy a chassis anymore without coverage...interesting
> loophole in the
> > contract rules here. This person indicated that they
> would rather
> > have *not* gotten the coverage on the contract as they
> thought it
> > was a waste of money.
> >
> > Many of the people that emailed me as a "no" mentioned it
> was the cost
> > and/or the rules that prevented them from getting a contract.
> >
> > I will re-iterate that I believe that the root of the
> problem stems from
> > 3Com considering Customer Service as a "Business Unit". In
> other words,
> > they want Customer Service to be a revenue positive part of
> 3Com. While
> > my previous posting that discussed this was somewhat inaccurate (the
> > Customer Service Organization, CSO, apparently doens't get
> the revenues
> > from the support contracts, the business unit that sells
> the equipment -
> > in the case of TC, its the Network Systems Business Unit - gets the
> > revenues...the whole thought of trying to make Customer
> Service revenue
> > positive ends up with an attitude that ends up screwing the
> customer.
> >
> > I just recently went through the process of trying to
> obtain a service
> > contract again...partially to try to determine if any
> improvements had
> > been made to the process...partially to find out if the "Unbundled
> > Service Options" on 3Com's web site would be useful
> here...and partially
> > because we really would like to have some coverage on some of our
> > equipment. The current status is that the support coverage
> rules are
> > still in place (contracts purchased per-chassis rather than
> per-card,
> > and all chassis at a site have to have the same coverage...of course
> > last time we tried to have different coverage at different
> sites 3Com
> > didn't honor it), the support options listed as sold items (ie, not
> > special deals that are made for specific instances) were largely the
> > same as they've been for the past 3 years. The best I got from the
> > discussion was that service options could be discussed (ie,
> a special
> > deal is how I understand this) if its "a sound business
> case that makes
> > sense for the customer and for 3Com." Let me suggest that a sound
> > business case for 3Com would be to not lose their customers which is
> > what is happening...3Com is verging towards losing us as a customer
> > even...and we've been a USRobotics/3Com customer for at
> least 5 years
> > (35 Amp power supplied and dual analog 14.4 modems)
> > --
> > Jeff McAdams Email: jeffm(a)iglou.com
> > Head Network Administrator Voice: (502) 966-3848
> > IgLou Internet Services (800) 436-4456
> >
> > -
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>
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