RE: Customer Service

["Dave Wiseman" <dcwiseman@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Sean,
I have been on both sides of this situation, both as a frustrated
software customer (not with III), and as a CS rep. for another
(nameless) ILS.
You have received some good advice here.

What will work least well is besieging the helpdesk with lots and lots
of calls, particularly about trivial things, this will ultimately only
increase your frustration as the number of calls mounts.  

Escalation of truly important issues will get them resolved, but you are
going to have to take charge of it. You may need to honestly prioritize
your problems, and try to get them resolved that way. 

Have you talked with someone in management at Innovative? If not,
scheduling a meeting (conference call??) might be a good idea, this will
give you a chance to get all your cards on the table, and will give
Innovative a chance to get your project back under control. If you are
able to schedule such a call, you need to go into the meeting with an
eye toward actually getting problems solved, rather than spleen-venting
(as satisfying as that may be). It sounds like, from your description,
that some internal happenings at Innovative may have had a hand in your
situation, it happens, and it's usually fixable.

Innovative knows (I'm sure) that it's more profitable to keep (happy)
customers than to find new ones, and I promise that you'll find III's
support is as good as any in the industry, and much better than many.

I say this without knowing a single thing about your real situation, so
like all advice, this has to be taken for what it's worth. I can tell
some stories though...

Dave Wiseman


-----Original Message-----
From: innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:innopac-admin@xxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Sean
Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2003 11:11 AM
To: innopac@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Customer Service

Hello all,
I am a first time poster to this group, and I was wondering if any other
installations have experienced the unacceptable level of customer
service that our installation has received.  Our complaints with
Innovative, to Innovative, have gone unresolved or otherwise ignored for
the past 4 months.  We have several open calls to the Help Desk for
critical software issues that have been opened for months, with no
response from Innovative regarding their status.  We have been an
Innovative turnkey installation for over 11 years, and recently upgraded
both our hardware and software.  We were assigned a project manager 6
months ago, and that was basically the last we heard from him.  A
co-worker discovered that our Implementation Project Manager had
actually quit weeks ago, although Innovative never informed us of this.
Overall, Innovative's customer support is pathetic.  Only when I am in
contact with an actual Help Desk technician do I feel an issue is
nearing any sort of resolution, so we have resorted to opening calls for
every issue, from the most trivial on up.  This seems to be our only
solution for getting problems into the hands of the people who will
actually fix them, and even then timeliness is not guaranteed.
 
Does anyone have any comments to offer as far as the pros and cons of
software-only vs. turnkey sites?  Any other customer support nightmares
with Innovative?  Are we the only installation treated this way? The
valuable dollars this Library District pays to Innovative for monthly
fees related to our turnkey system could be put to much better use by
paying someone who can actually get the job done.
 
Thank you for your input, and thank you for bravely reading my wordy
tirade.
 
Regards,
 
Sean Park
Network Administrator
Coos County Library Service District
1988 Newmark, Tioga 104
Coos Bay, OR  97420
spark@xxxxxxxxxx
 


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