From: andrew@cubetech.com
Subject: Re: Pathetic news from NeXT--what's new??
Organization: Cube Technologies, Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 07:47:39 GMT

In article <BvK9AG.ELB@spock.dis.cccd.edu> maurices@spock.dis.cccd.edu (Maurice Shihadi) writes:
>NeXT customer
>service will not even give e-mail addresses for employees referred to by
>name.

All e-mail addresses at NeXT are FirstName_LastName@next.com.  You can
even mispell their name pretty badly and still have it deliver... (who
can spell Peter Van Cuylenburg anyway?? ;-).

>Questions I have would be as followes:  
>
>
>1)  How come we (users) are not notified that all hardware swaps are made
>with refurbished parts unless we specifically ask?  I don't mind this 
>policy but I would've liked to have known before having a good 
>hard drive swapped with a bad one when my problem had nothing to do with 
>a my hard drive.  On the other hand, NeXT did replace it immediately so 
>I can't complain much.

This is pretty normal in the industry.  Usually the refurbished are
checked out pretty thoroughly...  NeXT has great hardware service.  Be
nice to them and they will take really good care of you.

>2)  How come the effort of customer support is excellent when calling in a 
>hardware problem under warranty but the assessment of problems and solution 
>is often wrong the first time around?  Often times, hardware is swapped with 
>refurbished parts when there is really nothing wrong with the hardware.  

It could be that you didn't thoroughly communicate exactly what was
wrong.  

>3)  Why contract with Motorola when they do absolutely no diagnostic
>maintanence?  From what I've experienced all the Motorola guys do is 
>arrive on site and swap motherboards, hard discs, disc drives etc.
>Why can't NeXT involve the registered developers by giving them a half
>day (Friday, the last day on camp.) lecture at dev camp on "How to swap 
>internal components?"  and then dispatch them as consultants with their
>official NeXT phillips screwdriver and give them oh four free questions
>from NeXTEdge as payment for their time.

I would much rather have a board swap (which takes very little time
since they just FedEx in the new board) than wait for someone to fix
it.  Also, since nearly everything is surface mount on the NeXT board,
if something does go out on it, it may not be possible to fix it.
What really happens is they swap out your board, then someone (at
Motorola or NeXT) takes a look at it.  If they can fix it, they will
and it gets queued up to go out when someone needs a board swap... (I
assume).  This way the reuse good parts without making customers wait
for them to fix it.

>4)  Why be so liberal with shipping out multiple replacement parts next
>day air when there is no confirmation that those parts are not 
>performing adaquately?   

Again, it's better to ship out something that they may not need than
to waste the customers time, money, and effort.  The University of
Houston got 4 new DECstations a little while back... (Paul Sears will
correct me if I get this story wrong...)  2 of them were DOA.  Had
they been NeXTstations (which are rarely DOA - really only the
thin-net interface will be DOA), NeXT would have FedEx'ed them new
ones.  But no, DEC had to send a rep down to verify that they were
indeed DOA (which took 3 days) before they could send new ones...   A
friend of mine at MW Kellog (a BIG, BIG DEC shop...) says a lot of
their DEC hardware is DOA and they have to go through the same
procedure...

You tell me which is preferable if you run a business?

>I was anxious to buy NeXT stock for the longest time but since viewing
>first hand how procedure and business is conducted I think I'll buy a
>house instead at least for now.

Keeping customers happy is generally not a wasteful business practice.


andrew
-- 
andrew@cubetech.com     | "We shall not cease from exploration
Andrew Loewenstern      |  And the end of our exploring
Cube Technologies, Inc. |  Will be to arrive where we started
                        |  And know the place for the first time." -T.S. Eliot
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.misc