Difference between suppliers' Tech Support and here

I've been wondering about the differences between the Tech Support offered by manufacturers or suppliers, and the support offered at forums like this. I've yet to read a critical post here saying "you guys know nothing, you're a waste of time, why do I bother ..." etc. Yet I've often seen comments indicating how bad or slow support from manufacturers can be. Why so?

One obvious difference is the size of the audience here. At present there are 78 people logged in or showing as logged in. Although this may be a very popular web-site only 327 have visited so far today. I know of maybe 10-15 really good, consistently good, posters who have built up credibility over a period of time in the answers they offer, plus, say, double that for people who chip in for specialist areas, or infrequent topics. So that's a ratio of maybe 10:1 potential questions to answerers. I bet AB and Siemens wish they had such low figures for their support staff!

Secondly, no one here is responsible. If I assure you that wiring 110VAC in to an analogue input is not only possible but essential, who are you going to blame or sue when you try it? So we all take (and give) advice with a implicit sense of no comebacks. But we wouldn't permit that from a manufacturer, would we? If they say plug it in and it blows up, we'd want our money back, and compensation for singed eyebrows etc.

Thirdly, we're all allowed to say I don't know, or just to ignore a question if we don't understand it. I don't believe many manufacturers have that luxury. If a paying customer demands an answer to his badly-phrased illiterate question, I guess the pressures of customer service etc mean that he gets dealt with too. Ignoring him ain't an option.

There's no serious point or conclusion to this - I'm just thinking out loud. Any other views?

Regards

Ken

Manufacturer's Tech Support

I've noticed that the manufacturers I have called appear to have cut costs by eliminating the person who can answer from their actual hands-on experience and replacing them with wet-behind-the-ears college grads that I can almost hear turning the pages of the same manual that I have read cover to cover.
At least the people here appear to have real world stories to justify their answers.

Forums like this are like free techsupport. A cost down for them.

Just like Ken said, we have no responsibility where they may have significant $ implications.

There's alot to be said for not having an agenda when answering a technical question. The members of this forum have a large amount of freedom to say what they think is right. The forum in general is not trying to protect anything. The flip side of that is caveat emptor. When you get information from this or any forum you need to realise that talk is cheap.

I don't think that tech support has gotten any worse, per se. I think it has gotten more available and, at least with the bigger companies, has gotten layered. All calls coming in are assumed to be from people who refuse to RTFM. So the first person you get is someone who has all the manuals in front of them and knows how to turn pages. By the time many of use get past the first line of defense (or two) we are so frustrated with the process that we bail. The hard part in today's environment is getting to the upper levels. There are also some very good people in the first line of defense. The problem is you need to play Russian Roulette with the phone to get them

And then there's motivation. People here are answering questions because it's something that they like to do. They have a passion for the field, have a passion for helping people or (the best of all) both. It's not just a 9-5 job that people are trying to get out of in the quickest possible way.

Before some get too excited there are obviously some very good technical resources located internal to all companies. But just like any other human endeavor, in any given organization there are going to also be less effective members.

Keith

Ken M said:

Secondly, no one here is responsible. If I assure you that wiring 110VAC in to an analogue input is not only possible but essential, who are you going to blame or sue when you try it? So we all take (and give) advice with a implicit sense of no comebacks. But we wouldn't permit that from a manufacturer, would we? If they say plug it in and it blows up, we'd want our money back, and compensation for singed eyebrows etc.

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My take...

Thats the best thing about it...I can say "yes Ken plug the 240 into that plug" then someone will cover mine and yours a$$ and correct me...Most of the time in a very non polite manner...like "thats bull $hit", but what ever... it gets there attention, I like the fact that there are 100 big brothers watching over me, I don't want to give anyone bad info, but I do want to help..


Tech support is slow? not really...we are just impatient

Tech support co$t$. Would you want your best engineers/techs working on something that generates ZERO $$$'s in income?

Some companies have some of their best personnel at toll free numbers and do not charge for the phone support they provide. I like those companies.

Some mfgr's give 15 minutes of support for free and then request a PO#.

Some mfgr's only have tech support during "normal" business hours.

Some mfgr's "claim" to have support but like someone mentioned, you can hear them shuffling papers to find the "script" or page in the manual so they can attempt to confuse you with more with mis-information.

I personnally have found this forum to be a wealth of knowledge. I have gotten answers to programming needs. I have gotten ideas to use for new job specs. The members here are quick to respond when someone is looking for solutions to problems. Some are from experience and other responses are from being experienced enough to visualize and respond accordingly. I also enjoy the easy banter that goes on here. Remember "smoke and mirrors"?

Leadfoot said:

I also enjoy the easy banter that goes on here. Remember "smoke and mirrors"?

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Shhh...bad words, but a lot of laughs...

I think some manufacturers would be well served by adopting a forum approach. Not everyone will use it, but enough people will that it could lighten the tech support load. Unfortunately, one major market share manufacturer which I won't name but whose initials are AB, closed their forum.

As mentioned, many of the people here just like this field and enjoy helping when they can.

Forums can be fun but let me enlighten to some of the behind the scene aspects of maintaiing a forum.

Recently I changed computers and forgot to add my website email name to Outlook, in just a few days I had over 21000 emails, that if after filtering.

On a day to day basis I have to remove 10 to 100 names, posssibly more, from the memberlist. Website 101 does not teach you about the tricks hackers or scammers use involving forums.

You have to monitor issues your website forum may have and either modify or upgrade it on a regular basis...always someone looking to do harm.

A manufacturers website would need, at least, one full time person just to maintain the forum plus experienced personnel to answer people, the more topics the more personnel that may be required. The other aspect is that forums run 24/7 and are accessed globally, which implies the need for more personnel than regular business hours would use.

From an engineering or technicians point of view tech support can be difficult because it appears they do not know what they are doing, the reason for this is simple. All major companies have a database of frequently asked questions (FAQ) so the first to take the call will look up an answer. NOTE: As an ex computer manufacturer I can tell you from experience that most of the calls are very simple. Using computers as an example I would get calls "My sound will not work"...Turn on speakers...this is REAL LIFE.

Look at some of the questions asked here as examples.

I am not attempting to justify any companies actions, just provide some ideas about what they deal with on a day to day basis. What works for one company may not work for another.

The good thing about plcs.net is that many of the members have eperience in different industrial fields so people can get answers on a variety of subjects.

As another example. I am deluged with studies, my German studies are suffering but I like languages so I am also trying to develop my Spanish (took it for 2 years in HS). I am trying to learn to use Visio for CAD and other applications. I am studying VB plus all the standard math, sciences etc. I also have been re-modeling my house and yard. Websites/forums can suffer from issues like this but I will keep on doing it as long as I can.

There is nothing that grates me more than getting a newbie on the phone who is going through the printed checklist in front of him. ' Is there power to the unit?', 'Please re-boot and see if that works for you.' etc...

But in the defense of the tech support guys. When you have a problem that "Nobody has seen before", you can finally get to the level of the geeks who put the stuff together from the ground up.

Had that problem a few years ago doing an on-line download with a running plant, which shouldn't have been a problem, I've done hundreds per day, but for some reason during a download the entire plant shut down (5000 I/O), so what do I do? Try it again once all the smoke clears just to confirm what happened. Then I call Tech Support, they want to see it happen too of course, so they get online to watch. They couldn't believe it either and by that time I had the plant manager spitting in my face telling me not to do that anymore (testy little guy). Finally, they get the 'developer/inventor/ brainiac' group of 5 or 6 people online to watch again. Once and for all I went through the process of flipping the switch and shutting down the plant. On the other end of the line were a few 'Ooohs' , then silence, then I finally hear someone say, "We've known about a potential problem here, but we've never seen it happen in a production unit" Needless to say I was then due for another firmware upgrade, a software upgrade, a few tickets to a Broncos game and some free project support.

This probably doesn't send out a very positive message but, for me, it's all about Ken's third reason. Having worked in tech. support for two large companies (one PC, one PLC)the freedom to ignore any question that I want to for whatever reason is truly liberating!

It's also interesting to see the same behaviours that I used to see displayed in "conventional" tech. support being displayed here:

"I think that your product should work this way; the way you do it is stupid".
"I've already had a answer from you but I don't like it so let's try again....."
"I don't see why I should have to pay for your hardware and then pay again for the software."

You know what? Reading the above makes me see very clearly that I did the right thing by leaving Tech. Support!

The quality of tech support varies to the dramatic from company to company, and from tech to tech. Personally our PLC vendor of choice is by reason of the quality of their tech support staff, and the convienence of dealing with them (no P.O. required, and quick response).

As far as the forums go, I it's a good place for ideas, but not always so for specifics on product issues. The short of it is that I dont think the forums supplant product tech support or visa-versa. They both have their place.

Wow, I too tech support too.

1. Something like that 'learning by doing' thread would not happen. I don't care what the hardware costs. It took too many hours ( time=moeny ) to get that system going. Paula could have paid twice as much and got the program done in a day. There are many reasons why getting the system going as soon as possiblue.

2. When providing tech support you have to take control of the conversation. You need the facts, just the facts. You can't let the customer get off topic with non related facts. Sometimes the customer have wild ideas about what is happening. What I assure them is that we sell many thousands of axes a year and whatever they are doing, it has probably been done before. If only 1% have problems that is still a couple new cases a day.

3. Customers will not always provide accurate data. There are techniques that allow one to tell. Our products have the ability to graph motion profiles and log commands. This information is what we like to see. It is easy to e-mail this to us. In other words, we provide better tools that what most PLCs provide. The Rockwell trends is a feature that I don't see used much on this forum. We can look at a trend and tell if the PID is tune correctly. We can actually tell the customer how to tune a PID using a the output of a trend file.


I like NOP's

"I've already had a answer from you but I don't like it so let's try again....."

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We don't let this happen but customers don't always listen. I have seen one spend $250K trying to get something to go that I said would never work right. Sometimes I can relate to how a doctor feels when he tells a patient he has something seriously wrong.

here is nothing that grates me more than getting a newbie on the phone who is going through the printed checklist in front of him. ' Is there power to the unit?', 'Please re-boot and see if that works for you.' etc...

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This doesn't happen often unless it is a new feature. On the flip side, I recently wasted a lot of time on the phone with someone trying to set up Ethernet between a AB PLC and our controller. This should be easy. After a long time I found out the guy made his own Ethernet cable. He used RJ11 plugs. I told him to stop being cheap and buy an Ethernet cable. This makes two points.
1. Assume Nothing.
2. Sometimes people have no respect for others peoples time or even their time.

Tech support co$t$. Would you want your best engineers/techs working on something that generates ZERO $$$'s in income?

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Our tech support is free unless we go into the field. Tech support is advertising/marketing by another means. Customers will trust good tech support and will ask for people by name. I have seen customers change motion controller because of the tech support.

I don't think that tech support has gotten any worse, per se. I think it has gotten more available and, at least with the bigger companies, has gotten layered.

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We are lucky as we support only a couple of motion controllers. Tech support all the products that Rockwell sells has got to be a difficult task. We have tech support people, I do tech support only when they can't handle it. Usually it isn't tech support but application support. However, sometime the customer does find a bug or exploited a feature in a way we never intended. In these cases we find a work around until a new release is generated that fixes problem or expands the functionality. This usually is a drop everything till done event so it takes anywhere from a couple hours to a couple days.

I can almost hear turning the pages of the same manual that I have read cover to cover.

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If the answer are in the manual then why call tech support?
Good documentation reduces the need for tech support.

I've noticed that the manufacturers I have called appear to have cut costs by eliminating the person who can answer from their actual hands-on experience and replacing them with wet-behind-the-ears college grads that I can almost hear turning the pages of the same manual that I have read cover to cover.

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I find that the manufacturers are doing that too and trying to shift the costs to somewhere else like the suppliers tech support.

I don´t know in USA, but here in my country (Brazil), i learn more whith the forum !!! The tech support don´t has experience in the factory !!! Is more best change ideas whith the peoples that work whith the products every days !!!

Well, Peter's given up a pretty good roadmap of what technical support SHOULD be. If the 90% of technical support groups that DON'T follow that method changed their ways and did follow that method there wouldn't be any bickering.

I think Peter and the other high-level product experts that visit this forum are anomolies. How many of you have communicated in any way with the technical head of the Rockwell motion group? Yea, me either. Peter and others in similar positions visit this forum and make themselves accassable. By all accounts that accessability carries through to their 'day jobs'. That isn't something you see out of every company.

Peter also made an interesting distinction between technical support and application support. Are we asking for too much from what we are calling 'technical support'? Are we asking them to develop our application for us? Is that what the service was intended to do? I think we tend to expect application support from our technical support calls, but should we?

As Peter pointed out the informal format of this forum probably won't get you a pinpoint answer in the shortest period of time. However, the answers given here will be of more long-term help than the answers from most technical support calls. You will get more of an explanation of the how and why of a solution than you do on normal tech support calls.

Keith