Shall we start a survey regarding cost and quality of support ?

[Paullys50]

I have to agree that it isn't of value. We are simply to diverse of an audience, and we simply cannot quantify what the 'PLC Talk' support needs actually are, let alone compare that to what we are receiving. While I appreciate the attempt at creating a standardized feedback questionnaire, without a community understood baseline response questionnaire it's all muddy.

I feel we can be hypocrites at times, if we get a phone call from a customer who needs support most likely the first response is "Do you have a PO?". I have worked in companies who also propose a retainer for high availability support. Some customers pay for that, others feel they should't pay for it. Of course when they need support, it should just be 'free'. Good clients understand that services have a value, poor clients don't. Poor clients move down your priority list while the good ones move up.

How we can expect different from our vendors has always been a mystery to me. If that extra cost ensures there are people available to help me be successful then I'll pay it.

 

[Phil Buchanan]

The Full Disclosure. I used to be a technical support engineer for AD and the support is voted the best in the business year after year for a reason. The team there has an infectious burning desire to provide the best support experience in the industry and that passion is clearly seen by the customer base.

With that being said there can be a lot of abuse when any service is free and some level of cost does tend to reduce that abuse. If you have an event that's free to the public you are likely to get a lot of riff raff in attendance but a small cover charge tends to keep many away.

I have also worked on some high level Rockwell projects and I love Rockwell gear but the support is a sore point for many including me. I currently pay a little over 30K for Rockwell support for this site and almost every time we call it takes a minimum of 15 minutes to get to an engineer and usually several calls to get to the right engineer and the solution. Rockwell support is not what it used to be in the SLC and PLC 5 days but the prices have not changed to reflect the downgrade of the support.

Calling after 6:00 PM and getting a competent person is a nightmare.

I am not picking on Rockwell I am simply describing 2015 experiences.

I don't mind paying the 30K per year for support and I chalk it up to the cost of doing business and I have to have it but at the same time I don't feel as though I am getting my money's worth when I need support.

For 30K plus a year I should not have to wait 15-30 minutes every time to speak to an engineer and I should not have to wade through several people who don't have a clue to get to the handful of guys that do.

I know from Kens posts here that when he was with Rockwell the support was good. But I think Rockwell just does not invest in support the way they used to.

I chalk it up to corporate greed which is grossly over charge and grossly under deliver. It's not just Rockwell it's almost any large company.

What was your last support experience like with you cable or internet provider or cell phone provider?

With large corporate greed customer support is the new red headed step child.

 

[Phil Buchanan]

I have to agree that it isn't of value. We are simply to diverse of an audience, and we simply cannot quantify what the 'PLC Talk' support needs actually are, let alone compare that to what we are receiving. While I appreciate the attempt at creating a standardized feedback questionnaire, without a community understood baseline response questionnaire it's all muddy.

I feel we can be hypocrites at times, if we get a phone call from a customer who needs support most likely the first response is "Do you have a PO?". I have worked in companies who also propose a retainer for high availability support. Some customers pay for that, others feel they should't pay for it. Of course when they need support, it should just be 'free'. Good clients understand that services have a value, poor clients don't. Poor clients move down your priority list while the good ones move up.

How we can expect different from our vendors has always been a mystery to me. If that extra cost ensures there are people available to help me be successful then I'll pay it.

I agree with you that support services do have value and should be paid for but with Rockwell I don't feel like a get what I pay for. I pay over 30K a year to Rockwell but it seems like I get about 5K worth of support at best.

 

[RussB]

I do tech support for a distributor, mostly on GE-IP products. We do not charge directly for the support and I know as much about the product line as most of the GE-IP paid support people and have a LOT more experience than any of them. If there is a situation that I cannot fix GE-IP is brought in immediately for assistance.
We can support our customers very well and most of them do not attempt to suppress the pricing they get because they get good service from us, both tech and commercial of course.

On the issue of support, I feel the more important issue is not support from the manufacturer, but from the local distributor.
I have worked for both Siemens and for Rockwell, they are essentially the same for support, some weak areas, some strong.

Unless you work for a large design firm / machine builder your first level of support is more likely to come via your local distributors technical support staff. In my experience they are the group you have to have good relationship with. Outside of software support agreements, you are more likely to get quicker support from the local support people as you are their direct customer.

My 2 cents.

 

[JesperMP]

I thought that there would have been a genuine discussion about the need for a survey, and how it should be conducted.
There have been a few responses definitely for the survey, and a few responses defintely against the survey. The rest have just used the opportunity to state their opinion about a specific brand.
Based on that I do not believe there is enough support for the survey.

 

[NetNathan]

GE
A- and free or paid. I have used free and it was good also.

Honeywell
A+ and free

Wonderware
? and it costs.
Wonderware is a hit and miss to get a knowledgeable tech person.....very frustrating sometimes.

AB
A and it costs
Sometimes they will help you without support contract.


As an OEM, sometimes i get frustrated over support. It is a touchy subject.
To me the vendor should bend over backwards for an OEM that solely uses their products. This is guaranteed repeat sales.
I feel support AND software should be free to OEMs. We are not the end users....and we usually end up being the middleman in support issues.

 

[Firejo]

Well, what an interesting topic.
So I’ve been trying to figure out a way to say what my view is without ****ing someone off and finally I accepted the fact that I’m not going to get there so here it goes (sorry to anyone offended by this. I say this will all due respect to everyone who’s commented). Some of you need to get a grip on reality and/or get a more “real world” look at who Rockwell is, what they provide and what it takes to provide it. If I had to guess (and I do) I’d say that Rockwell spends several million dollars on technical support training alone. They have to provide 24/7 technical support to over 80 countries and you don’t do that with a couple of guys in an office waiting for the phone to ring. Think about it, Rockwell needs to provide the same level of support for thousands of products to millions of people 24/7. That has a cost and one way or another you’re going to pay for it. Some of you are stating that you’re paying 30K for a year’s contract. Let me ask you a question, what exactly does that cover? I’m guessing it’s more than just a few phone calls. Think of it this way, you’re not paying for phone support you’re paying for an insurance policy. You might not need it (and I hope you don’t) but if you do need it, if you find yourself with a waist/water system that’s down, I’ll bet you’re going to get top level support as fast as it can be done.
Lastly let me say this, Rockwell isn’t the leading Automation supplier in North America by accident. They build excellent equipment, provide excellent solutions and back it up with some of the best people you can get. I’m sorry if some of you think that you should get that for free but the real world says you can’t. It costs money, a lot of money to provide everything they provide.
P.S. In fiscal year 2013 Rockwell did $6.35 billion in sales with a gross profit of $2.5 million. That’s 0.0393%.

 

[Mark-]

Hello,

>P.S. In fiscal year 2013 Rockwell did $6.35 billion in sales with a gross profit of $2.5 million. That’s 0.0393%.

HA, yeah, no. I cannot determine if you are serious or not, with that "datum".

http://www.rockwellautomation.com/r...tor-relations/annual-report/ROK_AR_Web_13.pdf

I have nothing against Rockwell.

 

[PLCnovice61]

Firejo, you may be right about there gross profit of $2.5M, but what you failed to say was that all of the really profit went back as dividends to there share holders so as per all statistics you can make them say what you want.They had free cash of just under $1Billion
Anyone interested their financial report, its on the internet, so don't feel sorry for them, they made a fortune on there capital, 30+%, try getting that in the bank.

 

[Paullys50]

As an OEM, sometimes i get frustrated over support. It is a touchy subject.
To me the vendor should bend over backwards for an OEM that solely uses their products. This is guaranteed repeat sales.
I feel support AND software should be free to OEMs. We are not the end users....and we usually end up being the middleman in support issues.

In the instance of Rockwell, if you are a truly committed OEM/SI, then you should be part of their partner network. Machine Builder Partner, Equipment Builder Partner, Solutions Provider, Registered Integrator...etc. If you've made that commitment, you're probably in a good position of support and pricing from the distributor and Rockwell.

I've worked for 2 SI's, one who was a solutions partner, and had a great relationship with Rockwell and the distributor and they gladly paid for the top-tier support. Used all the Rockwell hardware and software they could, PLCs, Drives, Networking, SCADA, PanelViews, fuse blocks, terminal blocks, power supplies...etc. I credit that experience for building my solid controls foundation because of how available the distributor and Rockwell were to us. It was a true business partnership. The other SI thought they should just get the best pricing because they used Rockewll PLCs and Panelviews. All the while using Siemens power supplies, WAGO fuse/terminal blocks, WAGO IO (did switch to PointIO eventually) Danfoss for drives (did switch to PowerFlex eventually) and Wonderware for SCADA. They were a global company and felt that should also justify the best pricing. They had NO interest in becoming any formal Rockwell partner, they had no interest in building a relationship with the distributor or Rockwell. it was very much 'do as I command' attitude. Well guess what attitude Rockwell and the distributor had towards them? "You need us more than we need you". Which was completely true because the end-users specified Rockwell.

I disagree w/software being free. Rockwell is too large, and 'free' software would muck up the place with what I'll call 'wanna-be' OEMs/SIs that could come in, undercut labor prices and cause issues because they don't know what they are doing but have the software to feel empowered they do. I feel paying for the development software helps keep some of the riff-raff out and protect some of my business interests. We've had customers bring in a third party, eff things up and try to blame us for the problem. I can only imagine that would get worse if anyone could get online with a PLC.