Conference 7.286::digital

Just to add a little excitement...

I think your note might be more accurate if you swapped digital and IBM! 
I've seen a lot of situations where we have put customer satisfaction 
above profits and where comments about IBM were negative.

Realistically, I think both situations are accurate depending on the 
timing and circumstances.

-mark

    You are exactly correct, Mark.  It DOES depend upon one's perspective.
    Note .0 was from someone in the field who deals with customers while
    you are several levels away.  I believe that there are several good
    points in .0 especially if you care about REAL customer satisfaction
    as opposed to the number on some obscure survey.
    
    I've been in Software Services for nine years having just escaped
    from the field (BIG SMILE goes here).  When I joined Digital there
    was really SERVICE in Software Services.  No longer.  When I joined
    SWS there was a plaque in each manager's office:
    
    	   	   SOFTWARE SERVICES GOAL
    	 Satisfy Digital's Customers' Software Services Needs
    
    			OBJECTIVES
    
    	A. Deliver Software Services which help Sell Standard Products
    	   According to the Following Priority:
    			1. Warranty
    			2. Sales Support
    			3. Consulting
    	B. Deliver Software Services which help Implement Product Lines'
    	   Marketing Plans & Corporate Policies

    At the start of B$ST (Billion Dollar Sure Thing - aka W$RST, Where
    Dollars Reign Supreme Throughout) orders went out to destroy the
    plaque.  I saved mine - just call me a pack rat rebel.  The CLEAR
    message at the start of B$ST (and since it's failure) is that
    Consulting dollars are the ONLY THING.
    
    At the moment, the ONLY customer satisfaction basis in the field
    is the result of the annual customer survey which is TOTALLY numeric
    and HIGHLY weird in nature.  No sane person really believes that
    these survey's measure anything useful (I can hardly wait to see
    the flames on this).
    
    In fact, I've heard that in one area near here that unit managers,
    who are on the front line, have as a goal to visit ONE (1) customer
    a week.  This is a CLEAR symptom of lack of REAL concern for customers!!
    ONE customer a week?!?!  ONE!!  These people are expected to be
    too busy pushing revenue numbers around to make budget the rest
    of their time rather than getting bogged down in petty issues like
    customers, apparently.
    
    The major problem described in .0 is that there is really no way
    in the field to give customers the FEELING of support that IBM does
    so well.  Our philosophy, quite rightly, has been that customers
    should pay for only what they need and that we shouldn't bundle
    in extras.  This has been one reason that we've been able to offer
    cost effective tools to our customers.
    
    I would HOPE that the new separation of Sales Support and Delivery
    in SWS would help the Account Managers use Sales Support resources
    to help provide the FEELING of support.  Certainly, given the goals
    of SWS in the past few years it has been VERY difficult to do what
    is RIGHT unless the customer or Sales assured the USWM that he/she/it
    would make margin.
    
    Sorry to have been so long,
    
    Don

    re .2
    
    Well said, Don.  Couldn't have said it better myself (and if I'd
    tried, would probably have been much less tactfull about it).  The
    "Dollars Reign Supreme Throughout" syndrome has bitten far too many
    of the field sws folks.  Refer to the "hypothetical question" in
    this conference: if presented with an opportunity for revenue, is
    it better to: (1) try to deliver it with specialists who are not
    qualified because the folks who are qualified are not available,
    (2) try to push the timeframe for delivery out until the available
    sws folks can be trained = "qualified", at least to an acceptable
    extent, or (3) failing option 2, turn the business down instead
    of trying to sell the customer the proverbial "pig in a poke"?
    
    My experience with sws is that option #1 is chosen before even
    examining option #2, and heaven forbid that option #3 be chosen.
    
    Jon

    RE: .3
    
    Same thing happened to a friend of mine. Her famiely runs a
    toy/sporting goods wholesle outfit in western Mass. They REALLY
    wanted to buy a DEC machine, preferable a MICRO-11 (since they liked
    a software package that they saw for it, A to Z, I think) to get
    started, and then buy a larger system later on. They knew just what
    they wanted but wanted direction on would we have what they needed
    a few years when they outgrew the micro. They put off buying a
    computer for 18 months waiting for a sales person to "get back to
    them" and finally got so fed up they went out and bought a DG. In
    talking to her, I got the idea that the sales people didn't want
    to give them the right time of day; every time they called, sales
    was too buzy to send someone out and just sent them promo material
    or suggested that they visit a computer store. They got the feeling
    that DEC just didn't want their business, so they decided to go
    with DG (I might add that both DG and IBM sent made several sales
    visits to these people). Anyhow, in probably another year they will
    be ready to upgrade to a bigger computer and it really irks me that
    DG will be getting the business that we should have had.
    
    Deb

    RE: .3 & .5
    
    	Call the sales office involved!! This should not happen <obvious
    hmmmm?>. I had a friend I had done work for in a past life <before
    d i g i t a l employ...> and he wanted to get DEC equipment and
    got the same $%#& from sales. He told me! I called the office an
    got it straightened (sp?) out quick.
    
    Do it!! We're worth it!!!
    
    dd;

    Customer Satisfaction comes up quite often in HUMAN::MARKETING.
    Generally, when the topic concerns Digital and competitors or Digital
    and customers, I'll start the note there.  You may have different
    criteria for choosing between the different conferences.
    
    Second housekeeping note.  The Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey
    asks questions like "How do rate the attitude and manner of your
    Software Specialist" on a 1 to 10 scale.  Any sociology textbook
    will tell you that a 1 to 10 scale has too many points.  Someone's
    7 is someone else's 6.  Or from year to year, you might rate the
    _same_ performance with different numbers.  Some customers are coached
    to score "10" as "meeting expectations".  Some uncoached customers
    score "5" as "meeting expectations".  I find that over two years
    where the district manager and the unit managers are roughly the
    same the "explanatory variable" is the growth in _number_of_customers_.
    In a bad year for new business, sales and sales support are re-exposed
    to the installed base and are able to "satisfy".  In a good year
    for new business, staffing lags the numerical growth in customers,
    and both old and new customers don't see their sales and sales support
    from DEC as often.  "Why is he stating the obvious", you may ask.
    Well, this was fed up to through the normal channels and got nowhere.
    The best surveys consistently come from the units and districts
    with the highest concentration of business in a few customers.
    
    My opinion on the question at hand:  While you won't see it written
    down in black and white, Digital doesn't want to do business with
    _anyone_ who can't sustain $1 million of product and services sales per
    year.  We don't want the business.  We are not an easy company to do
    business with and that's not being fixed. 
    

re Pat Sweeney:  "We are not an easy company to do business with and that's not
		  being fixed."

Correct, Pat.   Attached, some users express anger over doing business with
		DEC after our new software licensing policy goes into effect.

This is a message sent to me by Otto Titze, European SIG Coordinator and
German DECUS Vice-Chairman.  The message he attached is, I believe, from Ralf
Br�ck, German DECUS Chairman and also heavily involved with European DECUS.

From:	PSI%26245615130514::LINAC::TITZE   "Otto Titze, Kernphysik THD"
To:	COVERT::COVERT
Subj:	DEC's new Licence Policy?!

Tel: +49 6151 163323

TO: John Covert				Date:22-OCT-86

Hi John,

I found this contribution in one of my mailboxes. Is this really true? 
How are you thinking about this in DECUS US? I believe if DEC goes ahead
along these lines in future, some of us really have to look for
alternatives. As an old DECUS member I am very sorry to say this.

Regards

Otto 

--

DECUS US Fall 86 Symposium San Francisco
----------------------------------------
(Part of a trip report from a German DECUS member)

The following is an exerpt from my San Francisco trip report,
translated to something like English.

On Monday in one of the sessions the new DEC licensing policy
was announced by a (unknown) lady from DEC. This was nearly not
noticed by the public, so an artcile was pusblished in UPDATE.DAILY
and the session was repeated on Thursday, where there was a larger
attendence and very sharp reactions. The situation was several times
compared to the JUPITER disaster.

Following details were announced:

1. SW licences don't go with the HW anymore and they don't belong
to a specific person or instition. When selling HW the SW won't
go with it, i.e. when buying refurbished equipment you will have
to buy the SW separately.

2. Licences can't be moved to other systems, they are related to
a very specific system. If you sell such a system, you'll end up
with a license for SW which you are not allowed to run on any system.

3. In former times on upgrades you only would have to pay the
difference of the two license fees. In the future on any upgrade
you'll have to pay the price for the full new licenses, except for
so called 'in-cpu-upgrades', which, however, are not clearly
defined and which are definitely not all upgrades which can be
done in the field by just changing or adding some modules.

4. The new policy is valid for all HW and all SW except for OEMs
and PC-systems.

5. Until the end of this year a case-by-case decision may be
negotiated with DEC. As of January 1, 1987, the new policy will be
in place with no exceptions.

As I said, the reactions were very strong and the whole athmosphere
was pretty much like in the Jupiter days.

In the following I'll give some examples from the discussions:

1. It might be worthwhile to re-check any plans for upgrades and to
delay them, especially if it's possible to skip minor updates.

2. It's a big help for IBM salesmen, especially after Jupiter.
   Now DEC has pissed (sorry) us twice. They tried to rebuild
   lost confidence, now they have blown it all.

3. Companies should buy DEC equipment and lease it to customers
   ( Question (kidding): 'Wouldn't that be a good
   new service from DECUS for its members?)

4. DEC has become a big company by massive support from the
   government. Now government systems are, because of lack of money,
   in an extremely serious situation.

5. What about old systems, where one only wants or only is able
   to run old SW versions?

6. DEC is already pretty expensive. In the future they'll hardly
   be able to compete with other vendors. Great for IBM.
   (This was mentioned several times)

7. DEC used to have the reputation of a good engineering company.
   This reputation was lost after the Jupiter disaster, the Venus
   being late and the lack of good peripherals (price and performance).
   Now DEC tries to become at least a good marketing company (like IBM?).

8. The legal implications are not clear. Is it possible to change the
   policy also for old systems, which were bought under the knowledge
   or assumption that it would be possible to use the license later
   for another system or to just pay the difference for an upgrade or
   e.g. to be able to sell the system after some time for a good price.
   (I'm personally looking forward to that discussion here in Europe
   and I bet that DEC will have a very hard time here in Germany).

9. The attitude of DEC is very much like their attitude in the
   BI-bus licensing.

10. What about systems which e.g. have been assembled from modules or
    from different parts from different systems by the customer himself?
    (Sometimes this is the only way to get a computer, namely by just
    stating to buy spare parts!). They won't have a DEC system-serial-
    number (which is NOT the cpu serial number) and thereby not eligable
    for a SW license.

Most of the questions could not be answered by the attending DEC managers.
It looked like that nobody really was informed about the details or the
consequences of the decision. It was not even possible to find out
WHOSE decision this was and WHY (the hell) it was taken. It can only
be supposed that it was done in order to attack 3rd party vendors,
brokers and the refurbished systems market. It is likely to attack
and to hurt DEC themselves.

In the US the various SIGs will discuss the matter in the near future.
They'll submit info to the Board which then will discuss it with DEC.

I strongly recommend that it is sorted out immediately what the plans
for Europe are. I guess that DEC will try to implement it worldwide
(even in case they would pstpone it for now in Europe, they'll try
to 'harmonize' their policies later). Dependent on that we should
define our level of activity. In any case, any input or criticism
we have should be forwarded to our friends in the US.

Please feel free to use this memo for whatever you want...

Best regards,
Ralf

If you enjoyed the customer message in .8, then the 145+ other messages
just like it in BULOVA::BULOVA$DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY.SANFRAN]LICENSE_POLICY
(q.v.) will make your day.  VAXnotes was up on a public system at Fall
DECUS, and someone created this conference for customers to comment.
Someone from Digital took all the conferences back and put them in that
directory on BULOVA (write-locked).

While general concerns about customer satisfaction had *better* be related
to "the way we work at Digital", it might be best if people's thoughts
about the license policy change were added to the existing discussion
in topic 371 of HUMAN::MARKETING.
				/AHM/THX
P. S.  Actually, the messages aren't just like .8; most are worse.

    Software licensing issues aside, one of the reasons dealers
    (aka OEMs, VARS) exist is to sell DEC equipment, sometimes
    with applications software, to customers too small for DEC.
    
    For a long time, DEC has been selling more and more to 
    "corporate" customers who buy in large volume, generally
    without (application) software.  Re-sellers such as dealers/
    OEMs/VARs are customers that DEC can work with, because they
    buy in volume.
    
    War stories, about the rug merchant down the street who wanted
    to buy a microVAX but got brushed off by DEC sales, abound.
    I'm as disappointed as the next person that this happens, but
    one thing to DO about it is to point that rug merchant towards
    a reputable 3rd party who is better able to sell them DEC gear.

    once upon a time I was told by a DIGITAL VP that the "cost of sales"
    was approximately $14,000 each!  No wonder they don't feel like
    servicing small accounts!
    
    	Rick
    	Merrill
    

    RE .6
    
    Call SALES???? I can't even get a reply from them!! Working in Field
    Service the only time I hear from them is if a customer (BIG) has
    a problem. Since i've been with DEC 9 yrs. I've ony met 3 SALESPEOPLE
    I have ANY respect for. I don't mean it be nasty just truthful..
    
    And as far as MARKETING goes... I didn't know we had one... :-)
    
    
    Joe_C

Re: .11

If this figure is true for *any* sale, then something must be seriously
wrong.  Can someone explain why selling a small item should cost so much.

I can understand that a $1M system may cost this much to sell, but no way
should a $20k MicroVAX or something of that sort cost so much.

jb

	That number was probably something like


			$$$$ expended on Sales
		  -----------------------------------
			   # of [something] sold

which is the way a beancounter would look at it.

	If they did it scientifically, each Salesperson would track the hours 
spent on EACH Sales situation, and IF successful, then the cost of sales would 
be a little more precise. Of course, the Salesperson is going to spend more 
time on the $$$$$ than the $$$!