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This forum and AMX Tech Support - Please Read!
ericmedley
Posts: 4,177
Hey all,
I'm making this post to kind of act as a liaison between AMX tech support and this forum.
the short version of the story is that I had a conversation with TS about a problem I was having with Netlinx Studio. During our conversation the TS person said that they had no other reports of the errant behavior. I then told him that there had been some chatter on the forum about the issue over the past year. We then went into some discussion concerning this matter: AMX TS checking/interacting with the forum. The bottom line is that AMX TS does not monitor it as a matter of company policy.
This thread is not to start a discussion on whether or not AMX TS should monitor this forum for issues. That actually is another discussion altogether.
What I'd like to suggest is that (as of now) if we see some kind of issue and are finding it to be something beyond us doing stuff wrong and possibly being something wrong on the AMX side of things, that we, as a forum, make the effort to call AMX TS and notify them by phone, and then let the forum know that we've called TS.
Their complaint is that a lot of stuff happens on the forum that they don't know about because it's not monitored. Here again, I think there's room to argue this stance, but in the interim, we'd all be better served just trying to work with the situation as it exists. If we think we can handle it on an individual basis, that's fine. If the consensus is that we need a single point of contact I'll volunteer for the job or we can nominate someone we feel would get it done.
If the decision of the peanut gallery is that the single point of contact is a good thing, then I'm going to suggest to AMX that they provide some kind of Dealer ID for 'official forum communications' so whoever it ends up being isn't burning up their tech support minutes for stuff that's really forum business. Hopefully, they'll be agreeable to this idea.
Let us all know your thoughts on this please.
e
I'm making this post to kind of act as a liaison between AMX tech support and this forum.
the short version of the story is that I had a conversation with TS about a problem I was having with Netlinx Studio. During our conversation the TS person said that they had no other reports of the errant behavior. I then told him that there had been some chatter on the forum about the issue over the past year. We then went into some discussion concerning this matter: AMX TS checking/interacting with the forum. The bottom line is that AMX TS does not monitor it as a matter of company policy.
This thread is not to start a discussion on whether or not AMX TS should monitor this forum for issues. That actually is another discussion altogether.
What I'd like to suggest is that (as of now) if we see some kind of issue and are finding it to be something beyond us doing stuff wrong and possibly being something wrong on the AMX side of things, that we, as a forum, make the effort to call AMX TS and notify them by phone, and then let the forum know that we've called TS.
Their complaint is that a lot of stuff happens on the forum that they don't know about because it's not monitored. Here again, I think there's room to argue this stance, but in the interim, we'd all be better served just trying to work with the situation as it exists. If we think we can handle it on an individual basis, that's fine. If the consensus is that we need a single point of contact I'll volunteer for the job or we can nominate someone we feel would get it done.
If the decision of the peanut gallery is that the single point of contact is a good thing, then I'm going to suggest to AMX that they provide some kind of Dealer ID for 'official forum communications' so whoever it ends up being isn't burning up their tech support minutes for stuff that's really forum business. Hopefully, they'll be agreeable to this idea.
Let us all know your thoughts on this please.
e
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For a designated TS agent to press WHAT's NEW? once a day and skim the 1 to 20 topics that have traffic would take 5 minutes that could save the company days or weeks of uninformed research. Not to mention having a finger on the pulse of the reported issues.
Even if it were policy for TS not to reply (avoid arguments, avoid "free" TS) except to direct to tech notes or to mention such things as a new firmware that may address a topic... it only makes sense to mine the valuable reports of issues and solutions that often appear here.
We know that some AMX folk sometimes appear here and their input is hugely valuable when they do. To think they are breaking company rules to do so is a shame. On the other hand, I completely understand keeping a tight handle on "company posts". When an employee appears to shun a vendor or dealer or another manufacturer, it can be ugly. Similarly if a post by an employee makes "official" (public) statements about product defects (actual or in error), it can impact federal contracts in unexpected and devastating ways, even voiding them. So it is tricky to reply (and easy to start or enflame an argument), READING them is good for business.
However, the "policy" might not be accurately reported... The real policy may be to STATE that they don't read the forum so as not to be held accountable for the (admittedly hugely variable quality) information here.
We all have heard TS tell us that our report is "the first they heard of it". As we at CineTouch interact with more than AMX 50 dealers on a regular basis, and many more on an occasional basis, and with AMX TS on nearly a daily basis, we know for a fact that many of the "first reports" are anything but that.
Many years ago, we were told by a highly placed employee (no longer in AMX) that TS is instructed to, in general, NOT relate details of previous reports to current callers. This is to prevent the same kind of liability for breach of contracts by an official statement by the company amounting to an admission of product defect. It's a slippery slope between "yeah, we've heard about that" and "it's a defect".
Does that mean the left hand still doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I thought homeland security was supposed to correct that and get the bi-directional communications channels flowing.
I had a beef about this on the Synology forum yesterday when I got a reply stating "this is only a user forum and TS doesn't monitor it". Of course I said that's dumb and you know my feelings, why enlighten the masses when you can do it one person at a time. Job security! AMX isn't a union shop is it?
Although I am allowed to call TS now I still don't unless I'm really in a jam, pressed for time and need an immediate resolution. I think I'm up to 7 calls in 7 years now.
So who should be appointemt the forums liasion? Who's up for the task? Hmmm, maybe AMX should just appoint one of their guys to monitor the forums..... oops that's where this post started, excuse me! Am I bad?
While it is noble for the forum to offer itself in a verbal version to TS, if the policy is not to read the forum, it will surely also be not to listen to it in verbal format. The policy has a reason, and our posturing won't get past the reason. We need to push the policy...
Anyone could see that a volunteer effort to cherry pick issues that TS might care about can never be as effective as a TS agent assigned to watch for trends in a daily review. Really, we all know that should take from 1 to 10 minutes a day, and when it is 10, it's because something important is rolling.
I'll try to get this into our next discussions with management. If we all push a little, movement is more likely than if only one or a few.
E, surely you're not surprised that they said these forums aren't read, are you? What you're suggesting I believe has been said many times by many of us over the years. Here how it works, when am problem or bug gets reported a certain number of times, they begin to investigate. Until it hits that magic number, expect to be "the only one" with that issue.
You can't talk about a solution without discussing the problem.
I beleive that AMX is simply too big for that. With each issue comes a calculated response. If the admission of a fault and the subsequent response will only benefit a few, the decision to move forward is difficult.
Although this may seem like AMX-bashing, it is not. The vast majority of businesses operate in this manner. Think of them as politicians with "talking points." They won't please everybody, so they calculate which efforts will bring the most bang for the buck.
It is what it is and it ain't gonna change.
I won't bother to directly answer a lot of the concerns or comments as I agree with Jeff that they tend to be very 'my business'-centric. I'm including myself in that group.
I know my proposal isn't new or that it hasn't been discusses in myriad ways. I think a lot of you might be missing on a subtlety of this approach. My idea is that if we the forum think we've found an issue and then we the forum decide to 'officially' let TS know about it and then we the forum then report back here on the forum that we've notified TS about it and TS now has a record of the call we now have documentation to counter any claims that they've never heard the problem before. It's just creating a public paper trail that both parties can reference. (I suppose AMX has the final veto power since they can delete posts if they choose to...)
In addition, simply grumbling about it here but not telling TS is also not productive. I do see this happening, policy aside. I agree that it's silly but I'm past the silliness of it. I just want my issues resolved.
the way I personally go about trying to resolve any problems I have with anything AMX is to come here first and seek the real-world knowledge and experience of the forum members. If I don't find anything or get any help, I escalate it to AMX TS.
I'm sure the official monitoring policy differs from reality and when they say they haven't heard of an issue before it may actually be as mentioned earlier that they just haven't heard it enough times yet for it to be considered a "known issue".
It is really politics as usual and a sad reflection of the times we live in.
Nope, just the brain snatchers: mine...
I mispoke...
I say don't make a stink and force AMX to tell their guys, "Never respond to anything on the forums, period." If they can't or won't provide an official liaison, I'd rather we had some unofficial participation than none at all. Getting aggressive about it on our end might simply cause some higher-up bean counter to pull the plug altogether.
Most of the time, the support we provide one another is all that is needed to resolve an issue. If it comes to something that we can't work out, call it in, and post the resolution after the fact.
Back to the topic at hand... could the group/person responsible for the forums add a button to threads/posts similar to the REPORT THIS POST type button, but have this new button be a SEND TO TECH SUPPORT type button? After a post is sent to tech support once, it becomes flagged to let forum users know and also prevents multiple emails to tech support. To further minimize tech support spam, maybe only allow members with at least 50 posts use the SEND TO TECH SUPPORT feature? This would also allow removing the ability from posters that don't know when to send or intentionally flood tech support with spam. This addresses the issue of easily transferring data that has already been compiled in the forums to those that can explore the issue. This would also ease the burden of having to read every post to stay on top of the forum. If we want to get really fancy, a post could have a red banner when reported, a yellow banner when the post has been read by AMX, and a green banner when the matter is considered resolved by AMX. This would remove the need for AMX to post replies while still maintaining some feedback to those in the forum so they don't wonder if the issue has been seen.
Maybe even add an orange banner if AMX is looking for more information or in need of forum users to run tests on live gear. This could leverage the power of numbers when trying to collect meaningful data (notice I didn't say confirm or deny a problem exists
Just some random Friday thoughts,
Jeff
I'm gonna have to disagree with ya Jeff about this. The reason why these forums are not a form of tech support, and in my opinion should NOT be, is because they're public. There are several end-users here on the forum, and for them to be able to "report" a problem to TS to me is very scary. In order to have any type of electronic tech support it should be from a privately logged in website such as our amx.com accounts and even then, it should be a premium service.
I'm going to be brutally honest here - if I was tech support and even read a quarter of the posts on the forum, I sure as hell wouldn't want what is being proposed. I would dread coming into work everyday knowing that some trunk slammer is most likely going to send me a message asking why such-and-such doesn't work in their code. I wouldn't want Joe-Schmoe who sells a system once every 3 months to be asking a ton of stupid questions that shouldn't even need to be asked. In my opinion AMX needs emphasize more training and technical documentation for people to read rather than opening up more avenues to get tech support. If there are REAL bugs, then yes - they need to be reported, but there are way too many people on here who don't know crap from Shinola and it shows in their posts, and that's quite embarrassing. It's even worse when some of the questions are asked by supposed ACE members. Looking at the quality of posts in the non-ACE section is shocking. Some of the posts are the equivalent to a PC user asking Dell why an icon disappeared when after investigating they only come to realize they uninstalled the application. Giving some of the users on here another way to access TS only put AMX back to square one with tech support.
I have been extremely satisfied with the level and access of tech support. They truly are the best in the industry, why would we want to change that?
Also - how hard is it to pick up a phone?
In order to get a dedicated AMX TS staffer to monitor the forums they would also likely need someone from legal to screen every outgoing post so that nothing said publically could be used to bite them in the a$$. These are the times we live in, everyones out to screw everyone else and even if that isn't really true lawyers will tell you that's the way it is to substantiate the need for them (job security). You don't eat, sleep or take a crap with out first running it through legal to make sure your a$$ is covered.
I understand why the policy exists given the world we live in, I just wish it wasn't so.
Those random thoughts resemble a bugtracker. And imo the best addition, not forum participation. But a place where we can report the bugs we're having and see some tracking on the issues and where we can respond on the issues. AMX could then respond on those specific bugs as well.
They could go a step further though and include a roadmap/feature request, so we can actually see what's in store or at least request features we deem necessary.
I can't comment on the quality of tech support in the US, but here in the EU/UK the quality is rather bad. Often times they just don't know the answer or they have to contemplate with their peers. (Which is alright if that would get me an answer). Generally when I call them the matter is pressing, so I quick reply is necessary.
But if the tech-support is top-notch in the US I can see where you're coming from.
http://www.youtube.com/amxtalk#p/a/u/1/fRU5WpBKKFw
If in fact they have a policy to not interact on their own forum, this is a little crazy.
I agree, their recent 'push' into social media is somewhat token but hey if they didn't chances are we would be the same people whinging they don't have a presence.