It is better
to not be on
the web than
to be on and
not know why
John Sumser

Reality
is more
complex
than
it seems.
John Gall

It's better to
do a few things
really well than
than to do
a lot of things
badly.
If you can't
make the necessary
commitments of
time and energy
to your
electronic
marketing
efforts
scale back
your plan.
John Sumser

OUR HOME

At its very best, technical support of complex systems is a thankless job. Extremely billable and profitable for enterprise software companies, our industry understaffs with the wrong people because it's a part of overhead.

On the other hand, pricing seems to vary with the level of embedded service. As we mentioned in an earlier article, it is no longer possible to tell the difference between an employment agency of any type and a job board. Differing price points and customer service, maybe. The basic product is the same, however.

Don't misunderstand. The service levels of typical search and placement firms are nothing to aspire to. Unable to fill huge percentages of their orders, notoriously unethical, uniformly disliked by their customers, understood as the "last resort", the only thing that makes these players look good is the comparison with their new peers. For the price differential, you'd expect much more.

In spite of the possibility for gaining a competitive edge, search firms often offer moronic ideas like this one:

For further information you can contact a real person @brilliantpeople.com. We'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks, and good luck!

It's worse than that. In mature industries, it is well understood that everyone in the organization has an impact on customer satisfaction. Here, the customer service people are relegated to the organizational back waters. While there are tried and true solutions to the customer service problem, it's as if no one ever heard of them in our industry.

- John Sumser © TwoColorHat. All Rights Reserved.

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