| Steve: | Lets face it "there are no Free Meals:, but all of the OEM manufacturer's that I work with go the extra mile to satisfy the customers needs. This includes added attention to detail prior to the sale, good quality installations and training, and constant followup after the sale to make darn sure the customer is happy and understands the equipment. | With new technology there is always the learning curve that is difficult at best to over-come, but if the servic isn't there then the customer won't be either. | I have known many companies that consider service and spare parts as a separate business profit center and get so dirty about it that they even want to charge the customer for "nuts and bolts", but trust me, the customer and potential customers will hear about this and business will slow down for that type of OEM company. | Bottom line is "If something is so cheap it is hard to believe you can rest assured that there is something wrong. | Best situation is to work closely with the vendors and gain a good working partnership. Our customers are our best sales tools! | Wayne | ps, got the microsoft internet explorer problem fixed........fun! Hi Wayne! I wish there were more sales people that had your attitude, especially out here in the Silicon valley. But the fact is, out here there are so many companies all doing the same thing, that it creates quite a different atmosphere than the rest of the country has when it comes to service and support...it's just the sheer number of users out here that makes it difficult, even for big guys like Fuji. As a for instance, I've worked at smaller contract houses out here who in the beginning didn't have the kind of money to buy nice new machines. So they struggle and scrape enough money together to buy a used CP from one of the dozens of used equipment dealers out here. Then something happens with the machine that a factory trained service engineer needs to fix... good luck trying to get someone from Fuji to look at your machine...at least within a couple of weeks...that's just the way it is out here. If you're not a new equipment customer, you don't get good support, end of story. It's just not only Fuji, but Panasonic, Siemens, Electrovert, MPM, etc. as well. The valley here is unique in that there's such a high concentration of electronic companies out here, that everybody has to prioritize where best to use their resources. If you were managing a service organization and you had all your service engineers doing installations at Solectron and SCI, and I call up because I'm having problem with the CP-2 that I bought from Giant-Y, do you pull one of your engineers from doing the installations to come and look at my CP-2?...and maybe spend most of the day here trying to fix it? That's what I was talking about when I said I understand that sometimes companies have to make certain decisions to protect the business. From a users point of view I'm gonna be pissed that they won't send me a service engineer to look at my old, tired CP-2, but from a business point of view, I don't expect them to pull a engineer from doing installations at a customer who has just spent $5,000,000 on equipment. It's just a matter of resources and priorities...the business atmosphere out here creates that kind of situation. I don't know if it's like that anywhere else, but that's the way it is here in San Jose... Oh, I gotta question, who doesn't charge for hardware? You know, the nuts and bolts? Every OEM I've ever dealt with charges for EVERYTHING!...right down to "E-rings" and washers. -Steve Gregory-
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