Analogic Computers - The Stinker

[Jettah]

@thread

Every reseller of Amiga-goodies seems to misinterprete the book on The Reseller's Proper Practices.

In the years past I purchased quite a lot of stuff from my supplier. Up to an amount of some 7000.-- Euri's. Including an x86-based Amiga Develloper system as it was then advertised. Not a small customer by any measure I'd think!

But one day I ordered some stuff and got the wrong one, so returned it straight away after calling the company about it. Still awaiting the replacement or refund (E50.00). Amiga Format dropped beside the road. My supplier used to send me a copy of it every month. While still three copies to go, AF suddenly stopped. Instead I got a chance to jump on the AmigActive bandwagon, as my supplier made me an offer to change accordingly: my remaining rights to 3 AF's(Note well: with accompanying CD-ROM) were supplanted with a right to get exactly one copy of AA (Note well: without CD-ROM). Later on I paid for my annual subscription to AA and while having paid for it, nearly at the same moment AA dropped also by the wayside.
All this has set me back, IIRC, some 230 Euri's, so I wrote a letter about this and a second one a few months later. Now after 4 years I still have no reply. If I'd only gotten an explication about it, I would not make all this fuss about it, but nothing came.
And now that I'm looking for an A1 I'm NOT inclined to call on my former supplier! But that A1 will be here sooner or later (rather sooner then later).

My 2 cents...

Jettah

[Jettah]

amigakit wrote:
Some interesting points here:

* Amigans never forget bad service- even years after
* Market is too small for dealers to alienate some users and move onto other Amigans.
* Bad experiences are always documented- not the countless good transactions.

About your first point:
When my car dealer would apply bad service, I would make a complaint about it. Equally so when the supplier of household machines would apply bad service. This is NOT Amiga specific!

About your second point:
Very, very true! Could not agree more.

About your third point:
Good transactions are expected, as they are paid for! That's why they go unnoticed. Anything that is out of order in your perception, is litterly remarkable. But when someone provides a service of a quality above expected, it is being made known publically. As that Swedish reseller, who supplied free SiL0680 cards to A1 purchasers to overcome a hardware issue. Can't say it went unnoticed.

My opinion.

Jettah

[Jettah]

@AmigaKit

You've got a point there. But when a customer writes a letter as to inquire after some practices and none of those letters have been answered to, then that customer may justifyingly regard himself as being pissed off. In my case ANY answer would have been sufficient, as long as it had been an answer with some body.
Being in some kind of trade myself, although due to worldwide market situations not so actively anymore, I may speak of having had pleasant encounters with my customers when it came to knowledge of the matters at hand. I have always felt that the better the (potential) customer was informed the better it was for all involved.
I have had very little complaints at that time and those that eventually came through were dealt with in a proper way, me not being Sinterklaas (Dutch for Santa Claus).

So even as a reseller is a customer in his own right he cannot and may not neglect the final customer! My reseller did and is rewarded for that in my own way: no more business even when he's about 50% cheaper, faster, better, whatever!My money is as good as anyone's and I want to be treated with due respect. And, yes I take the particular Amiga-market into account: guess what I could have gotten myself for that 7000.-- Euri's Windoze-(un)wise!But that would include headaches by the score, extensive headbalding, heargreying and nightmares to boot probably :-D

Cheers,

Jettah