Comment Customer Support vs Technical Support (Score 2, Interesting) 228
Comparing Amazon's 'free' customer support to a tech company's customer suppport is right up there with comparing today's gas station attendant to an auto mechanic. Amazon's support staff is generally tasked with "Where do I find", "I haven't received . ." and "I need to return" as opposed to "I have 30 users getting timed out of our system because of a deadlock on XYZ table", "How can I set up this web app to support double-byte", or "I'm getting a client java.io.IOException; fix it".
BOTH are customer service issues, and BOTH are huge opportunities for a company to shine in the relationship department with their clients. However, neither of them are free. While one may not charge the customer up front for the service, both of them generate overhead in the form of manpower, office space and benefits (remember those?). New concept here: the purpose of a business is to Make Money; not sure, but I think that is why they call it a business. So, if one is not charging for their customer service, chances are good that they are either rolling up the cost into their product prices, averaging the support costs over their entire customer base, OR they are eating it, and will likely be in the red soon. This may not be true in every case, but certainly is when dealing with a staff dedicated to support issues.
BOTH are customer service issues, and BOTH are huge opportunities for a company to shine in the relationship department with their clients. However, neither of them are free. While one may not charge the customer up front for the service, both of them generate overhead in the form of manpower, office space and benefits (remember those?). New concept here: the purpose of a business is to Make Money; not sure, but I think that is why they call it a business. So, if one is not charging for their customer service, chances are good that they are either rolling up the cost into their product prices, averaging the support costs over their entire customer base, OR they are eating it, and will likely be in the red soon. This may not be true in every case, but certainly is when dealing with a staff dedicated to support issues.
