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1.) "I can understand that sometimes we are not able to plan
in advance"
You know we can't
plan in advance; What does that supposed to mean??? we can plan in advance
EVERYTIME we make a sale. How can we even make a decent sale if we can't
plan in advance, the whole basis on a air tight operations is the planning in
advance from the beginning. Give me a break. If we get the sales
people involved from the beginning like they are supposed to be we would know
the topology of the County and be able to recreate the situation to a T in
the McKinney office. On the other hand if we have people in the field who
don't understand the technology and O/S on at least a basic level then we will
never be able to create a perfect situation. Right now because McKinney is
not involved or informed from the point when the RFP gets printed to the time
the server hits my door we are NOT capable of satisfying every request everyone
needs to make.
2.) " I had to
finish setting up the Server "
By finish, what
exactly do you mean. Once the O/S is installed and the services are
installed the setup is complete,,now the settings have to be tailored to the
CO's specific needs,,of which I need to know from the time the sale is
proposed.
3.) "I can understand that sometimes we are not able to plan
in advance, for the ordering of computers & other components. However,
we need to establish some sort of Document, that is filled
out with a new Customer or when Demonstrations are done, as far in advance as
possible, so we can do more planning in advance, and get the Quality
Assurance & testing that is necessary for the setup of the Server and
other components. This is the second time that this has happened to me,
where the Server was not setup completely, and it also happened to Greg Forsythe
last week in Indiana."
This so called Document you speak of,,is this not the
combination of a finished RFP and a work-order which we already have in
place??? And if so, it is clear that communication is the problem.
The McKinney office has to be aggressively proactive just to get any information
that originates from the beginning of the sale, then the puzzle work
begins. Greg is a salesman, and should not EVER be put in a
technical situation. I know we are spread thin at this company but if we
insist on putting not-technical people in a support position then we have no
choice but to expect problems.
4.) "If we know what is needed for a customer,
then the Server and all other components need to be ordered, shipped to
McKinney, configured and tested before it is sent to the customer
site"
I agree completely,
right now we have salesman who are creating these work orders who do not
understand the technical infrastructure that needs to be in place.
Therefore, we have orders being made that don't meet the counties
needs. Example, Maryland, we set them up for a PortServer II interface,
when in fact (we found out later) they needed to be setup for modem interface
and they are not going to be using the Port Server II.
5.) "Also, if the printer would have been setup and tested, we would
have found out that the duplexer was not the correct
one."
"QMS 4032 Printer -
Configured and Tested with 6' cable.
We need to order the QMS 4032 printer to replace the
Minolta Pageworks 20, that they currently have. Apparently this was
promised to them on the first contract. The Minolta Pageworks 20 was
just on loan to them at the time."(Jeff's March 5th email of
requests).
I see nothing in this request about a
duplexer needing to be sent let alone tested with this QMS printer. Bill
has informed me that the duplexer he ordered is the same part number that it has
been since we started buying them, also the part was intended for the QMS
4032. Therefore what we have is improper onsite
installation.
6.) "It becomes very
frustrating as a support person, to have to go through the same routine over and
over"
I couldn't agree with you
more!!!!!
7.) "The objective of
the support person, when going out to a customer site, is to focus on Training,
not to have to debug and setup a Server and other components, when we have
people in the McKinney office who are supposed to do
this."
The object of the support person to be able to handle
any situation from top down.
If we in the
McKinney office do not get a call from each person in the field that has a
specific request how are we supposed to know when and how to tailor
this install to the county's specific need, that is why there is a default
install. And this default install allows our competent support people to
make changes to tailor the setup of the counties. Now if we need to make
an out of the box system for our "support" people, and our support people have
problems setting it up properly how can they even troubleshoot the problems that
might occur in the future. Pointing fingers to the origin of the machine
will get nothing done, if people in the field aren't capable of making the right
setting and decisions about the server's situation then a personal call to the
McKinney office prior to making the sale explaining what specific parameters
need to be set, needs to be made.
It's clearly
apparent we need periodical training for our support people.
This is not a topic to discuss
in email, those who have a problem with the way a system is setup may give me a
call at ANYTIME at home, work or on my cell and I will be more than happy
to handle your situation.
Thanks,
Robert
McDonald
Home
972-633-0926
Work 972-542-6000
x156
Cell
214-403-4736
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