But if tech support doesn't answer in 30 minutes don't you get a free pizza or something?
.
But they do answer (
ETC that is). More importantly, they have support that seemingly logs all kinds of useful solutions to all kinds of problems. Thus you can be talking to a newbie tech service person, who has access to the data
base of all the answers. Not just what THEY'VE learned and can pass on, but seemingly what everybody at
ETC knows. So they all are going to know if there's a
bug in an Emphasis that is not going to get fixed anytime soon and they'll tell you.
As to
Strand, a story. I have a younger colleague
call me 3 weeks ago, seems she can't get a
Strand 300 to work. It's a high school in NYC and nobody at the school knows 'nuthin. No
manual either. So she calls me and I'm at work and have access to the Internet. I go to the
Strand website, and much to my surprise, there's ready access to all kinds of download stuff for the 300, but no
manual available on-line. Hmmm... No luck in the archives, and at this
point if some wag tells me it's at "http://strand300 manualhere.com" too bad. I COULD NOT READILY AND EASILY FIND IT, WHEN I NEEDED IT !.
I then suggested calling
Strand tech support and there are 3 folks listed on the site. She calls all 3 and leaves voice messages. She calls BML, Big Apple and
PRG. NOBODY CALLS HER BACK. Not even
Strand.
Recently there was a posting on the LightNetwork for a position opening at
Strand for tech support. My first thought is they need to be advertising for 10 people, not 1.
My second thought is I don't care what the new
Strand consoles are like, or how great they are. I will gladly wait anything
ETC puts out -
Ion Jr., whatever and if I don't like what they come out with, then I'll go with a company that answers the phone, but it won't be
Strand. Not for a while in my opinion.
Steve Bailey
Brooklyn College