Re: Abysmal Informix Support

Update on support: I've gotten a lot of e-mail on this "abysmal support" thread, and about 90% of the replies have been people who have the same problems, or similar. I've gotten tremendous response from Support **after** it got the attention of the proper parties. Actually, it's been a bit of a madhouse around here with assistance and offers of assistance from a lot of Informix folks. I've even had Informix salespeople (not mine) calling trying to make sure that the problems are getting handled. My problem has never been with the quality of the top-end Informix support. Once the problems get into the hands of support engineers who can deal with source code-type-problems, the problems get handled. The big frustration seems to lie in two areas: 1. Getting the case escalated to someone who can, and has the authority to, help. 2. Communication with Informix, both at the support person and at the complaint-handling level. In my discussions with Informix, I've come up with a few suggestions/approaches that may help others with the same problem. First, getting to the right level of support may take some persistence on your part. It's very important to let your first-level support person know the business effects that you are suffering from because of your problem. If you're not satisfied, talk to their manager, or better yet, get his/her e-mail address and send them an explanation of the problem. I'll be looking into the Informix certified professional testing process in order to get access to higher levels of support on the first call. Check the Informix WWW page for more info on this: http://www.informix.com/informix/services/certific/csbrch2.htm The second problem, that of communication, must be solved both by us and by Informix. Informix needs some sort of an ombudsman office or role to handle complaints and problems. I've gotten suggestions that these types of functions should be accessible through WWW, and I agree. As a user, I'm in the software business, and I know how difficult support can be. If a problem can't be fixed, I'm willing to try to work around it (or implement on another platform if necessary), just let me know what's going on! Until Informix moves towards providing WWW-based support, I will be asking for an e-mail address of the support person for ALL support cases. The engineer has the option of giving you this information if he/she wishes. According to Informix, there is no real policy on this...just ask nicely. If the engineer refuses to give you an e-mail address, they are within their rights. You might approach this by offering to email any necessary code segments, setup files, or whatever that the engineer wants to see :) To date, Informix initiates support calls through the 800 number with no provision for initiating or monitoring support cases through e-mail. Once you have an active case, though, handling your communication with the assistance of e-mail will will let you document your problem and the support process and will let you avoid some of the frustrations of telephone tag. I plan to ask for both the support engineer's and the next-level manager's e-mail addresses. If you choose to go the e-mail route, be sure and avoid the temptation to abuse it. Don't try to handle a new problem just by e-mailing your last support engineer. Go through the process and give it a chance to work. For what it's worth, the e-mail responses showed that customers outside the US seemed to be happier with their service than those in the US. I wonder if those outside the US have to deal with the same bureaucratic structure that US customers have to deal with? Copies of this posting are being e-mailed to Jim Hendrickson, VP of Informix, who kindly facilitated solving my problem in this instance. I had an e-mail response from him within three hours of my posting the first article in this thread, as well as a phone message from the North American Director of Support (hope I got the title right, Mark) within four hours. At least this answers one (rhetorical) question in my original post. The honchos **do** care. It's just a matter of finding a way of getting your concerns in front of the right people. Joe "blood pressure now under 200" Lumbley from him and a telephone call -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joe Lumbley(jlumbley@netcom.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------