Believe it or not, I just had a great experience with customer service. What’s even more interesting is that it was on live chat. Who you may ask actually had great customer service? Why DELL did. We received a new XPS 420 Vista with 23″ flat panel for Christmas. As I was putting the system together I noticed that the monitor was not equipped to accept the clip on speaker set power connection. I kept looking for the power adapter in the box to no avail. Must have power for the speakers. So, I jumped on the DELL website and looked around for “power supplies” for a little while with no luck. Decided to try the Live Chat on the Support tab. I got immediate connection and within 15 minuets of starting the chat I had complete resolution. DELL will be sending me a new speaker set (with power adapter) and return shipment of the old one via FedEx. I couldn’t be more happy. Is customer service dead? From what I just experienced, I don’t think it’s dead. Is this typical? Will It happen again? I hope so on both accounts.
In recent weeks a common topic has been brought up on various SolidWorks blogs and on Twitter amongst users, bloggers and 3-D CAD industry folks. This topic is why are ______ (insert your favorite 3-D CAD software here) users so blind to the “obvious” flaws in the software they use and why are they so rabidly devoted to the software. Well, those are pretty good questions. Let me give you my take on this phenomenon.
I started out my career using AutoCAD and CADAM and then moved to 3-D using SolidWorks, SolidEdge and Catia. The most time was spent on SolidWorks because that’s what the company I was working for bought and maintained for its design/drafting software. I worked for that company for almost 10 years. So lets take a look at look at this. I used the same software for 10 years. I want to change jobs, so what is on my resume? 10 years experience with the same software package. What package does the company looking at my resume use? Hmm, the same software I have 10 years experience with. What software do I expect to use at the new company? Now back to the question, If I have several years experience with anything then I am going to be a valuable resource for that thing. The same applies to software. Do I know every function and feature and trick? probably not! But I know a heck of a lot, so why not share it. Does the software do everything I want it to do and/or does it do it easily? Probably not! Are their bugs in the software? Probably so! Can the software be used for what I need to do? Probably so. Is the company going to spend money to buy new software just because I can’t make one feature work? Probably not! We use what we have at the companies we work for.
Are most users rabid? I don’t think the average users are any more excited about their 3-D CAD software than an assembly line worker is about the wrench he is using to put a product together. It’s a tool. Are some users active? You BET! Because they know things about the software and how it works or how to do a work around for a design or which button to push; their is a responsibility to share that. How do they share what they know? Some folks do in house company training of their employees. Some participate in a local user group and might even present. Some present at larger venues and some blog about the knowledge they have. I have found that most that do the latter are not in it for glory or noteriety but are in it to help the average user i.e. EDUCATION. If you look at most CAD sites, they are set up for educational purposes and most of the blogs have visitor input available so that questions and comments can be added to what is already available. The sum of all this is education for the users of the software.
In conclusion, what should be the response to those questions? Well everyone knows that software has flaws and every CAD software has flaws. Can it still get the job done? Yes it can. Are their going to be devotees to a particular software? Yes there are. But you need to ask why are they devoted before passing judgment.
For my first post, I thought I would share something fun since SolidWorks World 2009 (#SWW09 in twitter) is coming up in a few days. How many folks have ever worked on SW 95 much less have seen the original disc and User’s Guide? Well, I started out on SW 95 with a company in my distant past. We were very small but technically savy. As a 2-D house, we were looking to make the jump to a 3-D CADD package. One of my co-workers knew someone who had just had a demo of this new parasolid kernel based 3-D software called SolidWorks. In late ‘95 we had a demo from a VAR out of Atlanta and bought our first 2 seats with one seat of PhotoWorks in Early ‘96. Being in a small company allowed me to keep my hands on certain “things” and as the company changed hands a few times, I retained posession of all the discs and most of the user’s guides up through SW 2007. At SolidWorks World 2007 in New Orleans, I had the pleasure of meeting a group of the SolidWorks bloggers. I was asked to join them since Ricky Jordan (of rickyjordan.com) and I are from the same user group and we were hanging around together. During Sunday nights Superbowl party, the conversation turned to who had been using SW the longest. As it turned out it ended up being me so that’s when I supprised the group by pulling the disc and guide out of my travel bag. I brought them with the intention of trying to get some autographs. Everyone laughed and the first question that popped out was “what were the system requirements?”. In the mean time Brian McElyea (of CADFanatic.com) was in the food line refilling his plate with wings or hotdogs or something and ran into John McEleney then president of SolidWorks. Brian mentioned the guide and our conversation so John came over to the table and introduced himself to me and started talking about SolidWorks. I asked him if he would autograph the guide and as he was about to sign he asked the question “what were the system requirements?”. The table erupted in laughter. The next morning I was lucky enough to have John Hirschtick autograph the guide as well.
Ben Eadie from solidmentor.com was covering the event and made the following video. Thanks Ben for the nice comments.
