The true value of customer service

Got a call from an occasional SME client whose anti-virus had past it's renew-by date, and this being a recession they had decided to renew it themselves. The reseller advised them the original product didn't suit their requirements, and pointed them at the vendors web managed "lite" solution instead. Their system administrator (who's also their accounts bod, phone technician, air conditioning expert, and general all round have-a-go hero) managed the removal of the old and the installation of the new. So far, so normal.

Some days later the new product caved in and refused to update. "Company key not valid!" it cried. Our have-a-go hero rang the vendors technical support line, only to be told they didn't have a license for the installed product which they'd purchased and downloaded only just the week before. They carefully provided all the relevant details to the vendor support people, but "computer says no" seemed to be the general approach of the vendor.

They were unable to progress the issue, and so it was that last week I found myself repeating all of the same information to an equally dis-interested technical support rep. I however, was able to discover that while they didn't have a license for the product they purchased, they did have a license for the current version of the original AV product. This was a good thing because the original product was a far superior (and more expensive) animal to the one they'd purchased in lieu at the reseller's advice. This was also a bad thing, as they didn't have the necessary access to download the installation files since they didn't have a technical support agreement for that product, but apparently did for the inferior one they'd purchased.

It took a frustrating afternoon of long distance calls to access the inner circles of the vendor in question, and thus to elevate the issue to someone with sufficient authority to untangle the wires and make the electrons flow again. It appears that the purchase which was intended to replace a previous product had instead been processed as a renewal of the previous product, something the technical support people were not empowered to correct.

Ultimately, the client ended up with a top drawer product at a bottom drawer price, (consultancy fees notwithstanding), thanks to the vendor making a gesture of goodwill and upgrading the client to the superior product free of charge.

There's a moral here for anyone who sells software. Make sure your back office operations match your front office aspirations. There's nothing in your product quite as valuable as the trust a customer places in your reputation.