Quote:
I've noticed that those who have problems are most vocal. And they tend to seek out every possible source of aid. Thus, we get a lot of those people right here. It would be nice to actually get some idea of how often a bug/crash occurs. Presuming that our customers' experiences are normal, I've not seen but about 1-in-12 or 1-in-15 customers reporting problems. That could be the customers we attracted were more willing to be patient with a first-generation device; only time will tell the whole story.
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Of course you will find more critical people on a forum like this because 1) people who have problems flock here to find solutions but also 2) people who are very much interested in their device and like to get the most out of it come here and the latter tend to also be more critical than the average customer.
I count myself in the 2nd category and - as a happy customer (except for a little fighting to get everything delivered) - I think I can give a rather unbiased (or at least not excessively biased) opinion on the issue which is that it is perfectly acceptable that the firmware is still not out. I know that it is a little subjective how one feels about the severeness of a bug but if I compare it to other devices I've had I think the issues are minor because they don't make the core features unusable to a large number of customers. Plus there is already an update to fix a few of the more annoying things for people who contact them.
BUT - and mind you, it's a BIG but - I wholeheartedly agree with everyone complaining here about the lack of communication and planning.
1) I think it is most unwise to give out dates to individual customers, one should never do that. Either you publicly announce it or tell everyone that you don't have a date.
2) If you give some information give it to everyone. Having each customer ask for the same thing over and over again is a huge waste of ressources. No wonder their customer service is unresponsive at times if they have to answer several hundred e-mails all asking about the next firmware (I'm assuming Harry isn't the only one ;-)
3) Use the blog. I've seen there is a short note up telling everyone that it'll take a bit longer to get the FW out and it's really not a big thing, I guess most people could wait for a couple of weeks more if only they were told what was happening. All I can say is: Was it really that hard to put those few lines up?
4) In my opinion good customer support is 80% about good communication. Most customers are actually quite nice people and understand if you tell them that it hasn't quite worked out the way you wanted to and explain to them what will happen next. BUT you have to inform people in advance. If customers complain about unkept promises and AFTERWARDS you tell them some excuse and tell them to wait some more, most people get rather angry even about relatively minor issues. Same with dates you give: If you tell people BEFORE a deadline is due that you need some more time, most people will understand. If you tell them AFTER the date has passed most people will not believe you the next date you give them. That's just how people work ;-)