[Articles] Homeseer Technologies to charge for technical support

[CT Droid]

It looks like Homeseer Technologies will no longer offer direct technical support to its customers for free.  You can purchase a subscription for priority customer support, or use the HST forums to ask fellow customers for help with your issues.  The helpdesk will now be used for basic issues such as sales/order info, and licensing questions.

While this is not unheard off (CQC doesn't officially support DIY customers either, but CQC community support seems to be extremely effective), many Cocooners are Homeseer users already, and probably didn't count on this when they purchased the software.  Since the announcement was not open to the public, I have posted the announcement below.

Read more for the original announcement:



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[gatchel]

This is becoming common with a lot of products I deal with. If people would RTM a good portion of tech support calls would be avoided with most products.

 

[cslawson]

This is becoming common with a lot of products I deal with. If people would RTM a good portion of tech support calls would be avoided with most products.

Ditto on RTM - as former wizard of Convergent I can tell you it ate our lunch ad often we discussed charging but in practicality, hard to do...plus we grew (or shrank) by feedback. Conversely 50% of our sales were overseas and VERY rarely got support calls...some obvious reasons but they did RTM b/c they could not easily call. One of my pet peaves with the "pro" industry is this over-reliance on manfuacturers to train every employee. Sometimes over and over again.

 

[IVB]

god, these guys should stay away from avsforum - every other thread is "what lighting technology is right for me", or "how do i distribute my a/v", or "what type of wiring is needed to do <x>".

Keeps my post count up, though :unsure:

 

[sonypoolplr]

god, these guys should stay away from avsforum - every other thread is "what lighting technology is right for me", or "how do i distribute my a/v", or "what type of wiring is needed to do <x>".

Keeps my post count up, though :unsure:

I think that brings up a whole nother issue of people not searching before posting a question. 99 times out of 100 the question probably has already been aswered. But if not, at least by reading some of the posts it would narrow down the scope of the question.

 

[Squintz]

99 times out of 100 the question probably has already been aswered.

If the question has been answered 99% of the time then that leaves only 1% of the time for us to discuss home automation. I agree that the search feature should be used but I don't care if someone starts a new topic. Often people start new topics because they were not able to find the answer from searching or they found the answer but it's not specific enough to what their needs are. If a topic with the answer to a question is over a few months old then the answer may be out dated and a new thread may be warranted.

I can see manufactures not being able to answer support questions freely. That's just business! However, on private forums such as this one I would never discourage anyone from asking a question in any way. So what if someone does not use the search button first. Is it really that hard for you to point that person in the right direction. Maybe he/she simply could not find the post by searching because maybe they are using the full name instead of an acronym of an item like we would tend to use. You never know what the situation is. So instead of saying... RTM just point them to the section in TM and offer them extra help if they need it.

 

[IVB]

99 times out of 100 the question probably has already been aswered.

If the question has been answered 99% of the time then that leaves only 1% of the time for us to discuss home automation. I agree that the search feature should be used but I don't care if someone starts a new topic. Often people start new topics because they were not able to find the answer from searching or they found the answer but it's not specific enough to what their needs are. If a topic with the answer to a question is over a few months old then the answer may be out dated and a new thread may be warranted.

I can see manufactures not being able to answer support questions freely. That's just business! However, on private forums such as this one I would never discourage anyone from asking a question in any way. So what if someone does not use the search button first. Is it really that hard for you to point that person in the right direction. Maybe he/she simply could not find the post by searching because maybe they are using the full name instead of an acronym of an item like we would tend to use. You never know what the situation is. So instead of saying... RTM just point them to the section in TM and offer them extra help if they need it.

Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying we shouldn't be helpful, but on avsforum many times you will see 4 threads on the FIRST PAGE that all ask the same question. Hell, I remember once we had 6 threads with the almost identical title, all asking the same exact question. People only bothered answering it in one of the 6 threads, which meant that info was spread out all over the place, and tons of crap like "what <xx> said in the other thread may apply here, but keep <yyy> in mind".

The issue I have is patent laziness; my god man, if you cannot even be bothered to read the first page of forum threads, much less the first 5 pages, then what the hell makes you think you have any business adding home automation to your house in the first place?

 

[TheSpoon]

The issue I have is patent laziness; my god man, if you cannot even be bothered to read the first page of forum threads, much less the first 5 pages, then what the hell makes you think you have any business adding home automation to your house in the first place?

Wouldn't this be the EXACT reason they would want home automation? :unsure:

**EDIT** Just reread the post. When you say "what the hell makes you think you have any business adding home automation to your house" you mean the DIY version of adding it... not having someone add it. Your argument becomes clearer...

 

[sonypoolplr]

I was trying to say basicly the same thing. Hell I have asked tons of questions in the various forums and the answers have ranged from the very helpfull to the one line reply of search first. I am guilty of asking things without searching first, but I have started searching first and then asking a follow up question if the thread is out of date or unclear.

I think if it is a specific question about a switch, module, relay etc. then the question should be asked without even bothering to search, but the generic "what is right for me" could probably be asnswered with a search, and even then, what is right for me might not be right for you.