LOR Staff Posted November 20, 2017 Author Share Posted November 20, 2017 I NEED IT ASAP! This is one of the busiest weeks of the year for us. Now through Friday we will do thousands of orders, thousands of tickets, and a ton of calls. If you look at our online store you are going to see that most things now say 2-3 days to ship, if not longer. Not to mention this is going to be a short week with the Thursday holiday. I'm sorry, but there is just no way I can promise that you will have whatever it is you order in time for Thanksgiving or even this weekend. I understand that you promised the world things would be running Saturday, but that doesn't allow me to put you in front of everyone else who placed an order before you. The same will hold true for technical support. We do our best to serve all and we do that first come first served. The following are ALWAYS going to be true in this world: You will forget to order something Something will break requiring repair You will forget how to do something or use something If your date is very very important, YOU must give the date the importance. That means testing your entire setup WELL before the cut off date. You should be set up well in advance, and should be checking and rechecking things daily. You may also want to have spares in case of failure if your date and/or display are that important. We sympathize with you if something fails. We will do our best to try to get you up and running and keep you up and running. But only you can ensure that you are going to be successful, and if that includes a drop dead date, or 0 down time, you should be planning accordingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted December 14, 2017 Author Share Posted December 14, 2017 Thanks! I've talked to many of you this season, and about once a day a conversation goes like this: "Are you DevMike on the Forums?" "Yes I am." "I love your posts in that one thread of yours! [Ed: This thread you are reading now']" THANKS! I will say that it is difficult to put some of this down without offending people (which I am very good at!) or our customers. I am not sure if I succeed in that or not, but right now the number of people who like this thread is many, while I have not had anyone tell me I was a jerk because of it. About the only negative I hear is that it is locked to other people. Sorry! What I don't want is a 'bully' thread where we start to make attacks personal. Of course you can always send me a PM and ask if you like. Or share. A problem shared is a problem halved. A customer halved on the other hand won't be calling back! How much has this thread helped? I suspect 0. Let's face it - everything I've ever posted here really should be common sense. 99% of you take all these to heart because it is either the logical or decent thing to do. The other 1% (the ones that prompted these postings in the first place) are never going to learn. I will say that this thread is therapeutic for the author! Writing about the circumstances of the incident here gives me an outlet. I did go back through some of these posts and estimated how many I had of each this season. On 10/29/2012 at 10:11 AM, DevMike said: Examples of information you should include in your help desk ticket: if you looking for an order's status, include the order number if you need international shipping costs, include your address if you have a software license question, include your license number and registration eMail. HUNDREDS. Thousands maybe didn't include basic information. On 11/9/2012 at 2:41 PM, DevMike said: So what's all this rambling got to do with being Human and having feelings? Well..... While I won't say that you won't be helped (see above), personal attacks on us poor humble folks probably won't endear you to anyone. Saying things like we're stupid, or that we don't respond to you fast enough because that's all we have are problems will not get you service any faster. Inferring that we are clueless and that everyone must be having the same problem as you will force me to go looking to ensure that is not true -- which will take much longer than just asking about the issue you have. At least 1 per day. Since Nov 1 I've killed at least 15 babies (according to the customer's anger). On 12/3/2012 at 11:10 AM, DevMike said: So while what he said is TECHNICALLY correct (the car won't start), he could have saved us all a lot of time by saying the keys were missing up front. 2-3 times a day. If you can't figure out how to write an SD card for your MP3 director, don't tell me the FM transmitter is only broadcasting dead air. (Happened. No lie) On 10/14/2014 at 11:58 AM, DevMike said: Unfortunately, some customers either don't perform the steps as outlined, get upset that we are asking them to do something very simple, or refuse to believe us when we take them down a path and tell them where the issue is. At that point we have to ask you to perform the steps again and stress that they are done as described, or we have to convince you that we know what we are doing. One in every 20 tickets. Most will pound their chest that they are some magical 400lb gorilla of technology and they know the best way to test something. One even used the argument that he was a rocket scientist in real life! (I kid you not). On 10/14/2014 at 11:58 AM, DevMike said: So when you create a help desk ticket, or even post here on the forums, you need to try to type coherently with at least a passing nod to the rules of proper grammar. One ticket a week is so bad that I can't decipher it. Our Japanese customers who use Google Translate write more coherent English! (FYI: if English is not your first language we will NEVER make fun of you! We will work our butts off to try to understand you. DO NOT let your embarrassment prevent you from opening a ticket. We very much APPRECIATE that you are trying, just like you would appreciate someone trying to speak your language. On the other hand, if you are a native English speaker use a period, a capital letter, and a comma once in a while will ya!) On 10/24/2014 at 4:14 PM, DevMike said: When I'm assisting customers it is my responsibility to solve your issue as expediently as possible. I have to quickly assess the current issue, formulate a plan to fix the issue, and then convey to you that information. Many times the fix for an issue is telling the customer to 'Read The Manual'. Many tickets can be dumped into this bucket. The ones that are the most frustrating (and the ones I count here) are the people who make 0 effort to read anything. Do you have Netflix? If so, go watch 'Canada's Worst Handyman'. Have one of these handy. (Note to my dear Cannuck friends: I do not mean to imply that all Canadians are bad handy men. That's just the name of the show. It was filmed there. Go get a twofour!) On 12/3/2014 at 10:04 PM, DevMike said: When you are interacting with another person, that person deserves your FULL UNDIVIDED attention. It doesn't matter if you are ordering a sandwich at the local deli, in the checkout line of your grocery store, driving your car, or talking to me on the phone for a software/hardware issue. At that point in time your full attention should be on what you are doing at that exact moment and NO WHERE ELSE. Time to get serious for a moment. PLEASE DON'T CALL ME WHILE YOU ARE DRIVING! Just DON'T DO IT. In fact, don't call ANYONE while you are driving. If you get into an accident while talking to me on a phone I will not forgive myself and that is guilt I can do without. Your lights are not that important. On 10/28/2015 at 2:03 PM, DevMike said: For example, let's say that we screwed up your order and this is your initial contact with us over the issue. You are NOT going to get any better service by saying things like "I'm not impressed!" or "Handle ASAP!" Not so many recently, but in Nov? WHEW! We screw up orders. It happens. It shouldn't but when it does we ALWAYS make it right. I know I need to do better on these too. For the ones that demanded stuff ASAP (and it's variants), I seemed to always forget to ask shipping to expedite them. Drat. On 11/15/2015 at 12:23 PM, DevMike said: We like to poke people on the help desk as well. I've been doing more of these lately. This year's poke (with the exception of the PixCon.... grrrrrr...) is the V2 Pixie. 'My Pixie always goes back to Unit ID 1!'. "Read the manual, pay attention to the section that talks about setting the DIP SWITCHES to set the UID'. On 11/18/2016 at 7:51 PM, DevMike said: This person, let's call him Jacob, places an order on Wednesday at 11:57 PM. Jacob is STILL leading in the 'Worst customer EVER' contest. No one is even CLOSE yet. On 10/13/2017 at 4:51 PM, DevMike said: I offer 3 levels of customer service by phone/eMail/Helpdesk/etc. Please select the service type you would like on initial contact -> To those of you who where happy and jolly in the face of frustration and got to talk to me- I hope that not only did I fix your issue, but that I also taught you something in addition AND we had fun doing it! On 10/25/2017 at 11:29 AM, DevMike said: "I spoke [emailed/opened ticket] to someone and they told me..." the very first thing we are going to ask is 'WHO did you speak to?" Sigh. EVERY ticket and phone call I've got so far that mentions something like this does NOT know who they talked to previously. Please folks. We all have EASY names. Mary. John. Dan. Mike. Brian. Matt. Chuck. Tor. Ok, so maybe not that last one, but it is pretty short! Happy Holidays/Merry Christmas/Happy Chanukah/Joy and Safety in the new year (or whatever other greeting you prefer)! -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted January 15, 2018 Author Share Posted January 15, 2018 I'd like to go back a few years and re-visit something I said in 2012: On 11/9/2012 at 2:41 PM, DevMike said: Saying things like we're stupid, or that we don't respond to you fast enough because that's all we have are problems will not get you service any faster. Inferring that we are clueless and that everyone must be having the same problem as you will force me to go looking to ensure that is not true -- which will take much longer than just asking about the issue you have. I'd like to focus on the part where the customer is upset and tells us where we have fallen short - especially in the past. Here is the thing: I am horrible at customer service. I admit it. But what I am good at is taking responsibility when I fall short -- all of LOR is like that. We go back, see where we could have improved, and try to do so. It is actually quite easy for us to go back and see where we may have done something wrong. It is one of the main reasons we stopped using eMail for help and started using our Help Desk software. If you have ever put a ticket it, we have it. If we need to perform some action, even if you called in, we create a ticket. Now not everything gets a ticket - if you call in and ask how to create a new sequence in the sequence editor we are not going to create a ticket for that. BUT If you call in and ask for parts, say you have broken equipment, or what an in depth technical question answered you will. That means we have a pretty large database now of interactions with our customers. Please know that I will go back and look at your previous tickets (or replies in the existing ticket) to see where we can do better. And if it turns out you are 'miss-remembering' something I will point it out to you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted February 2, 2018 Author Share Posted February 2, 2018 Quick note: I know it says this in my signature, but if you are like me you tend to ignore signatures... Remember that forums are here for peer to peer help. They are a great resource. BUT if you need official LOR help for anything, PLEASE open a help desk ticket. Opening a help desk ticket ensures that you will get the answer you need, and allows us to track issues much more efficiently. We do monitor the forums and try to answer questions, but the official written way to ask us for support is through the help desk. Private Messages and posts are easily missed by us and may not be actively monitored, while the help desk is staffed. (Edit: Sorry!!! I just took the time to re-read what I posted last week and had to change it. I didn't realize that what I had said made it look like I was telling you not to post on the forums AT ALL! That is not what I meant to say. Please, by all means post here in the forums to get help from your fellow users. They are a wealth of knowledge, and sometimes know better ways to use the software/hardware than even us!. If however you need 'official' tech support, sales support, etc. please don't PM me or any of the other LOR mods/devs/etc. Instead, open a help desk ticket so we can properly track the issue and get you squared away. The only exception to this rule is for beta releases of the software: For those, please post in the appropriate msg board.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 6, 2018 Author Share Posted November 6, 2018 The One Hit Wonder This is something you probably NEVER want to be called by us. The one hit wonder is the person who comes to a public forum, like these or Facebook or some other social website, and posts their absolute disgust with us. They like to spout off that we are the worst thing to ever exist. And then never come back. Generally the one hit wonder is someone who thinks they are so important that everything must be done their way at that moment, or it's "The Worst Customer Service EVER!". You may be able to get away with that with some big anonymous company, but not around here. We know we have great customer service and we strive to give great customer service. Around here I will take the time to find out exactly what happened and simply post the facts about what happened. I won't call you names, or imply that you kill babies (like I am accused of daily during season). I'll simply post the facts and let OTHERS decide for themselves who is being unreasonable. On the other hand: We do sometimes fall short. We may not be meeting your expectations. We will take our lumps when they are deserved and will do our best to make things right. However there is one class of customer who no matter what you offer is never satisfied.... You can't save them all... Please bear with me as I need to set up an example. Because we do have great customer service (or at least strive to have great customer service), we tend to get a lot of calls and tickets for stuff that is not ours. I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but we really can't help too much with another companies controllers or sequencing or whatever. We intentionally don't get involved with other companies products - after all support costs money, and we would have made $0 on a sale. So recently, we had an interaction with a customer who purchased a sequence from someone other than us that would not work with a pixel tree. More correctly, this sequence was programmed in a way that is not how her pixel tree is set up. I let her know that since it was not our sequence, she needed to contact the source and have them change it, or that she would need to physically set up the tree so it matched how it was sequenced - there is nothing we can do (which is true). She went into argument mode and I did what I always do in these situations - immediately transfer the ticket to Dan the owner. Dan has the power (since he has the dollars), to do whatever it is he wants to do for the customer. Dan (as always) bent over backwards to try to help this person. He also explained the issue but more importantly also told the person we would correct it for her by hand if needed (again, even though it was not our sequence). All of us offered up suggestions, none of which were optimal and so we offered to do the work by hand (a time consuming task). She said we were never going to resolve the problem and she was moving on. The problem is that this person had obviously decided she no longer wanted to work with us long before she even opened the ticket. No matter what we would have done for her, it would never be enough simply because her mind was made up to move on. We understand if you want to move to another product/supplier/etc, but it does not make any sense to burn your bridge with us. We also said (repeatedly) that we would make an exception and make things work regardless of where she made her purchase. Not enough. You can't save them all.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 21, 2018 Author Share Posted November 21, 2018 How to NOT get great service: "I already have a sufficient license key that I DO NOT need to, or want to upgrade. The stupid offline registration does not work, nor does your technical support phone line.You have 1 hour to resolve this issue, lest I launch a major negative campaigner assault against your company on the WEB, and let people know that you DB new yorkers are nothing more than a bunch of big shiesters." In a ticket 10 minutes later: "I have a license key that I need to use again on a different computer. Since no one ansewers you phone number, I will give you 1 hour to respond to my issue, otherwise I will launch a seriies of negative feedback information on the web, which will definatly effect your company's sales this year" Actual first tickets from this customer received 10 minutes ago (busiest week of the year). No description of what the issue is (other than something to do with a license key). Why would I WANT to help this person? Edit: While I suspect no one would WANT to help someone with that attitude, I did in fact reply to her ticket to get more information about what the actual issue is (the quotes above were the ENTIRE tickets). I actually replied 4 times and waited the entire hour she gave us. I received no reply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted October 25, 2019 Author Share Posted October 25, 2019 Hey here we are again! The season is off to an early start. Let's see what's happened so far: We're only trying to be nice: We are more than happy to send parts to our customers to repair controllers/etc. Some customers are shy and will ask us for part numbers, etc and somewhere they can buy the parts. We always turn around and tell them - Hey! We'll send you the parts, usually at no cost. Just tell us what you need (and tell us that you know how to actually change the part in question). They are being polite, and we appreciate that! So a certain customer (a Dr. of something or other) recently asked us for a part number for the RJ45 jacks on a controller. We send him the obligatory 'Are you sure you can do this work, and if so just tell us what you need'. 9 days later he replied that he can in fact do the work and he asked for 20 RJ45s and 20 Triacs. Now, that is a lot of parts. This person would have AT LEAST 10 controllers that have both RJ45s broken. Most likely it would be more - typically only 1 jack gets busted on a controller. So in my eyes, this HAS to be one of our bigger customers. He's also asking about the jacks and triacs for EVERY generation of controller we have ever sold. Now at this point, it's not really about the cost of the parts. At the quantities that we purchase, each one of those is a few cents. The RJ45s are probably around $.40 each, and the triacs are around $.80 so we are talking at most $25 + shipping. In other words, we are not going to go bankrupt even if this is not on the up and up. What is odd is that this is the first ticket we have ever got from this person, and the person to whom he wants the parts shipped is not him. You would think with that many different controllers, that many different generations of controller, and that number of parts he would have had some contact with us at some time in the past. I go searching for this person in our orders system and get NOTHING. Not a single hit. I also search for orders from the person he wants these parts shipped to. Nothing. Again, it's not a question of cost. But we also don't want to be sending parts to every Tom, Dick or Dr. David that asks, we want to send them to our customers. As soon as we opened (he replied at around 1AM) I asked the person what name the controllers were ordered under. 2 more days pass and the reply comes that I am wasting his time. Now in his defense he did ask for part numbers initially - But we would much rather send a customer the parts. We get them for a lot less than he can (Those jacks are going to be around $1.25 each, and the Triacs around $2.25 each if he buys them - $65 plus around $15 shipping - $80), AND it's just good customer service. So in the end we sent him the part numbers and have not heard back from him. However it's still a strange situation. Frankly I think my initial gut reaction was right - despite saying he wasn't looking for freebies, I think that is EXACTLY what he was looking for. Does it make sense to berate someone who is trying to save you $80 and just wants a little more info? I guess sometimes, just being nice get's you yelled at. PS: To everyone out there that has higher education, the MDs and PHDs and the like, I respect the heck out of you. I will call you Dr. But when you stomp your feet like a little kid, say someone is wasting your time, and then sign your eMail with DR. SO-IN-SO, as if somehow you THINK you are more important, you will get laughed at - and get absolutely NO respect from me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 6, 2019 Author Share Posted November 6, 2019 Let's Answer ALL those questions So the help desk ticket system is THE most efficient way for us to handle support issues. But for you, it may not be efficient - you put in a ticket and have to wait for us, then we have to wait for you, etc. After all, it sometimes takes a couple of back-and-forth sessions to properly resolve something. We are keenly aware of that, and so many times we will ask you several questions at the same time. For whatever reason, many (OK. ALMOST ALL) customers will only , and then barely, answer one of them. And it's not like they answer the first or last question. Of the list of questions, they will answer one of them seemingly at random. Without the answers to the other questions, this one answer provides us NO information. And then of course the customer will complain about how long it takes to resolve something with tickets. Again, even if you think one or more of the questions has nothing to do with your issue, please take the time to answer them ALL. If we ask 3 different questions, please provide 3 answers. Otherwise we are just going to have to ask you again - which wastes your time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 15, 2019 Author Share Posted November 15, 2019 Use the Defaults We get 2-3 of these a week, and during the season 2-3 a day. A customer will contact us about moving to a new computer, or reinstalling the software and then not be able to find where all their stuff is - because they changed the location of the LOR Data directory, or they are not saving their audio/sequences/etc in the proper folder of the LOR data directory. These customers (especially during season) then demand we find their data for them. We're sorry, but that's not something we can do. We didn't store or move the data, so we would have NO CLUE where YOU put it on YOUR computer. This is one of the reasons programs like ours suggest default locations for data. All you have to do is press the OK button when asked: "Where do you want your data stored?", or not change the suggested folder when you save something. If you stick with what we suggest, we know immediately where it is on your computer: My Documents/Light-O-Rama. We can easily point you there. But if you were smart enough to change the location of the Light-O-Rama folder, or to save data in a different folder than we suggest, you need to be smart enough to find that data later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted December 17, 2019 Author Share Posted December 17, 2019 Once you have contacted us, please stop touching things We encourage all of you to experiment with the hardware and software. Experimenting is how you learn! Think changing a unit ID of some hardware will do something neat? Go for it. Want to change how that channel is defined in the software to see what happens? Do it. Changing things and experimenting is crucial to getting the most out of your hardware and software. But the time for experimenting stops when you contact us for something that is not working - and you want to get it to work. We have years of experience that helps us to diagnose and fix your issues. We have the ability to take the seemingly large task of fixing something, and by asking a few questions, and having you make a couple changes, find the correct course of action. Sometimes it takes several of these interactions to get you going. Once you have started down a path with us, please stop experimenting. In order to get something to work we start with a wide foundation and then build bit by bit , layer by layer, to get you working. If you go changing something in the foundation what we are building towards is going to crumble. Worse is when you don't tell us you did do something - and more times than not, no one admits it. At best you are going to stump us and force us to waste time trying to figure out what happened. At worst you are going to get the wrong solution - a solution that could end up costing you $$$ - either for sending things in to be repaired that are working, or you purchasing something you don't need. So please - go and play! If something happens you don't understand, ask us and we can tell you what you did. But PLEASE remember: Once you start trying to diagnose an issue with us don't perform any test or change any setting unless we tell you to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted October 12, 2020 Author Share Posted October 12, 2020 Leave Tom Hanks ALONE! :) We need to have a little conversation about boundaries. From what I have heard, Tom Hanks (yes THAT Tom Hanks. Friend to Wilson) is about the nicest guy you can run up to and ask for an autograph, a picture, you name it. But here is the thing - if he's out walking his dog, or having a bite to eat at a restaurant, or doing any one of the millions of things each of us does in real life leave the poor guy alone. Just because you know him from his work and just want to gush about your love for him, his dog still needs to poop, he still needs to eat, and/or he has to do whatever it is he is doing. Now if he's at a meet and greet, or stops outside the theater to talk with fans, sure - profess your love for his work then. He's on the clock. That really should go without saying. And while none of us around here are movie stars, or rock stars, or anything else close to famous, please do the same for us. Many times, you'll get personal service from one of us. Maybe I do a remote with you to fix some complicated issue. Maybe Matt calls you after hours on his personal cell phone to explain an S5 issue. Maybe you stumble onto Brian's Facebook page (I don't even know if he has one. Let's assume he does). Perhaps Dan sends you some file via eMail on his personal account. All of us are real people, with real life lives in the real world as well as being the people who can help with your issue. But our work lives and our home lives are separate. Recently we have run into several people who have texted/called/private messaged/whatever us outside of our work channels for work related things. Please don't do that. Just because I called you to help you with a problem once in 2012 (which gave you my private cell phone number) doesn't mean you can call me directly from then on for everything. I had a customer call my cell at 2AM because no one was answering his help desk tickets simply because I had previously assisted him. Oh yea. Always nice to hear from someone at 2AM demanding that I help them. If you need assistance please either call the main number, or start a/reopen an existing help desk ticket. Unless we have asked you to call us on a particular phone number, that is the only way you should get a hold of us. Please don't call us on direct lines, or send us direct eMail. If you find our personal social media pages, or websites, or whatever feel free to say hi - but don't expect us to do 'work' stuff. This courtesy should also extend to anyone who has taken their time to help you with something in the past. We have MANY knowledgeable and friendly users that love to extend a hand. But you should treat them with respect. Don't just blindly call them all the time (unless they have given their permission). If they have their own corporate entity that helped you, don't go onto their personal Facebook account and demand more help. Instead, use whatever channel they prefer you to use. And then first ASK if they wouldn't mind helping you again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 5, 2020 Author Share Posted November 5, 2020 Thanks Bree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 9, 2020 Author Share Posted November 9, 2020 We don't know where to get parts for other mfgs Equipment I've had 4 separate people today ask me about pixel dangles for pixel strings not mfg by us. Those same people get angry when we tell them they have to contact the mfg of the pixels. (Hmmm... They could all actually be the same person using 4 different accounts to try to get different answers. I should check that. Some customers like to pull that one.) What you are trying to interface from is not manufactured by us so we have no clue what parts you need to connect them. Connectors for pixels are NOT STANDARDIZED. Even if they look the same, there can be differences in size, keying, etc. We certainly don't stock every connector from every pixel manufacturer. Even we put our own special spin on the connectors, using 4 pin ones for 5V and 3 pin ones for 12V (even though we only ever use 3 of the pins on EITHER). The best I can do is point you at the manual for our controller and say 'those are the signals on each of the pins, ensure they match up with what the mfg of your pixels specified = connect the wires that way. I'm not sure why these people get angry other than they know they have 0% chance of ever hearing from the cheap Chinese mfg of their pixels. I am more than happy to sell them things (that's how we make a living after all), so if I could I would! If you had purchased everything from us, everything will fit together and you will not have these questions/issues. If however you wanted to save a few dollars, be prepared to do the work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted November 24, 2020 Author Share Posted November 24, 2020 Can someone please answer this question for me: Is 19 LESS than 12 or MORE than 12? Of course the answer is MORE. About 60% MORE. As in, this has a 12 month warranty and you are mad because we won't replace it after 19 months. I'm sure you hate it when something breaks just outside of a warranty. We hate it too and generally if you have something break and it's 'technically' out of warranty, we are probably going to eat it and repair/replace it. But at some point you REALLY need to put a limit on things. Some people think the limits don't apply to them (or that we are somehow selling inferior products) because they only lasted 19 months (when we only guarantee them for 12). We can't control how often you use an item, or how you store it, etc. The only reasonable thing we can do is offer a calendar month warranty - like almost every other company out there. This customer was partially correct. Around here 12 isn't really 12. But it's not 19 and is unreasonable for him to expect differently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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