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I went up to the Rochester STC chapter's annual conference, and,
along these lines, listened to a speaker from IBM talk about the $$ value
of customers in even being *included* in groups to be serviced. His
example was
Software Features
Group $ %age of sales 1 2 3 4
A 30% X
B 40% X X X
C 5% X X
D 25% X
The feature 3 used only by group C, reflecting only 5% of sales,
is basically getting blown off by any support functions (such as
documentation & tech support). Patterned after MS.
Also, he said they've found that they can get useful trend
information from groups of 10 (count 'em, 10) people in a focus group.
He agreed that this lack of support "feels" unethical to TWs,
but...hey, why support a non-income-producing customer?
FWIW,
Mary
PS--The conference was drop-dead impressive. I only sat in on a couple of
sessions, but the whole feel of the thing was top shelf. I'm inking it in
next year.
Mary Durlak Erie Documentation Inc.
East Aurora, New York (near Buffalo)
durl -at- buffnet -dot- net
