Changes In Ni Technical Support Policy.

[Norm Kirchner]

Title edited by Michael Aivaliotis

was: Ni Increase In Sales = Decrease In Support

I just had my first run in with NI phone support since their re-organization on Jan 19th, 2004. Turns out that unless you personally own and are registered by name to a License of LabVIEW and a support contract, you can not receive voice support . I was curious to hear LAVA's thoughs and feelings on the matter.

The live support was one of the greatest things that drew me to labview as a student and an up-and-coming developer. It is unfortunate that they have taken this away from the general LV community. Thier web support is very nice, but there have been so many times over the years where no one has attempted what you are doing and it would take a 5 page essay to properly describe it over an e-mail.

There is a great chance that I am overracting, but I feel that this should be brought to the attention of the community before they call in and get a shock like I did. :headbang:

-Norm

[Michael Aivaliotis]

I brought up this issue last December on info-labview and people from NI responded:

Hello Everyone,

We would like to take this opportunity to discuss questions in earlier

posts regarding National Instruments changes to software service programs

for Q1 2004.

NI will continue to offer free, world-class technical support for all

users. NI Application Engineers will monitor questions on our online web

forums at ni.com/exchange and ensure that all are answered.  This venue for

support provides the added benefit of insight from community members, such

as yourselves, with years of experience developing real-world solutions

with NI products.

Subscribers to our software service programs--SSP, NI Developer Suite,

academic site licenses, and the NI Volume License Program--will also have

access to NI Applications Engineers directly via phone and e-mail. In

addition, these service programs provide automatic, free upgrades. With

this change, subscribers will receive both upgrades and direct phone and

e-mail technical support for less than the cost of a single upgrade.

We realize this is a change. NI remains fully committed to providing

world-class technical support to all our users. We do encourage

subscription to our software service programs as the best way to receive

the latest technology in NI software and the highest level of technical

support. As Mr. Aivaliotis suggests in an earlier post, we encourage you to

contact NI if you need to discuss these changes immediately. Otherwise,

complete details will be available at ni.com/ssp in Q1 2004.

Best Regards,

Chad Chesney

Applications Engineering Manager

Jerry Suva

Software Service Programs Manager

I agree that the free support is a huge help to newbies and to students. I teach LabVIEW at a community college here. I used to always say: "hey, if you have any problems just call 1800-IEEE488 and NI can help". I used to say this to many of my customers as well. I sort of felt proud of this in a peculiar way since it was a huge contrast to the "pay by the minute" philosophy of Microsoft.

[Norm Kirchner]

A thought has occured to me over the past few days. This is actually an opportunity for groups like LAVA and Info-labVIEW to help provide even more support in the community. I feel that this should be brought up at everyones UserGroup. The knowledgebase and forums at NI.com are great but the community is so vast you move even further away from feeling of personal phone/e-mail support.

just my 2cents

don't blow it all in one place

:laugh:

-Norm

[JohnRH]

It makes sense that the change in NI's support policy would result in a greater need for forums such as this.

At the same time, I see a need for NI to perhaps make their new support system just a little more flexible. The circumstance I am thinking of is similar to what you previously mentioned.

...Turns out that unless you personally own and are registered by name to a License of LabVIEW and a support contract, you can not receive voice support...

In my case, our company owns multiple SSPs to multiple software products, but they are all registered in my name - regardless of who is using it. I am responsible for maintaining all the SSP's, and registering them all in my name makes this easier. It would sure be nice if we could register the users seperately somehow. (for how much we spend on NI software, and how little support we actually require - it ticks me off a little that I am the only one that can make a phone call)

John Howard

[JackHamilton]

I have an issue with info-LabVIEW and LAVA taking up the slack for NI support. These are privately funded resources that make no direct income from the service they provide - and NI is getting a bit of a 'free-lunch'.

I like info-LabVIEW but am afraid of the day when the average posting will climb near 100 - then no-one will take the time to go thru the questions and provide answers.

This model of "Customers Helping Customers" pushed too far is not good - any ebay user will tell you that. ebay actually hides their phone number and all their support resources are 'customer-to-customer' which is troublesome when the problem is with the product itself and not your understanding of it.

I don't think NI Marketing is looking far into the future (Just at this fiscal year) as to how reduction in support will fallout, I an neutral on the reduction in Phone Support - but if I was part of the decision process - I would required that we acknowledge what other resources there are and how we can still maintain them.

[JackHamilton]

Thanks to the efforts of Greg Smith, NI Corporate and Zach Olson Southern California Sales. NI has changed their support policy for Alliance members. Now Alliance members do NOT need a SSI subscription. Technical support both web based and Phone is as it always was.

It was getting interesting - As prior to this I heard of an Alliance member WITH SSP being told this was his 4th tech support phone call. "So what?" he asked I have SSP. "Yes, but it only gives you 3 phone calls per year" replies NI support.

I don't know if this is/was the actual NI policy to limit even the SSP calls. But this would be pretty strange. Alliance members work on numerous applications over a year and I would think generate more than 3 requests per year.

[PJM_labview]

Hi all

I just spend a couple of weeks struggling with that new support policy, and here is what I finally learn today.

The SSP if for one person only, so for example if you have several people (non labview specialist) putting some hardware together (using NI hardware of course) and that they need support this is an extra $295 per person! The "product" is called "Software Service Program for Driver Software" [PN:930999-01.]

This is becoming jus plain ridiculous.

PJM

Note: It took me several weeks to resolve this issue. Our local NI sale rep was fortunately very helpfull

[Michael Aivaliotis]

NI has changed their support policy for Alliance members. Now Alliance members do NOT need a SSI subscription. Technical support both web based and Phone is as it always was.

Yes, Alliance members get support now however it can only be registered in one name. So be sure to transfer ownership of the support capability to the engineer who is most involved with technical issues in your company. In our case it was setup to our main sales person which wasn't much help.