I would also add that they game the SLA system as a rule by trying to close things out for "being open too long." On numerous occasions, either myself or one of my colleagues has had a ticket open with BMC Support where BMC made no progress on the issue and didn't respond to us, then after a week or two either emailed or called asking some variation of, "This ticket has been open too long, do you mind if we close it?"
Another issue is how difficult it can be to get a support person to agree to do a webex session. The result is generally that a lot of the defects (and the majority of support issues we submit are defects in the product) stay open longer than necessary because the BMC support people basically refuse to do a webex until after a week or two have passed. This seems like it causes more time spent by BMC support and doesn't help customer satisfaction at all. The third major area that I've run into numerous times is how it seems like support people aren't communicating with each other or engineering well. Many times that I've submitted tickets with BMC against product defects, it turns out that there is a hotfix that hasn't made it to the knowledge base yet. Other support people may be aware of it, engineering may have it documented internally, but the support folks are reinventing the wheel almost every time with hotfixes for defects. There are certainly several areas that BMC support can improve upon, and I hope they make some progress on these issues. Thanks, Shawn Pierson Remedy Developer | Energy Transfer From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:arslist@ARSLIST.ORG] On Behalf Of Rick Cook Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2012 7:02 AM To: arslist@ARSLIST.ORG Subject: Re: Support - An open letter to BMC ** I agree with Warren that SLA pinging is the rule rather than the exception, at least on initial responses. My experience is that the process you want cannot differ greatly from the process by which you compensate people, or you force them to choose between doing the best thing for the customers or for themselves. And it is hard to blame someone not making a lot of money for trying to legally maximize what little they can earn. But since I am completely unaware of any contractual penalties for BMC's SLA violations (without which, aren't they pretty much just guidelines, like The Pirate Code?), it is pretty much a moot point, isn't it? Rick On Jun 6, 2012 1:44 AM, "Jay Shankar" <jay_shan...@bmc.com<mailto:jay_shan...@bmc.com>> wrote: We understand your frustration and apologize for the poor customer experience regarding this issue. Our process is to validate with you the information in your customer profile and we did not do that in this case. We are working with our team to better utilize the information provided and ask only the necessary information to troubleshoot issues. We always want to hear how we can improve our support services, so please continue to fill out the surveys and provide feedback directly. Jay Shankar Vice President Customer Support - Americas BMC Software _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org<http://www.arslist.org> attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com<http://www.wwrug12.com> ARSList: "Where the Answers Are" _attend WWRUG12 www.wwrug.com<http://www.wwrug.com> ARSlist: "Where the Answers Are"_ Private and confidential as detailed here: http://www.sug.com/disclaimers/default.htm#Mail . If you cannot access the link, please e-mail sender. _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org attend wwrug12 www.wwrug12.com ARSList: "Where the Answers Are"