Sales vs Support
Once the customer has bought the product, the company has their money. After that the customer is a burden. That covers all one-off purchases, no matter how militant the customer feels like being.
Even with an on-going contract I would wager that the majority of customers just put up with bad post-sales support, rather than voting with their direct debit and going elsewhere.
Hence we end up with the apparent fact that most companies will, on the whole, spend more time, effort and money on sales than they do on support.
That is not meant to belittle the people who work in support. As has been said before, they are often just as hacked off with the system as is the customer.
The pressure to reduce the cost of support is the crux of the problem. Reduced staff training, reduced benefits, lower pay prospects; they all lead to lower morale and higher staff turnover. Then the new staff don't have the product support experience and the problem becomes self-sustaining.
If we as customers don't take our money away from the purveyors of poor support (=poorly funded support staff), then we need to get used to the barrel over which the companies have us.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
