Customer Support

[dusty]

Just in case you have not seen this:

http://shopsmith.com/#

Click on "Engineering Support".

[reible]

No I hadn't seen this and I'm not sure that I wanted too. So for $20 you get 15 min. of support that we use to get for free????

Ed

[RFGuy]

I am not surprised by the pricing for the support, given how much everything else costs from Shopsmith these days. I know a lot of spare parts can be had from eBay, craigslist, FB marketplace, etc., but it kind of irks me that if I am missing a washer that it costs $5 from Shopsmith. I mean if I am ordering some accessories and tack on a nut or washer to the order they are like $5 each. Say you need 4 washers, that is $20 from Shopsmith. Sure you can find identical or nearly identical replacements online for much less, but it is the hassle of it all. I could understand if it is a bother for a small operation like Shopsmith to have to keep inventory on these and go grab it from the warehouse to ship to me, but at least make it a sliding scale or something when you purchase multiple of one item. To me, this is the very definition of price gouging.

On the plus side, this sets a new upper limit for pricing for technical support on the Shopsmith. Will some of our expert forum members start charging per post here now for their expert advice???

In all seriousness though, if this gives an opportunity for PowerPro customers to get direct technical support (from the factory) it could very well be worth this pricing since the PowerPro is a closed (proprietary) system with limited documentation.

[BuckeyeDennis]

Well guys, just how do you think that Shopsmith is supposed to stay in business giving away service for decades-old equipment? At $80 per hour for the first 15 minutes, and $60 per hour thereafter, they’re barely breaking even on an engineer’s salary, once you add benefits and overhead.

I used to run a small capital-equipment manufacturer. Some customers are wonderful. Others may be nice, but they’ll call tech support for every little thing, regardless of how much you invested in documenting that exact issue in your manuals. Until they have to pay for it, anyway.

The manufacturer basically has five options:
1) Give away continuing customer service, betting that the resulting goodwill will generate sufficient new-product growth to recover the customer-service investment. This can actually work in the early stages of a company life-cycle, but not in the later stages.
2) Charge for out-of warranty service time, as ShopSmith is now offering to do.
3) Charge huge markups on spare parts, to subsidize the labor costs. As Shopsmith has been doing for some time. (But this doesn’t work for commodity parts — that just PO’s the customers)
4) Don’t offer sufficient service to your customers, and suffer the predictable impact on new-product sales. As we’ve seen from ShopSmith in the recent past.
5) Go broke.

Of those options, only 2 & 3 are viable in the long term. Given a choice, I actually prefer #2. It more closely aligns costs and value-added. A wealthy customer can get his hand held, no problem. A frugal customer can, with a little more work, get his answers elsewhere, such as right here. Without increasing Shopsmith’s operating expenses.

[rjent]

I have a bad feeling about this .....

[JPG]

I have a bad feeling about this .....

NOT A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE I PRESUME!

[Hobbyman2]

In this day and age I am surprised SS doesn't market a computer disc / stick /flash drive with all the technical data on each item from day one ?
I would imagine that would become a SS collectors dream? jmo

[RFGuy]

Well guys, just how do you think that Shopsmith is supposed to stay in business giving away service for decades-old equipment? At $80 per hour for the first 15 minutes, and $60 per hour thereafter, they’re barely breaking even on an engineer’s salary, once you add benefits and overhead.

I used to run a small capital-equipment manufacturer. Some customers are wonderful. Others may be nice, but they’ll call tech support for every little thing, regardless of how much you invested in documenting that exact issue in your manuals. Until they have to pay for it, anyway.

The manufacturer basically has five options:
1) Give away continuing customer service, betting that the resulting goodwill will generate sufficient new-product growth to recover the customer-service investment. This can actually work in the early stages of a company life-cycle, but not in the later stages.
2) Charge for out-of warranty service time, as ShopSmith is now offering to do.
3) Charge huge markups on spare parts, to subsidize the labor costs. As Shopsmith has been doing for some time. (But this doesn’t work for commodity parts — that just PO’s the customers)
4) Don’t offer sufficient service to your customers, and suffer the predictable impact on new-product sales. As we’ve seen from ShopSmith in the recent past.
5) Go broke.

Of those options, only 2 & 3 are viable in the long term. Given a choice, I actually prefer #2. It more closely aligns costs and value-added. A wealthy customer can get his hand held, no problem. A frugal customer can, with a little more work, get his answers elsewhere, such as right here. Without increasing Shopsmith’s operating expenses.

Yeah, I agree with your assessment, but do you think they will have an engineer fielding these calls at Shopsmith? I kind of doubt it. All they need is someone with a bit of mechanical inclination that is well versed on the product and/or its documentation to field 95% of these technical support calls. If they had an engineer on staff they would need to be moving a lot more product and/or charging an exorbitant rate on the phone support to make it work financially.

When I called Carter for support, I was amazed to get transferred to an engineer to speak to on the phone. Similarly, when I contacted Incra with questions about their products, I traded emails with an engineer there. Both great companies, but I am betting most manufacturing related companies particularly in the woodworking realm can't afford to have their engineer(s) that are on staff do front line technical support with customers.

[dusty]

Well guys, just how do you think that Shopsmith is supposed to stay in business giving away service for decades-old equipment? At $80 per hour for the first 15 minutes, and $60 per hour thereafter, they’re barely breaking even on an engineer’s salary, once you add benefits and overhead.

I used to run a small capital-equipment manufacturer. Some customers are wonderful. Others may be nice, but they’ll call tech support for every little thing, regardless of how much you invested in documenting that exact issue in your manuals. Until they have to pay for it, anyway.

The manufacturer basically has five options:
1) Give away continuing customer service, betting that the resulting goodwill will generate sufficient new-product growth to recover the customer-service investment. This can actually work in the early stages of a company life-cycle, but not in the later stages.
2) Charge for out-of warranty service time, as ShopSmith is now offering to do.
3) Charge huge markups on spare parts, to subsidize the labor costs. As Shopsmith has been doing for some time. (But this doesn’t work for commodity parts — that just PO’s the customers)
4) Don’t offer sufficient service to your customers, and suffer the predictable impact on new-product sales. As we’ve seen from ShopSmith in the recent past.
5) Go broke.

Of those options, only 2 & 3 are viable in the long term. Given a choice, I actually prefer #2. It more closely aligns costs and value-added. A wealthy customer can get his hand held, no problem. A frugal customer can, with a little more work, get his answers elsewhere, such as right here. Without increasing Shopsmith’s operating expenses.

Yeah, I agree with your assessment, but do you think they will have an engineer fielding these calls at Shopsmith? I kind of doubt it. All they need is someone with a bit of mechanical inclination that is well versed on the product and/or its documentation to field 95% of these technical support calls. If they had an engineer on staff they would need to be moving a lot more product and/or charging an exorbitant rate on the phone support to make it work financially.

When I called Carter for support, I was amazed to get transferred to an engineer to speak to on the phone. Similarly, when I contacted Incra with questions about their products, I traded emails with an engineer there. Both great companies, but I am betting most manufacturing related companies particularly in the woodworking realm can't afford to have their engineer(s) that are on staff do front line technical support with customers.

OKAY. I'll bite. Just how did you know that you were speaking to an "engineer". When I worked in engineering (as a technician) I frequently answered the phone.

[RFGuy]

OKAY. I'll bite. Just how did you know that you were speaking to an "engineer". When I worked in engineering (as a technician) I frequently answered the phone.

Well, Dusty, I guess it depends on your world view and how trusting you are as a person. The customer service person that I spoke to on the phone told me that she was transferring me to an engineer and the person identified as such. I didn't cross reference their name with my database of all registered diplomas from universities to confirm their academic credentials.