Byte by Bite

Software company goes the extra mile

by Marv Dealy

Published May 20, 2005

In possibly the last word on CounterSpy and Sunbelt Software, reader Chuck Jett e-mails: “I thought it would be appropriate to let you know how pleased I was with the response from Sunbelt Software regarding the problem I was having getting updates for their CounterSpy software.”

“Quentin DeWitt, technical support manager for Sunbelt Software, personally called me on that Sunday morning to discuss the problem and indicated that he would have his support consumer products manager call the next morning to help resolve the problem.

As he promised, the next morning I did receive a call and that manager spent several minutes with me on the phone and the problem of receiving updates was solved by adjusting some settings on my Firewall software. They even called back later in the day to assure that my Counter Spy software was now working.”

“As you mentioned in last Friday’s column, they did give me a free year of support for the inconvenience. It is not often that you receive that type of response and I salute Sunbelt for really caring about customer support. Thank you so much, Marv, for your assistance.”

So there you have it. One last pat on the back for the good folks at Sunbelt Software and a malevolent glare at folks like Vonage and others who still think outsourcing tech support to India is a good idea, despite the time barrier, the language barrier, and an ever-shrinking wage differential barrier. And thanks to Chuck for writing about his problem.

Speaking of outsourcing, from Connecticut reader Walter Nodelman comes the following e-mail: “Subject OFFSHORING - (the crime) - Bravo to you...”

“I have just read "Outsourcing service can open doors to fraud" dated April 29, 2005 in the Union Democrat of Sonora, California.”

“I am a High Tech American who has been unemployed since 9/11. I have more than one college degree and more than one decade of high tech IT experience.”

“Since 9/11, I have been seeking work. That is 183 weeks.”

“I approve of the way you laid out these facts about trusting Citibank's people in India (who run off with your banked funds). Bravo to you. Last I read about it, the count of arrested individuals had reached 18 people, and it was not the bank that discovered the theft, - it was the bank account depositors. The loss has climbed to $425,000 and $12,000 has been successfully recovered.”

“Research from Benchmark Portal and from Kelly Services recently has determined that 65% of American consumers would change their purchasing patterns if they believed that a company had offshored its call center operations.”

“Gartner recently published statements that said 50% of all outsourcing projects will fall short of delivering expected value and will be deemed unsuccessful.”

Walter included a copy of an e-mail he sent to Patricia Kachura of the Direct Marketing Association concerning outsourcing.

Sorry Walter; I would have to devote the next 6 months’ columns just to reprinting your lengthy e-mail, so I’ll summarize: Walter thinks outsourcing stinks, and will bankrupt our economy.

I don’t know that it offers much hope, but I’m seeing more and more articles about how companies are downsizing their outsourcing. Problems that have cropped up include hidden costs not covered in original estimates of savings, to say nothing of consumer dissatisfaction.

In a story by John Oates in The Register (theregister.co.uk), “Big boys turn backs on offshoring” Oates states that “Many of the world's largest organisations are turning their backs on outsourcing and one in four are actively bringing services back in-house.”

“A survey from Deloitte Consulting reveals that 70 per cent of respondents have had significant negative experiences with outsourced projects. Just under half, 44 per cent, did not see outsourcing contracts achieving significant cost savings.”

“In fact 57 per cent of respondents said they had had to pay for services they believed were included in the cost of the original contract. Almost half of those questioned said hidden costs were the most common problem with outsourced contracts. As a result of these disappointments more than half of those surveyed have moved from long-term contracts (of about ten years) to shorter contracts of less than five years.”

I won’t publish Walter’s e-mail address here; I don’t think he’d appreciate that. However, if you’d like to read the entire e-mail he sent to me, I will send it along if you send me an e-mail.

Last but not least: I’d like to go on record as siding with the folks that say the word “web” when it is used to refer to the Internet should be spelled “Web” with the first letter capitalized. The argument goes that it is a proper noun in that useage and is therefore deserving of the capitalization. I’m also agreeing with the folks who say that the word “e-mail” is easier to read and recognize with the hyphen than without it, although are both considered “correct.”