RE: Service and Support - Part II

Sounds like things are starting to look rosy for you again, Joe!  Glad to hear 
you're getting results.  One thing you didn't mention, were you able to go 
month-to-month on the maintenance agreement?  Or do you have to go a year at a 
time?

- Dan Bale
offsite today

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "Joe Pluta" <joepluta@PlutaBrothers.com>
Reply-To: midrange-l@midrange.com
Date:  Mon, 8 Apr 2002 15:48:13 -0500

>> From: Steve Richter
>>
>> return the system with the broken drive.
>
>Rather than follow your advice, Steve, what I did was call IBM and explain
>the situation.  It took a LOT of calls, and a couple of emails, but things
>are working out (slowly).
>
>Short version: I have to pay maintenance for the time my machine was not
>under warranty.  This is perfectly acceptable to me, and in fact I'm going
>to request a maintenance agreement whenever I start a new lease, scheduled
>to start the day I go off warranty.  That way I'll never be off maintenance.
>
>Long version:
>
> 1. Called ICC
> 2. On hold about a minute
> 3. Got a live person, gave her all my information
> 4. Was told I was out of area
> 5. Was given the phone number for my area
> 6. Was transferred
> 7. Got voicemail
> 8. Used #0 to get out of voicemail
> 9. On hold a couple of minutes
>10. Got a live person, gave him all my information
>11. Waited about five minutes on hold
>12. Got transferred to a new live person
>13. New person told me I needed to transfer
>14. Transferred me to Maintenance Agreement Department
>15. On hold for about three minutes
>16. Got a live person, gave her all my information
>17. Finally, got a reference number
>18. A Maintenance CSR "will contact me"
>
>During this time, I was emailing Anne and Marijeanne.  Marijeanne called me
>back and told me what my basic options were, which allowed me to properly
>explain myself to the Maintenance Agreement Department.  I think we're all
>clear on what's going to happen.  The basic idea is that I will get a
>maintenance policy retroactive to the time I went off warranty (about 30
>days ago).  Once we agreed on that, I got a reference number.  I put the
>reference number on the CE ticket.  Hopefully that will help during the
>billing process.  And although I had to recite my information three
>different times, it wasn't so bad.  Next, we'll see how the billing side of
>it goes.
>
>Joe