RE: Service and Support - Part II

["Dan Bale" <dbale@xxxxxxxxx>]

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