Bloody Annoyed

Gary Stewart wrote:

 

... is just the way it is across the entire industry no matter how angry it makes a few customers

I have no time for the defeatism of the "that's just the way it is" worldview, and even less for the quite astonishing "no matter how angry it makes a few customers" part.  I won't comment further on the latter, because its myopia speaks for itself, given that a business prospers by pleasing its customers.

On the former, engineers create and improve things, it's what they do.  This side of Utopia, nothing is perfect, and everything can be improved.  That includes the customer experience, and here is evidence of customer experience that fell short by a sufficiently large margin to provoke feedback.  A lot of businesses pay for customer feedback, including Element14.  To reject it when offered freely is pretty silly.

"[That's] just the way it is across the entire industry" doesn't have to be used as a defeatist's rationale.  It is also an opportunity to do better compared to others in the industry, and that's the usual path to business success.  All I've suggested is simple ways to improve the customer experience, and it puzzles me why anyone would want to argue against that goal.

Here is a link to the user guide:

http://www.element14.com/community/docs/DOC-48860/l/gertboard-user-manual-gertboard-kit

That link requires a login. 

Getting a login requires a unique username and a secure password.

OP reports making 4 attempts at a secure password, and 5 attempts at a

unique username, each time requiring a captcha.

It's understandable that forum usernames need to be unique, and that forum

passwords should be secure, and captchas are needed to prevent spam.

But it isn't necessarily understandable that a paying customer who doesn't want

to participate in a forum, but only wants the user docs for their product, should be

required to join a forum.   Instead, it seems entirely possible to provide some sort of

limited guest account for that purpose, with the password provided with the product.

A guest account would also save the trouble of handling requests to delete accounts

that were created for the sole purpose of viewing product docs.

Morgaine wrote:

What has happened here seems to be that the producer is (presumably) benefitting from the CooCox promotion without considering two side effects of receiving the CD:

1. Non-Windows users are getting annoyed because supplied software is useless to them.
2. Customers find a CD enclosed but discover that it does not contain their product documentation.

1. Read my post again. It states that the software on the CD is useful only for people that use Windows. Personally I would never use Windows for this kind of development unless I was

     forced to. Luckily if you go to the CooCox web site you can find non-Windows versions as well.

2. Lots of products come with third party CDs and I am not aware of any third party CDs that include documentation for the product you bought that they came with. The top side of CD in question

     is one big CooCox label that explicitly describes what it contains (Free and open ARM Cortex M development tools).

Morgaine wrote:

I have no time for the defeatism of the "that's just the way it is" worldview, and even less for the quite astonishing "no matter how angry it makes a few customers" part.  I won't comment further on the latter, because its myopia speaks for itself, given that a business prospers by pleasing its customers.

Thanks for completely ignoring the economic aspect. Manufacturers/retailers literally can't afford to which is why it is so universal. It also helps keep their costs down which is sometimes good for customers too.

There will always be angry customers, some for good reasons (these should be fixed), and some for little or no reason at all. In this case there is another way to almost immediately  get the documentation that

is needed and only requires only a little effort to do so. So why all the anger ? There are several advantages to online documentation/software. It is more likely that what you get will be up to date. It is a lot easier

for  the manufacturer to distribute updated documentation/software. It is easier and faster for the customer to get the updates by downloading them. And it is cheaper. The only advantage I can think of for CDs is

if you  don't have an Internet connection and it does not apply in this case. It may be difficult ordering a Gertboard from E14 without one too although here in the states you can order one by phone or snail mail

from a catalog published (how quaint) by MCM Electronics.

Businesses prosper by selling products or services that its customers want/need. The world has many examples of very successful businesses that are not well liked by a large number of their customers.

Banks and oil/gas companies are two that immediately come to mind. There are more.

Morgaine wrote:

On the former, engineers create and improve things, it's what they do.  This side of Utopia, nothing is perfect, and everything can be improved.  That includes the customer experience, and here is evidence of customer experience that fell short by a sufficiently large margin to provoke feedback.  A lot of businesses pay for customer feedback, including Element14.  To reject it when offered freely is pretty silly.

I do not need you to tell me what engineers do. I worked with them as an engineering technician, and I have worked as a hardware and software design engineer for over 20 years myself. Having done so

I can tell you that also on this side of Utopia there are limits, often driven by economics, but also by customer preferences (not always good ones) as to what part of, how, or how much something can

be improved. Engineers have to work with these limitations every day. The evidence you speak of is one feedback based on getting a clearly labelled third party promotion CD with free software and

getting very angry (a more accurate description than large margin) because it did not, as it normally would not have, included documentation that is readily available from the web site where the hardware

was purchased. So again, why all the anger ? Finally, not everybody will agree on what is and what is not an "improved customer experience" sometimes even when it is clear to most at least that it is,

much less, as is the case here, when it is not that clear. Call it human nature. I think that is what is  continually keeping Utopia at bay.

@Gary Stewart,

If you re-read the OP's post you will then understand the context of my phrase "continuous ........ access".  He took the kit on holiday with him and was unable to access the internet.

Sending out a CD with space on it, while not supplying or including essential information, seems daft. While I agree that it is common for suppliers not to supply anything more than a link that doesn't make it good.

MK

The evidence you speak of is one feedback

Actually, there are frequent complaints of the unnecessary difficulties of creating an E14 login just to obtain docs for purchased products.

See for example:

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/25378?tstart=30

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/25299?tstart=60

http://www.element14.com/community/thread/24950?tstart=0

@coder27

Actually, there are frequent complaints of the unnecessary difficulties of creating an E14 login just to obtain docs for purchased products.

1 ) I was able to place an order after about an hour of -- around with your registration process,

An hour to register to figure out how to register ? OK ?

The other two are not about difficulties with creating a login but simply that registration was required to look at documentation, neither said they had purchased

products. While being required to register to download documentation is not the best idea, given the "community" nature of the site it is on I can think of a few

of good reasons (security, spam control, user control) why registration is used.

I do agree that requiring a separate registration for downloading documentation after registering to purchase a product is a problem that should be fixed.

Easy to see links to the documentation were present on the "top" page used when he purchased the Gertboard. After that I'm not sure how he expected to find documentation

without searching for it. As I said in an earlier post, I have ordered quite a few embedded boards from several different manufacturers and retailers and they all required me to

download all documentation/software for them from their web sites. As far as I can remember few if any of them required me to register to get the documentation but none of

them were "community" sites either. The Raspberry Pi he wanted use with the Gertboard did not ship with any documentation either so at least some indication of what to

expect was present.

@ Michael

So I guess the lesson there is to make sure you have everything you need before you go on vacation and lose access to the Internet. Doesn't this fall into the just using

good sense category ?

E14 had no control over what was on the CD and could not modify it if they wanted too. It was a promotional CD of free software tools provided by a third party and was

clearly marked as such.

Hi Bloody Annoyed,

Sorry to hear about the problems. If you let us know about your problem with the registration I can help with that.

For the data sheets not being on the CD. I will reach out to our Product People and let them know and see if there is any way that we can get this changed.

Jason G.