There are also vendors that go above and beyond. I remember after visiting several "black sites" where the program authors had apparently hightailed it for parts unknown, leaving behind helpful forum members to attempt to take up the slack in the interim, I came across the REX site (and a few others) and made sure to write them (forum post) and thank them for the way they treated their customers.

 

It's always a rewarding experience when you deal with a vendor who goes above and beyond.  When I bought the Justflight Duchess, I noted a few minor things which wouldn't have impacted a typical buyer.  I wrote an email thanking Justflight for the Duchess, and mentioned the things I had noticed.  Within days they released a product update for everyone.  I was very impressed with that.  And I have to say their Duchess is still one of my favorite FSX/FS9 aircraft.

 

Flight1 also is one of those vendors that is just stellar in the way they handle customers, and the purchase process.  One of the few vendors that offers, and honors product refunds if a product doesn't work out for a customer.

 

Eaglesoft is good in large part because their members offer their time here in the forums not only for their product support, but support in general and also adding level headedness to threads that need extra care.

 

RealAir--I've never dealt with their support, but their products are probably the reason why.  I have both the Dukes--just wonderful aircraft.

 

John

I wonder if Airsimmer is still dev'ing?

lol

...I have their products since inception...

You mean "product."

 

I wonder if Airsimmer is still dev'ing?

lol

Probably about as much as LeonardoSH is.  The difference is this:  Leonardo did not hype their product, but they delivered the most complete add on aircraft that the flight sim community had ever seen at the time.  AirSimmer hyped the crap out of the A320, delivered a half ***** product,  blamed the customers, and ran away.

Quite important aspects mentioned by Ryan here:

 

At least in my case I do try to be courteous but honestly it can get very frustrating at times - you have to understand that people who do this job are basically dealing with complaints and upset people all day long. You'd probably be very surprised at the number of people who come in right off the bat with a horrible attitude - making assumptions that we won't be able to solve their issue, accusing us of things, using "colorful" language in their requests, even threatening lawsuits over whatever their issue is. After I get a few of those types of tickets I'm honestly ready to throw the monitor out the window. I try to confine my displeasure to those specific people, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't occasionally rub off to some degree on how I deal with subsequent tickets. If you happened to get me in that situation, sorry!

People working in support are supposed to regard their job as a permanent challenge - just to stay on top of that kind of customers and try to turn them into satisfied customers by still solving their issues. But to keep up that attitude is a challenge in itself, so it's much easier said than done.
Again this is just my personal case, but I'm defensive of our products when people complain simply because I was involved in the whole development of them - they're like children to me, I've seen them all since the time they were nothing but a couple displays floating in space without a cockpit or model around them. If I was "just a support guy" maybe it wouldn't be this way, but our company is lot more tight-knit than that and everyone's involved in most aspects of the products.

That's a tradeoff for me: I need people in support who know about the product as much as possible - so it's best they've been taking part in the development process as much as possible. But the degree of identification with the products may get people too much involved in an emotional way - so commmunication may be more difficult from both ends.

It's also the fact that a very high percentage of the complaints I see are due to things that are out of our control - people not reading the manuals, people who've messed their computers up with malware, driver issues, tons of garbage running in the background, FSX or Windows issues, etc.

BTW (1.),
I never had issues with PMDG support in those respects; hoping I didn't create issues myself, either!

BTW (2.),
I own all PMDG airliners since the 'legacy' NG for FS9 - of all my combined support tickets (3 tickets for ALL my - 6 - PMDG planes in total, plus a model expansion)
- 1 ticket was a 'misplaced' sales enquiry
- 1 ticket was a 'misplaced' feature enquiry
- and only the remaining ticket was a 'true' support request; but the issue turned out not to be related to the plane, but to a compatibility issue between W7 and FSX!

 

 

You mean "product."

LDS763, iFly, ATR72-500,BN Islander=products?

I am predisposed towards developers that develop their plane out of a passion first, and the dollars second. You can always tell what kind you are dealing with when you get on a customer support forum and report something negative, and see how you are recieved.

At least in my case I do try to be courteous but honestly it can get very frustrating at times - you have to understand that people who do this job are basically dealing with complaints and upset people all day long. You'd probably be very surprised at the number of people who come in right off the bat with a horrible attitude - making assumptions that we won't be able to solve their issue, accusing us of things, using "colorful" language in their requests, even threatening lawsuits over whatever their issue is. After I get a few of those types of tickets I'm honestly ready to throw the monitor out the window. I try to confine my displeasure to those specific people, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't occasionally rub off to some degree on how I deal with subsequent tickets. If you happened to get me in that situation, sorry!

 

Again this is just my personal case, but I'm defensive of our products when people complain simply because I was involved in the whole development of them - they're like children to me, I've seen them all since the time they were nothing but a couple displays floating in space without a cockpit or model around them. If I was "just a support guy" maybe it wouldn't be this way, but our company is lot more tight-knit than that and everyone's involved in most aspects of the products. It's also the fact that a very high percentage of the complaints I see are due to things that are out of our control - people not reading the manuals, people who've messed their computers up with malware, driver issues, tons of garbage running in the background, FSX or Windows issues, etc.

 

Don't throw the monitor! - it's only the messenger

 

Indeed, I have asked Ryan a few product support questions in the past, and some just out of pure curiosity (Ryan, remember the question about the upper and lower speed limits of the B747-400?).

 

I have never received a curt reply from him, bearing in mind that he did not even need to reply that question, or for that matter from other developers, but having said that, I always try to be as courteous as I can, even when I am frustrated with a product, and I have to say that I have come across too many support requests here in the forum where the poster jumps on the developer's back and start to accuse them of everything under the sun to know that usually attacks of that nature causes a response that may be somewhat less courteous.   None of us like to be accused of all sorts of things when there is usually not even a basis for it!

 

I have asked a few "dumb" questions in the past, like when I asked Ryan about why my FMC in the NGX is not saving my simulation options and why I had to re-enter everything when I restarted FSX when I got it to work right before the re-install.   Now, it is clearly indicated in the manual that FSX should be run in Administrator mode first if using Vista/7, and I did get it right the first time, but forgot that little aspect when re-installing everything.

 

Ryan's reply was courteous and where most of us would probably have had the inclination to tell the customer just to read the darned manual, he dealt with it professionally and courteously.  

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Kind regards

As a computer support tech with my company I can understand issues with computers in many cases which indicate a problem with software A that is in reality caused by a preexisting issue with the computer.

 

 

To the customer since they haven't noticed a problem before installing software A, mistakenly blame software A as being broken.

 

 

This leads the vendor of software A to actually troubleshoot the customer's computer for a preexisting problem that has nothing to do with their software.. this = loss of $$$$ for the vendor ..

 

 

I have seen post after post about how sorry a vendors software is because it doesn't work on my computer...If the vendor has their software installed on hundreds or thousands of computers without issue, then their app is effectively vetted.

 

 

I feel for the tech support areas of any software vendor...

(...) None of us like to be accused of all sorts of things when there is usually not even a basis for it! (...)

 

 

Werner, apart from seconding you, I'd like to emphasize that point in particular ...

LDS763, iFly, ATR72-500,BN Islander=products?

LevelD is the developer behind the 763 and therefore handles the support, Flight1 is the publisher behind the product and deal with questions regarding the purchase. The poster probably referred to the first.

 

With regard to Flight1 I had a question regarding my order number that I got a personal answer to three hours later. The next day I also had a question for Ryan aka Tabs that he also was quick to answer. But at least you don't have to talk to people. There is nothing like having a customer screaming at the top of the lungs at you over the phone line! It's actually kinda fun!

LDS763, iFly, ATR72-500,BN Islander=products?

 

Your post implied that LevelD had put out more than 1 title.  I was correcting that.