Reply To: Studio One 30% Off until Jan 3

[peter]

On mibby said

Off the top of my head, it’ll add ALL of the peripheral software, like the Consoles and Batch Processor which I’ve been eyeing for a while. It’s silly that a $25 difference in update price every 2 years or so really got my attention, but it did. (?)

PS. I’m still really annoyed – and mystified – that they killed of the forum …

Yeah, their killing off their forum. From a customer perspective, sucks. From a business perspective, it is absurd.

From a brand’s perspective, having a support forum (1) lowers the cost of providing customer support, (2) creates a community of users that can help expose the brand to new users, (3) provides a direct channel for the brand that enables better understanding of how users think and to float new product / functionality ideas…

It’s just a really bad idea.  I think a lot of times the problem boils down to who smart their marketing department is — and internal politics. Specifically, what dept owns the forum.  To some departments it’s not looked at related to its benefit to the business and ROI perspective, but seen as a burden. It really needs to be looking at more strategically in terms of its value to the organization, for its role in reducing costs and providing customer support and satisfaction to a wider audience of customers at a lower cost than other channels, and the role it has in retaining customers. Big companies get it. Years ago, I interviewed to run Microsoft Windows online. They get it; it’s very important to them (one of my former colleagues was in charge of their customer support forums — although I haven’t stayed in touch and I’m not sure what she’s been doing the past several years). They see its value. But these, much smaller software developers, too often don’t. As a Presonus customer, it’s very disappointing to see that move; it’s an affront to its customer base, IMO.

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