Sage News and Discussion

Does this concern anyone except me? I am not at all concerned with the random (non-customer) web visitors. I am somewhat concerned that the on-plan Sage 100 customer with access to a ""chat now"" button may start to use Sage more than a consultant for everyday issues. This does presume that Sage executes on this to the point where chat can be real time. I would be interested in forming some type of real-time support chat with any other like-minded consultants outside of the realm of the group (ie - not a group project).

Past is prologue. I really don't see how Sage will consistently respond with any meat. I suspect that all chats result in something like ""not a problem with 100c"" or ""That's complicated. Call Tech Supp."" I think it's a marketing response ploy. As for reseller responses. Our customers on agreement all get response within their promised window (1 hr, 1-4hr, 4-8 hr). We have one who, for a while, was messaging, and it really didn't work well. We finally got him to understand he would go through less angst if we could do the problem diagnosis verbally.

Of course it should concern you. Sage has been slowly and subtly been building direct relationships for the last four years. Don't be surprised as some customers start to be ""ok"" with the Sage support that is included with their mandatory Silver and Gold plans for perpetual and the Gold plans for subscription. On a related topic: who's really to blame here? Isn't Sage responding to a need? What are partners doing about it? What's stopping 90 Minds from offering a a 24x7 help desk for the 90 Minds Members that would want to participate - complete with a chat option, KB, etc. delivered by the partner to the customer? Most of the 90 Minds members need better marketing engines. Again, what's stopping 90 Minds from offering a marketing department to 90 Minds members that want to participate? We all live in our own tiny little islands but it doesn't need to be that way. This has been coming for years. It's not going to get better so we each need to decide if we are going to choose to do something different or be prepared for inevitability.

The best way to get into a first position with customers is some type of customer user group. I'm not sure how motivated most Sage 100 users are to join such an animal however, I think rounding up partners is old school especially since many have merged and will continue to do so and Sage is well aware that they only need to manage a rapidly shrinking pool of Sage partners. Factor in the 80/20 rule and I bet even for it's biggest product lines Sage only manages 20 or fewer partner groups for each line of business (Sage 100, 300, etc).

They seem to have great success in the Microsoft world with creating user groups and user group related activities so I'm sure it's possible with effort and desire.