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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How does RESPONSE compare with Mail Order Manager in terms of features and functions?
Both Mail Order Manager and RESPONSE are mature, fully-featured direct commerce
applications. To be fair, Mail Order Manager has some features that Response lacks.
So if you rely one of more of them, RESPONSE may not be right for you at this
time. On the other hand, though, RESPONSE has several features lacking in
Mail Order Manager that you might find extremely valuable. We're glad to help review your
needs to determine if RESPONSE is a good fit for your operation.
If you had to choose only three things
that make RESPONSE a superior order management system what would these be?
That's a tough question because there's so many. But here's
what we believe to be the top three:
(1) All RESPONSE editions, including our $995 single-user system, run on the
MS-SQL database platform. Its speed, stability and scalability
are overwhelmingly superior to other smaller database platforms like FoxPro,
dBase, and Access.
(2) User-Configurability RESPONSE was designed to allow our
clients to make significant changes to the application's features and functions
(esp. workflow-related) so that no custom programming - which is a
universally bad thing - would ever be needed. As your operation grows
and changes, RESPONSE can change along with you without having to compromise
and/or invest in costly modifications;
(3) Vendor Support CoLinear strives to provide an honest, open
environment to effectively interact and achieve mutually beneficial results for
ourselves and our clients. We realize that for the relationship to work,
there must be "give and take." Not just take on our part, every chance we
get. Maintaining our excellent reputation demands that we put our
customer's needs first, not a distant second to our own. We realize that
treating our customers well will reflect favorably on us; therefore, putting the
customer first will ultimately be in our own best interests.
How do the hardware requirements of RESPONSE compare to
Mail Order Manager?
RESPONSE, because it runs on the Microsoft SQL Server database
platform, requires a more powerful server than Mail Order Manager might be happy with.
Specifically, we recommend a server with a 2Ghz (or higher) processor with at
least 2GB of RAM. Any workstation that can comfortably run Windows XP or
Windows Vista
can comfortably run RESPONSE.
In what ways is RESPONSE more configurable than Mail
Order Manager?
Many. For starters, all of our reporting is done in Crystal
Reports [definitely the best-selling and perhaps the most powerful and flexible
reporting solution available for the Windows environment]. Consequently,
you don't need us to customize a report. You can do so yourself using
Crystal by either copying/modifying an existing report or creating one from
scratch. Better still, all of our forms output -- such as picking tickets,
invoices, purchase orders, etc. -- are also written in Crystal. This means
that you are not locked into using any pre-printed form. You can
using whatever form you like, including using up your current ones!
Several Response customers print to blank sheets whose printed output is
personalized for different DBA's they're using, complete with the unique logo
for each one. This is a lot more efficient (and cheaper) than having to
order, say, four different custom business forms and having to load and print
them individually. With Response the plain paper forms go in and they can
generate a print run for all four divisions simultaneously.
Does RESPONSE have an active User Group?
Yes. Our User Group meets once each year and is always well
attended. Our most recent
meeting was held April 23-26, 2008 at the luxurious Evergreen Stone Mountain
Resort in Atlanta, GA. We also have a very active online user group forum
where ideas and questions are routinely exchanged among users.
Does RESPONSE have its own shopping cart program?
Not exactly. The closest thing we have to our own shopping cart
is a very tight, near real-time interface for
CommerceV3, which is the best
and most cost-effective shopping cart solution we could find. CommerceV3,
in short, is the solution that WE would have built had we decided to reinvent
that wheel. For batch processing, we have a configurable order impord
module that can work with any shopping cart program that can output a delimited
file. We offer an even more elaborate interface for Yahoo! Stores and
Amazon. Finally, our Response Connectivity Kit (RCK) can be used to
tightly integrate your existing shopping cart to our back-end in real-time.
Several customers have used this API to create a seamless connection between
their web store and RESPONSE. In short, although we don't offer our own
"one size would never fit all anyway" shopping cart solution, we can support
virtually everything that's available including from-scratch solutions for the
most seamless and potent connectivity possible.
What kind of hold times does CoLinear experience for
tech support?
Our hold times are virtually zero. But that's not because we have many
support technicians catching the phone. Rather, it's because we limit
telephone support to emergency, production-stopping issues alone. The bulk
of all support requests are handled via email which is much more efficient and
effective than phone support. Our policy is to respond to all email
requests for support within one hour with the exception of those that require
research or a developer's review. Typically, we respond to support emails
within 10-30 minutes. A technician may also contact the user by phone to
get additional information or clarification, as needed. We've found that
support via email is extraordinarily effective. It not only provides a
written audit trail of all correspondence on a given issue, we're able delegate
(or escalate) any incident without delay (including a comprehensive, written
history of the question or problem). By freeing up the phones primarily
for requests for emergency service, our clients who need help "right now!" are insured of immediate
assistance from our most senior and experienced staff without delay or dilution
from less critical matters.
How much does CoLinear charge for maintenance and
support?
The cost of monthly maintenance is calculated as 1.5% of the system value per
month.
Does CoLinear offer after-hours support?
Yes we do. Our regular hours for support are 8:30am to 5:30pm
M-F. After-hours support is available for $250/hour (billed in 15-minute
increments).
Does CoLinear charge for software upgrades?
All minor revision builds and upgrades [for example, v9.0 to v9.1] are provided
free under maintenance. Only major version upgrades [e.g., v9 to
v10] are billed (in the past at a nominal 10-13% of the client's system value).
What can CoLinear offer us?
Let's start
by stating what we won't do.
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We won't ever take your
patronage for granted
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We won't ever require
you to purchase a maintenance contract in order to receive a database
update or an additional module.
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We won't lie to you
about what we've done, what we're currently doing or what we plan to do.
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We won't change the
deal mid-stream just because it suits our purposes. Rather, if we've
made an agreement with you, we'll honor it - even if circumstances
should change and it is not in our best interest to do so.
What we will do.
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We will treat you with
courtesy, fairness and respect.
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We will always bear in mind
that you're the client; and that we're here to serve you, not
vice versa.
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In the event of dispute, we
will always give you the benefit of any doubt.
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We will listen carefully to
your concerns and/or complaints because, if it matters to you, it should
matter to us even more.
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If you help us to improve our
system by funding an enhancement (that you would like to receive faster
than we would like to
deliver it) we'll pay you a royalty on future sales of any new module
that results since it would be unfair not to.
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In keeping with our
mission statement, we will always strive to make the idea of doing
business without us unthinkable.
"From
a functionality perspective, Response is undeniably an
enterprise-class application, capable of holding its own with
virtually any other competitor for both B2C and B2B direct
commerce." ...
more
Ernest
H. Schell
Industry expert and consultant
Marketing Software Review
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