The time for free support of mission critical DAW software is over

People who use Sonar Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) in business are losing money when the product is buggy.

Cakewalk supports Sonar as if customers are not in the business of recording music.

Update – Sonar X1b now ready for prime time

I respectfully submit that Cakewalk needs to develop a tiered support level to keep it’s customers happy and to pay for the support businesses expect.

This is not a problem with Cakewalk’s employees: it’s a failure of management to put the proper customer service systems in place.

Forget how buggy Sonar X1 is. The support of the Online Forum and email support doesn’t cut it when time = money in business.  

Before Cakewalk can change it’s support offerings it has the fix Sonar X1 so that the program works. Today at release Sonar X1a, it’s a mess and can’t be expected to perform in a commercial studio.

Other software developers charge for support. Our company charged 18% of the retail license fee annually for phone support on client server systems back in the 1990s.

Microsoft charges for support. They have forums, tech support bulletins and training for MS Engineers.

Taking remote control

When that standard support fails and a system is down, you can call Microsoft and they fix the problem or give you a work-around. The worse case scenario is the problem can’t be fixed and the Microsoft engineer will send it to engineering.

When you’re on the line with MS Tech, often they take remote control of your computer and use their superior skills and knowledge to solve the problem.

Dell does the same thing to fix customer problems.

In the digital audio biz, Lynx Studios will come online and fix problems with their Lynx AD/DA converters, AES audio cards or the configuration of Windows.

When my Aurora locked on 192 kHz, I was flummoxed. An email to Lynx tech support only reduced the number of solutions available.

I just called them and was talking to the service technician. He tried a few things over the phone and then took over control with remote software. I watched him clicking around and about an hour later everything was working. We could begin recording again.

Business level service costs money

Lynx didn’t charge for that but they should.

To provide the best support, you have to hire the best people and pay them. The original value of a sale goes down with time. Yes it’s important to keep customers happy but it’s also a good idea to make it a profit center.

Profitable software vendors are better for customers even if they don’t realize it when the VISA card gets charged. Time equals money in business.

Microsoft’s fees for supporting Windows 7 and almost all of their other system products

After the initial and short free support period, businesses and professionals  can get premium support at these prices:

• Business hours telephone support $259 USD (One incident)
• Business hours telephone support** $1,289 USD (5 pack of incidents)
• Business-critical after hours telephone support*** $515 USD (One incident)
• E-mail only support**** $99 USD (One incident)

Usually the only people who pay are those for whom time=money. If you are supporting MS sites and don’t carry this level of support, you’re creating customers for your competitors who do.

Charging customers $100 to $250 an hour, a business can’t afford 1 day of downtime which equals $800 to $2,000 in lost revenue. You also can’t afford to hurt your reputation with customers.

Stretch that out to a week and you’re calling Sweetwater to send you a fully loaded Mac Pro with Logic 9 or ProTools. Get me a new DAW.

Of course, Cakewalk should never have shipped Sonar X1 in December. It was really just beta code. A few people say they got it working – as I did for a few days – but then the software fell apart again and again.

The last phone support technician at Cakewalk lamely told me to “experiment” with different settings. After five weeks of trying, I went back to Sonar 8.5.3.