[tombliss]

I disagree - strongly.

It has been proved over and over that good support sells product, while poor customer interaction folds companies - and faster than any other factor - specially when prospective customers browse forums like this one trying to decide where to spend their money.

I'm not - if you read what I said - demanding free phone support, but email support is an absolute must. The support function HAS to be set by the size of the demand (which is itself a bi-function of the design of the product), NOT the size of the company or the price of the product.

This is basic business science. If you can't provide adequate support for the product you have made at the price you are charging then your business model is flawed and your business will eventually fail. Simple.

If they really think they can't afford email support (and digidesign, a far smaller company managed it) then a more proactive presence here would make a huge difference.

You say that many of the problems are user mistakes such as incompatible software/plug-ins/installation procedures. Probably so. But the solutions are usually fairly straightforward. All the Mod has to do is paste in the solution, or a link to the right page - job done.

What you and a lot of people who frequent this board overlook is that you are a very competent around computers. Most of the people who come here with a (often very scary) problem are not - that's why they came here. They don't want to have to wade through lots of seemingly conflicting advice from people who may or may not know what they are talking about. They want someone with Avid on his hat to say, here, let me help. Go here, do this, no sorry that won't work, try this - with a big smiley face.

They may still struggle, but at least they'll feel that their custom is appreciated.

Just read the majority of posts here - it's not a mood you pick up.

I've been dealing with a small US company called Prosoft - who make DataBack-up amongst other things. I always get the same guy, Jeremy, and he's absolutely brilliant - not only patiently answering my questions about his own product, but occasionally giving sideways help about others.

As a result I've recommended ProSoft to loads of people - and I do so here again.

A piece of software like ProTools is immensely complicated, and many of us LE users do not use it all the time - as I suspect you may. But that's the Lite market - lots of people like me - and probably fewer like you. If Avid want Protools to be first choice for DAWs they HAVE to find a cost-effective way of looking after the people with the problem. A little of money invested early on in a customer relationship makes a MASSIVE difference in terms of brand loyalty.

My brand loyalty was developed in the Digi days. I have none whatsoever now and really wish I'd bought something else.

I only want to have a few questions answered about the score editor. The manual is VERY badly written on this point, and no-one here seems to know anything about it (the only advice I ever got here on the score editor - while I was researching whether to buy it or not, turned out to be wrong) - and they do have a duty to help me out.

Yes I'm leaning on the guys who took my money, but any way round all this is bad news for Avid (and I was an Avid media composer editor from day one, so I know how good they used to be back then, anyway).