| Where's The Any Key? |
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| Written by Don Jones |
| Tuesday, 31 August 2004 16:00 |
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It was a quiet Thursday afternoon when the receptionist informed me that "Sally" had a very strange question. Sally wanted to know where the Any key is found on the keyboard. It turned out that the prompt on the screen said something like, "Hit any key to continue." Being new to the business and maybe technology in general, Sally could not find this mysterious key. So, she did the proper thing and called our office for help. Since the question was so unique, it took me a few seconds to decide what Sally was really asking. I'm not sure I ever really cleared that one up for her. Then there was "Joe", somewhere on the West coast, who called and was distraught because his receipts would not print. He was sure there was something wrong with the software. After all, he had run the same payment six times and no receipt had appeared. Luckily, I was a little quicker with Joe- I asked if the printer was plugged in and turned on. There was a short pause before Joe said that he had to go--another important phone call had just come in. The reason that I answered Joe more quickly than Sally was that I had spent 10 minutes with my first printer problem question before I asked the obvious question about the power. Joe did call back asking how to remove the five extra payments A friend of a dealer, who we'll call "Charlie", was hired to help start a dealer-financed business. He was to run the lot, from sales through collections, and was to be the only employee. He was out of work and needed a break. But after working for 45 minutes at the dealership to train Charlie how to log on to the system, he did us all a favor by spilling his coffee onto the key-board. Carrying a damp keyboard across the lot to dry in the sun, I met the general manager who asked me how it was going. After a short and very truthful discussion, I learned that Charlie had never been associated with a car lot, a finance company, or computers, and had never been in front of a keyboard. Charlie had effectively just ended his career in BHPH. And, of course, there is the time that the employee's kid spent Saturday with mom at work and decided to delete some of the directories on the system ... just because. The office had not backed up the data for six months, so it turned out that the tape was useless anyway. Be warned: ten-year-old kids can be dangerous. What's my point? Your problem may not be the software. Don Jones is chairman of the board of Auto Master Systems, Inc., a leading and longtime provider of software for dealer-financed businesses. For more information call 765-677-0777, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or visit www.auto-master.com. |
