Traditionally most communication between myself and yourselves has been through email and more recently this forum.
I'm interested to hear if you think some more modern methods may benefit.

For instance Skype would be convenient as it has instant messaging and a fall back to voice.

Other possibilities are Yahoo messenger and Gtalk

What are your thoughts?

I've always been happy with your response time, either via email or on the forum. I've never waited more than 12 hours for a response and i've just chalked that up to the time zone difference.

It seems you've got customers all over the globe, unless you're not planning on sleeping, we may just have to be a little patient.

To answer your question, this forum gives me almost immediate feedback. In most cases, the question I'm asking has already been discussed and I just need to search.

One comment, there isn't a link to your main web page from the forum page, unless I've missed it. That would be helpful to beginners. Another option to consider is "Stickies" or posts that remain at the top of the qeue and have the answers to common questions.

Pete

As for the link, I frequently see a site's logo at the top of the page that is a hyperlink to the site. Don't know if that's an option with the software you use.

As for stickies, the typical new guy stuff. Assembly, hookup, first start problems & cures. Really, you could take some of the good threads you've already got and just pin those.

Thinking of oddball ideas, another thing that I've seen used to good effect is Youtube videos. You can explain how to flash a chip, but a 45 second video makes it so much clearer. When rebuilding my bike I was helped immensely by videos of rebuilding forks, relacing wheels, checking tmiing belts, etc.

The videos don't have to be production quality, your phone takes good enough videos. They're also a decent advertising tool.

I wouldn't worry about 24 hour support, now that you have the forum many of the general questions can be answered here.

Pete

Skype with video could be good. For example a laptop with webcam could be held up to show circuit boards or optimiser displays or screen shots of computer screens. Apart from that, this forum and email is fine. I often find the delay between hemispheres frustrating - not because of the wait for the answer but because it dawns on me where I went wrong whilst waiting. Makes me out to be an even bigger plonker than I am.
Of course if we go Skype we would need to use google translate IIRC!!

edit: Your admin www link in your answer pane on the forum takes us to the YaBB website - how about changing it to a MyECU website link instead?

raz wrote on 04/06/11 at 22:47:38:

Yeah, that's what I was thinking of. A link FROM here TO the main page.