February 5, 2016 | Jeanne Sipich | Senior Application Support Analyst
20 years ago, I started a new job at a privately-owned software company here in Denver, Colorado. Its’ founders were three guys: Jack, Dan, and Ed. My friend, who worked for the JD Edwards Support organization, figured I was smart enough to be trained, so she got me an interview. I remember how excited I was to be hired and what a great vibe I felt just being there. It was super hard work, but I really felt like I was part of a special place. What a fantastic culture! Everyone was happy to be there. We got our jobs done, prided ourselves in excellent, personalized customer service, and as they used to say “had fun along the way”.
As the years passed, as with all things, there were changes. We went public, which meant changes, good and bad. But it makes sense, I suppose- who starts a business without wanting to make a buck? The tech bust happened and times got more difficult. We were bought by a competitor. It happens…then one hostile takeover later and I found myself working for a ginormous software company.
Maybe it is working at such a large scale, but the personal touch with our customers we’d all prided ourselves in seemed to be vanishing. The focus became self-service for JD Edwards support: push whitepapers, force the customer through a guided resolution, which more often than not, pushed them – you guessed it- to a whitepaper before they were allowed to enter a ticket and speak to someone to assist them with their problem. This was the approach that was considered proactive in addressing customer needs.
So I made the decision to start over at a company, which reminded me of the “old job” I started 20 years ago. Spinnaker Support brought me back to the good old days. I’m still working with the same software, which runs through my veins – but now I have my own set of customers that I get to open my bank of knowledge to and offer my personalized service. We are proactive in that I call them every month to review their tickets, explore projects that we can assist with, offer tips on how to leverage their investment to get the most benefit, and generally just remind them that I am here for them. My colleagues are similar. Everyone is a “senior” resource as combined, we offer an average of 18.5 years of JD Edwards support experience and the teamwork is phenomenal. Together, we can work to understand all the system integrations needed to offer our customers the support they need. At my old job, if words like “custom” or “modifications” were mentioned, support ended. At Spinnaker Support, we not only assist in making custom modifications, we support it after we are done.
We’re solid and growing and offer world-class JD Edwards support in addition to E-Business Suite, SAP, Siebel, and Oracle Database support at a fraction of the cost of vendor support.
Spinnaker Support is an exciting place to be…just like in the good old days.