Re: to Anne Putnam, primarily

[AnnePutnam@xxxxxxxx]

Dear Peter:

Thanks for the opportunity to respond to your questions.

My very first posting to this list addressed (among other things) the issue
of a delay in shipping to XyWrite users. On 10/27, I said: "Those of you who
ordered Nota Bene recently may have experienced a short delay as we were
holding orders in anticipation of being able to provide you with the latest
update." Since then, some of you have reported delays in getting your order
filled (with some frustration) and some have reported that it did indeed
arrive within an acceptable time frame.

So, yes -- there has been a delay in filling some of the recently placed
orders, and NO -- I do not think that we are generally disorganized,
inefficient or unreliable. Far from it.

Not a Bene is a small company of dedicated owners and employees that are
committed to developing and marketing what we believe is the best word
processor (and related tools) for academics and other serious writers.
Needless to say, we don?t have the resources of Microsoft -- and some would
say that to try to compete in this field is not realistic. Our resources
have been certainly been stretched. But for a small company, we have
accomplished a lot -- and we are now at the point of turning some very
significant corners. We have developed a product that we think is better
than the competition, we are experiencing some initial success in marketing
it, we have a talented (currently over-stretched -- we?re about to hire)
technical support group, and we are ALIVE -- still here after 18 years of ups
and downs -- little guys making it in a big-business world!

The fact that we have accomplished so much testifies to our efficiency in
using limited resources. Every dollar invested in this company and the time
and efforts of every employee have been efficiently and effectively utilized
to accomplish the mission of producing, marketing, supporting and
distributing Nota Bene.

But you asked specifically about our billing/shipping capacities.

I hope that I don?t bore you with details, but let me tell you about our
shipping and billing group. We have three outstanding employees handling
shipping and billing: Kathy Insaf takes orders and enters data into our
system, Nancy Holmes, our financial officer, generates invoices and Kim
Carvalho is responsible for shipping. I don?t know how to convey to you how
delighted I am with the efficiency and productiveness of each of these three
women, and their long-term, enthusiastic commitment to the company. I?m
tempted to go on with long stories about each one of them, but I?m being too
long-winded already. I?ll also brag a bit about the software we use to
maintain our customer data base. We use our own Ibid. Plus (currently part
of Scholar?s Workstation) and we love it. Separate financial management
software is used for generating invoices, among other things. Of course,
billing and shipping is more than just good employees and good software.
About 6 months ago, we reviewed our policies and procedures in this area in
some detail. We made some changes in procedures which led to a more
efficient and reliable system. Kathy, in particular, is feeling a lot more
organized and in control with the new changes. I?d rate our efficiency in
this area as pretty good -- which is not to say that we don?t sometimes make
mistakes in handling a large volume of orders.

So if everything is so great, you might ask why we can?t get orders filled on
time (all of them -- always on time)?

The most recent delays that frustrated some of you were due to a combination
of programming/design planning problems and some overload on
shipping/billing. The overload on shipping and billing was due to a terrific
response to the XyWrite mailing (thanks to all of you who ordered!), strong
demand for the demo version that we have just started shipping and some
changes to our shipping procedures related to new packaging of our product.
All of these factors resulted in an unusually heavy load of work.
Nevertheless, the main problem was related to unexpected delays in completing
version 5.003. Version 5.003 is the first version to include the XyWrite
keyboard, so we held XyWrite orders, thinking that XyWriters would want to
get started immediately with the XyWrite keyboard. We thought that we could
still fill orders within 2 weeks, but version 5.003 kept getting delayed a
day at a time and in some cases customers had to wait for more than 2 weeks.
I apologize to those whose orders were delayed.

The Nota Bene users list has speculated about whether Nota Bene is a ?cult?
or a ?lifestyle? -- something more special than just software for writing and
research. I think that some of us who work for NB sometimes think the same
thing (it?s something more than just a ?job?). We have had several people
buy Nota Bene because they want to support us, they want to see us succeed --
they see something more than just software. While it is nice to think of
Nota Bene as something special, most customers buy Nota Bene just because
they want it -- a product to be purchased because (if) you believe that it
will provide benefits that are worth the money you spend. And that's the way
it should be. But, Peter, the idea that you shouldn?t buy something that you
do think is a good product because maybe we?ll take your money and never send
you the product is a new one to me. I?m not saying that we don?t make
mistakes (we do, and will again), but really -- we don?t take people?s money
and not deliver a product. We just don?t.

So call Kathy and give her your order (1-800-462-6733 or 212-334-0445). I
think you?ll like the product.

And thanks for asking your question and giving me the chance to respond.

Anne
aputnam@xxxxxxxx
or anneputnam@xxxxxxxx