Quark announced that customers have lined up to laud the company’s recent introduction of free English technical support and other service improvements over the last 12 months.

The improvements have been an overwhelming success, according to Quark. In a somewhat exaggerated press release, Quark has customers praise their recent changes in customer service policies.

Quark introduced free English language technical support in November 2004 in conjunction with increased staffing and phone lines. Quark CEO Kamar Aulakh has helped Quark implement many changes to demonstrate the company’s desire to improve its relationships with customers. Quark has changed policies and pricing, embraced new partners, and committed substantial resources to customer outreach.

With testimonials like the following one, Quark wants the world to see they’re fighting back at Adobe: “Wonderful! I love the ‘new’ Quark Inc. company,” said Cheryl Nemazie, Studio C. Design & Photography Inc., United States. “You’ve made it worthwhile to stick with Quark. Your response was fast! And free! Keep up the great work and all the new improvements.”

Another one of these testimonials at least initially questions the quality of Quark’s move to employ Indian support personnel: “To be honest, my initial reaction after ringing the number and finding I was speaking to someone in India was surprise and apprehension,” wrote Ian Ainslie, FlyLife Publishing, Australia. “However, I soon began to have complete confidence in the support person I was talking to as I began to realise his tremendous depth of knowledge of the Quark program and the operating system I was using. The purpose of this e-mail is firstly to thank you for the technical support and secondly to give praise to the professionalism of the person I was talking with. He was very interested in solving my problem, obviously highly skilled, and possessed excellent communication skills.”

The entire Quark management team, especially Vice President of Operations Monique Wirz-Grutter, is driving the changes. “We have a dedicated group of employees who are focused on providing world-class service to our customers,” said Wirz-Grutter. “Our aim is not only to be known for creating leading software products and solutions, but also to be recognised for the quality of service and support that goes with them. Knowing that the many recent improvements are positively impacting the experiences of our customers is gratifying, but it also drives us to continue to raise the bar.”