Another increasingly common trend is not having a proper escalation path, like an email address. Good luck trying to find an email address at Netflix to escalate a problem.
Customers Don't Want to Call for Support
61–64 of 64 posts
Re: Customers Don't Want to Call for Support
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I generally agree. I like companies that enable me to do most things independently online, then quickly connect me with a competent human when I call about complex issues I don't understand.
As do I. But, first, this is already a 3rd-order failure: the product was poorly-designed enough not to be clear, and failed to offer in-product guidance or help to guide the user to the right solution. By the time you're searching online, the vendor has failed twice . Supporting a community of intelligent, literate, and adult users who all the same simply don't get technology, that's just not good enough though. Yes…
Traditionally, lots of support calls amount to "pilot error" and led to the common acronym RTFM. Even the simplest, most basic things could warrant a call to support (especially if free) from somebody seeking a de facto handholding or tutorial.
The other end of the spectrum is when you (as support) get a call from a user who is a known quantity infamous for really knowing the product... better than most users. Seeing such a name on a support ticket induces a shudder, because you know he's revealed some hairball of a problem that will eat your day... or week, with the only mitigating factor being his/her detailed strategy of workarounds already attempted. (You out there anywhere, Bob Kaplan?)
Re: Customers Don't Want to Call for Support
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
As do I. But, first, this is already a 3rd-order failure: the product was poorly-designed enough not to be clear, and failed to offer in-product guidance or help to guide the user to the right solution. By the time you're searching online, the vendor has failed twice . Supporting a community of intelligent, literate, and adult users who all the same simply don't get technology, that's just not good enough though. Yes…
Traditionally, lots of support calls amount to "pilot error" and led to the common acronym RTFM. Even the simplest, most basic things could warrant a call to support (especially if free) from somebody seeking a de facto handholding or tutorial. The other end of the spectrum is when you (as support) get a call from a user who is a known quantity infamous for really knowing the product ... better than most users. Seein…
I learned humility for how "normal users" use computers back in the late 1990s when javascript reporting of display settings were first coming out. A trivially easy thing to change and improve your experience ... and yet the vast majority of users didn't.
Choose really sane defaults. Autoconfigure if possible.
And on the other side, I've got a few fixes, patches, and documentation to my credit in some larger projects and products. Nothing truly wizardly, but solid basic stuff.
Re: Customers Don't Want to Call for Support
#64This article refers to documentation that is behind a $499 paywall. Ick.