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As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

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Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#31

Post by jimktrains2 »

Terr_ wrote: post #14
doomlaser wrote: post #5

I created a shareware Tetris clone for OS X in the mid 2000s and provided my cell number in the readme. I'd get a trickle of calls from all over the world at all times of day. That's where I learned never to have a serial number generator that included the number 0 since it looks so close to the letter 0. It was weird to be out and about and suddenly get a tech support call, but people were usually really nice.

> the number 0 since it looks so close to the letter 0. Just throwing this out there in case the problem comes up again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base58

Also Base32, which has more out-of-the-box support:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base32#Crockford.27s_Base32

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#32

Post by mark-r »

Terr_ wrote: post #14
doomlaser wrote: post #5

I created a shareware Tetris clone for OS X in the mid 2000s and provided my cell number in the readme. I'd get a trickle of calls from all over the world at all times of day. That's where I learned never to have a serial number generator that included the number 0 since it looks so close to the letter 0. It was weird to be out and about and suddenly get a tech support call, but people were usually really nice.

> the number 0 since it looks so close to the letter 0. Just throwing this out there in case the problem comes up again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base58

That's a good start, but if the string is meant to be typed by hand it would be better to be case insensitive. Some kind of base 32 encoding would be appropriate.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#33

Post by javajosh »

whalesalad wrote: post #13

Working at the Apple Store as a sales person has helped me IMMENSELY in my career, not only in terms of understanding how human beings approach technology but from a sales standpoint as well. In the first startup I was a part of, every single member of the 3 person team did email support for our school teacher userbase. Do it. Everyone needs to do it. Doing this kind of work is very grounding and humbling. When you b…

Yeah, I totally agree with this. Too often we forget the wide-eyed innocence with which people approach technology, their half-knowledge which secretly terrifies them. They understand, somehow, the intricate pattern they control, and fear messing it up. (Which is actually a very good place to start learning to be a good sysadmin, but I digress...)

One way to empathize with users is to recognize that, to them, your software is a combination of an IRS form and the game Myst. It's filled with inscrutable, unknowable, questions, each of which, in any combination, produce arbitrary state changes in the rest of your program - and perhaps even the rest of the machine (or the internet). What's incredible to me is that this is not an unreasonable state. Real-world software has been forged in the fire of market forces, and contributed by remarkable individuals. Many of them have known computer science theory, but more than a few did not. Indeed, many computer science PhD has gone to his grave without writing a single useful program for other people to use! This, to me, is quite sad.

But I digress.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#34

Post by lucaspiller »

tananaev wrote: post #3

Does anyone know any good and easy to use service to provide paid phone support? For example, I want to charge something like $1 or $2 per minute.

Premium phone numbers are a lot of work to get setup, and payout rates are often no more than 1/3 of the call cost.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#36

Post by billfeng »

Great article. An effective engineer needs to know how to work with non-engineers. Unless, you're on a team composed of purely engineers and don't need to interact with non-engineers. But even then, it's a good skill to hone for potential career changes in the future.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#37

Post by BurningFrog »

cyberferret wrote: post #11

I did it for 10 years, but more recently have moved away from phone support as much as possible (or delegated to others to do). The main reason - I am a solo developer. And the brain mode for 'developer' is VERY different from the brain mode for 'support agent'. It was basically impossible for me to get into 'flow' state during a normal working day. Even one phone call during the day took me away from my creative, pr…

The obvious solution is to have phone support days or hours.

If you only accept support calls at certain times, you can plan to do development at other times.

Re: As a solo developer, I decided to offer phone support

#39

Post by danso »

cyberferret wrote: post #11

I did it for 10 years, but more recently have moved away from phone support as much as possible (or delegated to others to do). The main reason - I am a solo developer. And the brain mode for 'developer' is VERY different from the brain mode for 'support agent'. It was basically impossible for me to get into 'flow' state during a normal working day. Even one phone call during the day took me away from my creative, pr…

> I did it for 10 years, but more recently have moved away from phone support as much as possible (or delegated to others to do).

Somehow you managed to also keep the business going as its sole developer without going insane or bankrupt. If your luck turns bad and you have to find job security at a Big TechCo, at least the prospect of being stuck in an open-office-layout won't scare you :)

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