Everyone should read support emails
medium.com
Everyone should read support emails
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Re: Everyone should read support emails
#2"We can't give devs access to support, because [ZenDesk, FreshDesk, etc] costs 9 gazillion dollars per user"
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#3"We can't give devs access to support, because [ZenDesk, FreshDesk, etc] costs 9 gazillion dollars per user"
For that exact reason I've had a weekly "emails and chill" date with a supporter. Brought coffee for both of us. I flicked through incoming support emails for 30-40 minutes....
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#4"We can't give devs access to support, because [ZenDesk, FreshDesk, etc] costs 9 gazillion dollars per user"
For that exact reason I've had a weekly "emails and chill" date with a supporter. Brought coffee for both of us. I flicked through incoming support emails for 30-40 minutes....
We did the same thing with a small team. Did wonders for our response time and for refining our support processes.
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#5I once joined our support team to talk with one of our clients (I'd written a new bit of functionality and they wanted me there in case they would ask technical questions). It was one of the most eye-opening experiences ever. Our client talk about their clients abusing our software in ways that we as a development team had never even thought about.
EDIT:
On the other hand, I don't think it should be done to create a sense of urgency for developers. They are not going to work better if they also have to worry about each and every emotion that's being displayed in support emails like the example in the article. That's just creating a sense of responsibility in your company by appealing to emotions and guilt.
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#6I once joined our support team to talk with one of our clients (I'd written a new bit of functionality and they wanted me there in case they would ask technical questions). It was one of the most eye-opening experiences ever. Our client talk about their clients abusing our software in ways that we as a development team had never even thought about. EDIT: On the other hand, I don't think it should be done to create a…
Could you elaborate on the kinds of abuse you saw?
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#7"We can't give devs access to support, because [ZenDesk, FreshDesk, etc] costs 9 gazillion dollars per user"
Every member of IT where I work (758 people) have licensed ServiceNow account.
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#8That would require developers to think of users as people instead of cattle, and then they might have to accept that the decisions they made because "developer time is worth more than user time" have an actual real-world cost on actual real-world people.
Re: Everyone should read support emails
#9Fully agreed. I'll go a bit further: Everyone, especially engineers and PMs, should once in a while actually reply to support emails. As CTO of my previous company, I still found time for large amounts of customer support, and so did one of my cofounders.
It's definitely important IMO for key people to be in contact with the userbase. Get a better look at what people are asking for, feel more directly responsible for both CS failures and successes, etc. And it overall increases the quality of support (rather than put people in CS who have no idea what's going on aside from the script they follow).
Key quote from the article:
> My experience with everyone reading support emails is, that everyone feel an increased responsibility and a sense of urgency to eliminate whatever emails hits your support inbox.
I am always sad when I see people who think doing customer support is beneath them. It's a red flag, IMO.