61–70 of 214 posts
The day Bill Gates answered a support call https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=...
I could imagine it if it was a grandma or grandpa (or similar, you get the idea)... but then she wouldn't know who Bill Gates was anyways.
This is why we regularly take developers to customers. It is eye-opening to see on-site that your mobile app with tiny but well-designed buttons doesn't work for registering container positions when the user is in a shaky 90 metric tons weighing machine, handling 30 metric ton containers. We write software for container terminal and other logistical actors, and seeing the software being used by real users is so incre…
I think that's valuable, but depends on the organization. At a company I worked at engineering used to go on customer visits, but the "customers" were the executives and managers who make buying decisions and put forth requirements. However, these were not the folks who actually used the product. Their opinion was important (gotta sell it) but it was NOTHING like what we saw in support. The the few times end users we…
At the same time we were giving the devs/engineers a taste of what the requirements should REALLY be, or what the problems REALLY were. That gave them a far better idea of what our pain-points were.
It happened that devs/engineers, while in the presence of theirs and the customers' C-levels/Directors, they only smiled, nodded and agreed, which is kinda dangerous as they were forced to agree on insane, intangible, and unfeasible requirements.
"We can't give devs access to support, because [ZenDesk, FreshDesk, etc] costs 9 gazillion dollars per user"
This is why we regularly take developers to customers. It is eye-opening to see on-site that your mobile app with tiny but well-designed buttons doesn't work for registering container positions when the user is in a shaky 90 metric tons weighing machine, handling 30 metric ton containers. We write software for container terminal and other logistical actors, and seeing the software being used by real users is so incre…
I think that's valuable, but depends on the organization. At a company I worked at engineering used to go on customer visits, but the "customers" were the executives and managers who make buying decisions and put forth requirements. However, these were not the folks who actually used the product. Their opinion was important (gotta sell it) but it was NOTHING like what we saw in support. The the few times end users we…
Developers should meet the customer organisation to talk to users. If you're not talking to users you're not getting the most useful feedback.
Where I work we often supply software to other software companies, and our UX team goes and visits their customers to get insights about how our products are used.
Fully 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 fo…
While reading the article, I got a feeling that reading support emails is only one step away from answering support emails - and here you are, suggesting just that. I've seen further steps down this road - if there are engineers already answering support emails, then why do we need support people at all. After all, engineers have better knowledge of technical details and can make changes themselves. No need for inter…
Another extra perk of making devs handle the support is that they also have the chance to fix the underlying problem. Remember that for an engineer, fixing broken software is always less of a burden than correspondence with customers.
The day Bill Gates answered a support call https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091123-00/?p=...
I'm very skeptic that the customer would believe it was actually Bill Gates that took his call. I could imagine it if it was a grandma or grandpa (or similar, you get the idea)... but then she wouldn't know who Bill Gates was anyways.
This is why we regularly take developers to customers. It is eye-opening to see on-site that your mobile app with tiny but well-designed buttons doesn't work for registering container positions when the user is in a shaky 90 metric tons weighing machine, handling 30 metric ton containers. We write software for container terminal and other logistical actors, and seeing the software being used by real users is so incre…
I think that's valuable, but depends on the organization. At a company I worked at engineering used to go on customer visits, but the "customers" were the executives and managers who make buying decisions and put forth requirements. However, these were not the folks who actually used the product. Their opinion was important (gotta sell it) but it was NOTHING like what we saw in support. The the few times end users we…
This got me the best feedback I have ever gotten, and I regularly implemented fixes and changes that made the C-levels rave about the product (because their entire staff was so surprised at someone giving a shit.)
I was quite impressed by my head of product's subterfuge, she was incredibly talented.
Now its impossible to email many companies I find. You click on "Contact" and get Twitter, Instagram, Facebook... but not email :(
A few weeks ago I tried to make a complaint to the national mail service, because they decided the pickup point closest to me was about half an hour from my house, rather than the pickup point that was literally around the corner. They had an online complaint form, but you were only able to use it on workdays between 0900 and 1600.
Was it an interactive form with immediate feedback? I'm trying to figure out a way to justify hours on a feedback form.