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I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

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Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#391

Post by wegfawefgawefg »

Vegenoid wrote: post #126
duxup wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You need to develop a polite but curt tone of voice for customer support. And very focused responses in terms of action items. You might think of 3 things to say, check, but sadly 90% of the people you respond to with a list will behave like they read just one of them. Sadly this also leads to dragging things out for everyone who can handle more than one thing at a time :(

Yep. All the time when I worked in IT: Me: Please try these 3 things and let me know how it goes: (list of 3 things with instructions) Them: I tried (thing #1) and it didn’t work. Me: Thank you, please try these 2 things and let me know how it goes Them: I tried (thing #2) and it didn’t work. Me: Thank you, please try this thing and let me know how it goes Them: (no response) Me: Just checking in to see if this is re…

I had this experience with an online game crashing. This is a game I play all the time, which recently recieved an update that adds a kernel level anticheat program. The game would start and then black screen, and I would get a null reference exception popup. Audio and input would continue without any graphics. To me this likely indicates a lack of init result check on some pointer that gets passed to a graphics init function, and then they try to access the pointer that was never assigned to. (my guess anyways)

I was punushed for "leaving" the game, banned for a couple weeks, and sent an obnoxious email about my bad behaviour. I reached out to them on customer support handfuls of times and was always given a list of three steps such as "upgrading graphics drivers", "ensuring i disable my firewall", "using a pc with high enough specs" (my machine is ridiculously overspecd) and things like that. I would follow the three obviously pointless steps, and then be given another set of obviously unrelated steps. This went on about five times over a month.

At some point I just told them, look im a fucking game developer, give me a log dump tool, or a build with debug symbols and I will fix it myself, and finally a real human showed up and actually sent me one. I recreated the bug and sent log captures but they wouldnt let me help beyond that. Then at the end they still scolded me for "leaving" the game.

I dont blame the average person for expecting customer support to be unhelpful or a robot by default, and not following steps.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#392

Post by lolc »

rusticpenn wrote: post #366
teractiveodular wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're working with a large company, Support is outsourced to a bunch of people reading scripts in Manila/Bangalore, and the external company employing them is actively incentivized to never resolve the root cause of any issue, because doing so would mean less tickets and less billable hours.

In my first job in a software maintenance project, I was overenthusiastic and was closing issues left and right. My manager called me to his office and told me that if I solved all the issues, the project will need much lesser people when they renew the contract, which might lead me, the junior most person, to be sent to the bench until they get a new contract.

You were not overenthusiastic, you were sane.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#393

Post by latexr »

rusticpenn wrote: post #366
teractiveodular wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're working with a large company, Support is outsourced to a bunch of people reading scripts in Manila/Bangalore, and the external company employing them is actively incentivized to never resolve the root cause of any issue, because doing so would mean less tickets and less billable hours.

In my first job in a software maintenance project, I was overenthusiastic and was closing issues left and right. My manager called me to his office and told me that if I solved all the issues, the project will need much lesser people when they renew the contract, which might lead me, the junior most person, to be sent to the bench until they get a new contract.

Sounds like something that could be turned into an opportunity. Immediately start looking for a different job, and on the interview explain “I left previous job because I was too efficient at solving problems. After X time, there were no outstanding issues so I was no longer necessary. I’m looking for the next place where I can make a difference”. There are plenty of places that see fewer issues a positive.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#395

Post by nkrisc »

Key point IMO:

> If people really wanted a trial, they would eventually read the two-sentence instruction, click the link, and fill in the form. Did this affect my sales significantly? I don't think so. Most of the people asking basic questions would never convert to paying customers anyway.

Maybe leaving some money in the table but saving a whole lot of sanity in return. Some customers are better not to have unless your product is self-service, as-is.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#396

Post by aflukasz »

gizmo wrote: post #119
authorfly wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's better but this is not uniformly true. For one, people use random sites to test cards to see if they can get away with using stolen CC details at every stripe-integrated company I've seen, target audience irrelevant. The proportion of negative/wild interactions with support and chargebacks is always going to be in an uphill battle with positive correspondance unless you are selling multi-seat deals with support…

> people use random sites to test cards to see if they can get away with using stolen CC details I already addressed this. By forcing people to use the product before allowing them to purchase you make drive-by fraud impossible. We use stripe and we have 0 fraud to deal with.

Do you allow purchasing based on time or are there other factors, like features used?

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#397

Post by shnock »

make3 wrote: post #220
Ylpertnodi wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the customers who feel (sorry for the term) "entitled" Why would the word/ term "entitled", need an apology?

because it's a subjective very negative judgement about another human, and in polite conversation one should assume baseline positive things about other humans. it's basically like calling someone an asshole. as HN as a culture of politeness, you apologize first, even if it's justified.

Serious question, especially if there’s follow up reading. Where does that principle of assuming baseline good things about the other speaker in polite conversation come from?

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#398

Post by loa_in_ »

Alupis wrote: post #276
beefnugs wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That actually sounds like a good idea for a technical support app: The only interaction possible is they can tell you the problem, then you can give them a list of things to try, and they can do nothing but give feedback on each step, in order, and you arent bothered until they at least respond something for each step

This sounds like a recipe to get a lot of `asdfalsfasfsd` responses...

I'm starting to think Humanity's problems are not technical in nature. I don't see how to even think about forcing people to help themselves.

This is obviously satire, but we could make every internet app completely modal: once you start a flow on any site your computer prohibits you from starting any other flow on any other site before you complete the previous one.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#399

Post by meiraleal »

ahmed_ds wrote: post #345

I will try my best to not make this sound like a veiled promotion. Short answer is you need a VA. What I do mostly act as a filter. I have seen this happen with my clients. People often think that it is just too much hassle to running a small sideproject and not worth the time. But geez man, do you have to do everything?? Why bother with the grunt work. You have caught the lightening in the bottle, but for the rest d…

Every grunt work you outsource in place of creating a system to fix it you lose grip of the business you are creating. In your example you used VA but change it for sales. Many technical founders go looking for someone to sell without having any clue about what sales mean. They will have a terrible time finding a reliable partner because they have no clue about the thing they are outsourcing. The same goes for outsourcing the grunt work of developing a successful business. You need to know that, you need to do that. Looking for shortcuts before you succeed is a recipe for failure.

Re: I've built my first successful side project, and I hate it

#400

Post by bartread »

shnock wrote: post #397
make3 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because it's a subjective very negative judgement about another human, and in polite conversation one should assume baseline positive things about other humans. it's basically like calling someone an asshole. as HN as a culture of politeness, you apologize first, even if it's justified.

Serious question, especially if there’s follow up reading. Where does that principle of assuming baseline good things about the other speaker in polite conversation come from?

I suppose it's an underlying principle of good faith discourse. And good faith discourse is an absolute requirement to have a meaningful conversation or debate that moves (whatever) things forward.

Part of the reason that political discourse is currently so polarised and pushes us towards bad outcomes in our societies (thinking particularly of US and UK here, but I'm sure it applies elsewhere), like the recent riots in the UK, is that so much of it is bad faith, dishonest, assumes the worst of others, casually alienates to score points, etc.

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