FROM THE IGLOO

We just got this email in from a customer today, it really speaks for itself:

Dear folks,

(I believe I talked to ******),

I’ve trouble(-shooted? shot?) the issue covered by ticket ***-***** and it does not seem to have anything to do with DF. It was a medium-to-long shot, anyway.

Thank you for all your knowledgeable help and not rolling me over to five levels of automated support software asking me for details of my problem and recorded voices telling me my call is very important to them between bursts of vintage 1993 Windham Hill celtic easy listening fusion world jazz until I am dumped to someone with a binder full of error codes and a list of all the questions they have to go through before they are allowed to ask what is actually going on and are required on pain of death to say Thank You For Your Patience not less than two times in any three sentences.

The jolt of competence and problem-solving suggestions, together with the obvious absence of a script, was so invigorating that I considered inventing problems just in order to have such a conversation again. Please earnestly consider the possibility of applying fire and sword to all other tech-support services of all major hard- and software vendors, disposing of their crisped, lacerated corpses with guttural cries of triumph and taking over their jobs.

But I digress. Again, thank you for your assistance.

Sincerely,

-xxxxx

As much fun as this email was to read it’s not that uncommon to get similar feedback from our customer base – not quite so colorfully phrased but of similar sentiment. The biggest problem that I see in our industry is that most companies see their support teams as a cost center and don’t plan around making customers happy with the products but with keeping the cost of support down. Obviously that does not work well, our challenge as we grow will be ensuring that we continue to meet these expectations.