[sdiy] OT: email a minor form of communication? (was Re: Futurelec - BAD experience.)

[Jason Tribbeck]

Hi,

> >Emails are like writing letters. If someone's busy or not very 
> >together, they just won't bother.
> 
> Which -- IMO -- is quite stupid behavior.
> 
> If you are *busy*, you also don't answer calls.
> 
> If you are too busy to answer emails, but not busy enough to 
> get interrupted frequently by phone and cell phone, you're 
> doing something utterly wrong...

I run our company's technical support department, and we get telephone
and email support (88% is email).

Of the two, email support is IMHO is much easier - and it's normally
more accurate than telephone, since you've got time to investigate the
customer's problem and come up with a solution/work-around.

It also allows you to prioritise so customers with the most immediate
problems can be handled first: If a customer calls, asking you how to do
something minor that's documented on the support site, and demanding to
be talked through the process, you may miss a call from a customer whose
entire system has died. I know which I would prefer to answer first.

If the customer's problem is a simple one, then a telephone call is
suitable. However, I have had to sit on a phone for 30 minutes listening
to a customer repair his database - if this had been done by email, I
would've:

1) Given him the link to our support site on how to do this (rather than
reading it out to him)

2) Waited for him to reply to say it was all working

(The fact that he called 5 minutes before I was due to go home was
particularly irksome).

Having said all that, it really depends on the product being sold, and
the types of users you are selling to. If you're selling a cheap item to
idiots, then you don't really want to have telephone support. Just look
at what Microsoft or Symantec do - they have a good support web site,
but if you want to call someone (or even email!), then you have to pay
lots of cash.

If you're selling very expensive equipment to knowledgeable people, then
providing telephone/email support is easy - they aren't going to ask you
how to turn the computer on, or ask where to buy a mouse.

What do we do? We sell expensive equiment to people who range from
idiots to very technical. We have a fairly good support site (although
many customers still don't look at it).

Luckily, we've just out-sourced our first level support (to Canada,
rather than India), so I don't get asked too many simple questions any
more.
--
Jason Tribbeck