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

[Jeff Farr]

Guess I pressed a button ;)

On 7/28/05, Jason Tribbeck <Jason.Tribbeck at argogroup.com> wrote:
> 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
> 
>