[Asterisk-biz] some things that really suck in customer support

[Paul]

Jeremy McNamara wrote:

> Paul wrote:
>
>> Consider the first point in my original post:
>>
>> "1) No trouble ticket system. I can install linux on an old machine 
>> and have a good open source package like request tracker running in a 
>> few hours. Is there some reason you can't do that? "
>>
>> The non-idiot customer will use such a system because he knows it 
>> usually works better than playing telephone tag. That is constructive 
>> criticism.
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> Who says a trouble ticketing system has to be an external, customer 
> facing solution?
>
It doesn't if all emails from customers are read and acknowledged. A 
good ticket system usually sends an acknowledgement email to the 
customer right away. It doesn't guarantee a response time but it is 
somewhat reassuring.

There are some very bad ticket systems. I have seen one that first 
emails me some knowledge base answers that are totally unrelated to my 
request and then I have to go back into the system and indicate that my 
problem is still unsolved. But I have seen many email-based support 
centers do more or less the same thing. I also have seen some IVR 
systems that do the same thing. There is smoke coming from the 
capacitors amd the chipset cooler has failed on my motherboard but I 
have to listen to "solutions to common problems" for 5 minutes before my 
call can be moved to the tech support queue. Brilliant!