I was fortunate to start my software development career in a very traditional way. First, I received a degree in Computer Science. After receiving the degree I then landed a job in technical support. Following that I moved to a job in Quality Assurance which led to software engineering. In-between these positions I wrote my first small-run book, WYSIWYG (Simply put!).
What basic things did I learn?
- Empathy for the customer
- Attention to detail
- Patterns of success
- Patterns of failure
- Everyone possesses a limitless potential for both good and bad engineering
Why bring this up now in a blog post? Simple, I want to share something that I learned with the blogosphere. What I want to share are my thoughts on how companies perceive and handle complaints. This is a topic of much discussion lately and whole companies have risen up as virtual seat belts to protect a company’s reputation. Unfortunately this has led “bean counters” to hire PR firms and Reputation Specialists because this is cheaper than building good quality products and supporting the same in the first place.
Let us be clear, no software is bug free. If someone claims their software is bug free then you should laugh at them. Personally, I have known quality assurance engineers who have made a good living proving arrogant engineers or more arrogant marketers wrong.
The “seat belt” is an added measure of support and protection. This added measure of safety that is needed in case of an accident is just that. You would not go without it, but regardless of the seatbelt, would you drive in a car that could accelerate at any time, creating an accident that might kill you? Most clear thinking people would say “no way.”
The 1 in 10 rule
When I worked in technical support I found out very early, because I would listen to the customers on the phone, that while they may have called in for a specific reason, the reasons that led them to the call in the first place were easily noticed and repeatable. Here are just a few:
1. There was a problem impacting work.
2. There was the problem or an irritant less than a stop work error?
3. The problem was during an evaluation, and they wanted the software to work.
4. The customer has a vested interest in the product working.
So taking this into account you can see that there is a real concern. But you do not need to read this post to understand it better.
Let us say you buy a phone, and it does not work; are you the type that makes the best out of the situation, returns the phone for a new one, or do you get on the phone to try to work out the problem with technical support. In my experience I have found that one in ten owners of a product will call technical support. This is why, when running departments of software companies. I put a strong importance behind both solving the problem while providing the complete solution online-making sure it was indexed properly so people could find the answer to the problem by simply searching Google.
So simply put, if one in ten will complain, you may keep them but you may lose nine potential customers or repeat customers. Imagine trying to manage a budget when you discard 90% of your potential customers. These are the customers you must focus on for growth and sustainability.
Social Media
In comes social media and yes I have a small story. I had a problem with my Bowflex Tread Climber. I needed to install new tread platforms so I ordered the replacement parts. When they were delivered there was no assembly instructions included. I searched the web for instructions and found none. I tweeted about the awful time I was having in finding the instructions with the hash tag #Bowflex and a customer service rep sent me the answer in minutes, on twitter. Can you say #win. Hopefully they also ship install instructions now and make them easier to find on the web. So Bowflex had a seatbelt to augment their online instructions in case someone like me had a crash.
Head in the Sand Approach
It is hard to believe, but some companies, still try to control information. They hide support information from company employees and customers. If there are support problems, they solve them or kluge them but do not broadcast them. They do this because they fear that customers will not chose them if their software was not bug free (please refer back to my comment on the existence of bug free software). These dictatorship type companies in the end use a seat belt approach only versus an education and quality approach.
Conclusion
The good news is that these companies that behave like dictatorships, in honor of the almighty dollar, are going away! Social Media and the internet bring a new level of transparency ensuring that companies that behave like little tyrants cannot survive.
Some Resources:
Search on Twitter for your products or company
http://search.twitter.com/
Use something like hootsuite to monitor all products and company trademarks
http://hootsuite.com/dashboard
Thanks Everyone!
-rob
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