alt Hacker NewsAs a customer, I just want the information I need. While I don't want to talk to a chatbot, I also don't want to talk to a human - and for the same reason: they usually don't have the info I need.
That's the aspect I don't understand. The information I want is almost always something some other customers have asked already. I'd much prefer to avoid their customer support maze entirely and help myself on a searchable wiki. Unfortunately, most company's online product support FAQs usually only contain answers to obvious shit on the order of RTFM and "is it plugged in." Why not just post the doc their advanced tier 3 support people share amongst themselves? It can be under a warning label like 'preliminary advanced info for engineers'.
I realize people like me represent only around 2-3% of the customers seeking support but it's 2-3% that is able to self-serve and takes more time than average because we invariably have to work through front-line support to get escalated to someone with the non-obvious info that's still been asked many times before. So maybe we're only ~2% but we suck up 4% of support bandwidth and we probably take up closer to ~20% of Tier 3 support - the most expensive, scarce type.
I mostly agree (although sometimes it is necessary to talk to someone about it); it would be better to actually have good documentation (so that you do not need to talk to someone about it).
A warning label like you mention is a possibility if that is considered to be necessary, although I think it might be better to have a file that you can download and read (or request by mail or telephone or fax, if this becomes necessary in some circumstances; do not assume the computer always works and is compatible with your file), instead of a searchable wiki.