I cannot count the amount of times I see in my twitter search streams how 'X' company has such excellent technical support.
On top of that the company who is offering support proceeds to RT the shout out because they are proud of that fact. We do it, our competitors do, everyone does it.
However. I have a theory.
I was speaking to Bob recently and he mentioned very clearly that, if possible, he wouldn't want a single person visiting his forums. Now you are probably sitting there and wondering why?
Well the aim of the game is not to have the most robust support, but to have the most robust product (yes having both is awesome too). If your program is bug free then there shouldn't be a need to visit forums unless it is for suggestions or special requests.
I then got an epiphany. In this day and age we are constantly fighting for air time. The more your brand gets a positive mention on Twitter et al, the better.
So the theory goes, do you intentionally program / miss certain bugs in order to show off your incredible support and therefore get positive airwaves? It's a complicated theory because many of you will argue that if the product is awesome then they will talk about it anyway.
However it's usually when something goes unnoticed that it is an excellent piece of kit. You won't notice how good something is until a) it brakes or b) you change to something inferior.
That sought of process takes longer than bragging about excellent support.
It's just a thought.
16 Comments
"So the theory goes, do you intentionally program / miss certain bugs in order to show off your incredible support and therefore get positive airwaves?"
No... and I dont think anyone else does either, bit farfetched tbh.
However - you make a good point about the best products getting the least praise by that measure. But then again, what would you prefer, a great product, or a great bit of customer services? Humans crave positive human interaction more than they crave products. You cant buy time, and the fact that someone else is willing to give you theirs is worth a lot.
Just my 2c
@John - Its totally far fetched, to the point of conspiracy but I thought it was worth a mention.
By the way I agree with your 2c, I wish we could have the best support around and are working on it.
Dude, I think you guys do a pretty good job at that already :)
Though maybe I should buy a few Obox Themes and really test your patience the way I do with Adii :P (he loves it!*)
(*maybe)
Haha, Im sure Marc will pretend to have a big smile on his face :P
But seriously, our issue at the moment is that we cant attend to questions between 12am and 8am everyday. We are not yet in a position where we can justify hiring a support guy based in that time zone. Till then our support only gets an 8/10 rating (IMO).
I agree with John that itd be far fetched to think that this is going on intentionally, but...
It does seem plausible that developers can get a bit lazy and shrug things off thinking, "well, if they have a problem, they can just come to the forums." instead of building it tight to begin with.
I dont think the idea is far fetched at all, for example; my dad doesnt buy Samsung products - because he once read that they intentionally built faults into their products, so that you need to call & fix it, or buy a replacement product - usually after the warranty expires.
Theres probably no proof that this ever happened, and it was a very long time ago! But the idea doesnt sound so stupid. If you really think about it - it does make sense.
Obviously Id never do it, and I doubt most people would. But the Idea is something that Im sure has been used before. And its a similar idea to the one brought up in this post.
People work in strange ways, and some companies would try anything - So I dont think for a second that this has never been done before.
Really interesting post dude, its something Ive always thought about companies selling physical products, but as youve pointed out the same can apply to digital products. Nice read!
Yes, this makes perfect sense to me. But I don think they do it in another way as well.
I do think that sometimes, a product or online app intentionally doesnt include certain features (not bugs) so that they can then go ahead and release the product faster. Then they ask for the users feedback and opinion about the product, and for the next build, they include those features. Then the customers rave about how great they are for listening to their users. :) (Im pretty sure the next version of the iPad will have those missing features that people have pointed out.)
As John said, thats just my two cents.
Anyway, interesting articles youve been publishing lately. Oh, and I think BOB should write a blog post for you guys, he seems to be really smart and knowledgeable.
Hey - get Bob to do a blog post, great idea! He should also make an appearance on that show - whats it called - oh yeah, from the couch.
I dont think its far-fetched at all. I suppose Ive spent too much time in the corporate world. While I wouldnt expect that its a wide-ranging pracice, it wouldnt suprise me at all if there were some developers who thought this way.
Im in the camp that says Id expect that your products are tight enough such that there is no need for *support* as such. For myself, Im a graphic designer traditionally, and I realise that Ive still got a lot to learn with development. Im more likely to have questions have more to do with what I dont know in coding - and I wouldnt waste your time with that.
However, it would be useful to have a section in the forum for each theme where end-users can show off what theyve done with them. A gallery of sorts like that would be very useful....
@LIam - Mate I totally agree with the Warranty story. How often has a car broken after 3years 1month and 7 days, juuuust after the Warranty has expired. I tell you it happened to my car once.
And I dont think its scarce, Id like to have a conspiracy that its quite a common thing for product manufacturers to shorten the lifespan of their products.
@DI - the day we get Bob to write an article would be quite an occasion ;) but its something wed definitely like to see in the near future.
@Meredith - From the Couch?? Never heard of it. I dont think Bob will be able to sit in on a show but I will ask him to do a blog post ;)
@Lisa - Theme Mod Showcasing will be included in NewBox ;)
Im starting to think you made Bob up completely. Yes, thats it. You guys dont have a father, you were spawned from... something. Not sure what yet.
@Marc Yeah for sure. The better you make your product the fewer quantities any one person will buy.
Its too risky though - make it too good and youll never see them again. Make it too bad and theyll go elsewhere. Its a fine art to make something just shit enough to make people depend on it, but not put them off from re-buying it.
I dont think its far fetched to think that either. Im sure a lot of companies do it, but I think that as far as the wordpress community goes (the top level wordpress developers who arent just in it for a quick buck anyways), were striving to do like Bob said, make the product so good that no on wants to use the support forums.
Im working on launching a theme site and I think that if I could get it to where the only posts in the support forums were mod requests or requests for future features, Id be completely happy.
It is fairly common for companies to make products with built in planned obsolescence so they can stay in business with additional products being purchased in the future. Typically its after the warranty period, but a lot of these parts have been tested well enough that the businesses can pinpoint point of failure with a lot of accurately. If the company want to spend the extra dough, they can have a more reliable part from a higher grade manufacturer, thus they usually slap a higher warranty on it and up mark the price of the product to compensate.
With that said, I think we are in a unique design community where I think there is a level of trust between you (the business) and your customer because we are smaller companies. If you are taking the time to leave in bugs, than you obviously arent focused on the customer experience, but rather the publicity of your product or service.
In the end its costly to have a support team and I think youd save more money by fixing the bugs before the customer knew them. If you did the latter and the customer discovered a bug and needed it fixed, then you technically are wasting the customers time regardless of great customer service or not. The customer shouldnt have to take the time out of their busy day to report your product or services mistakes.
I am from UK, the lighter from every corner shop lasts about 10 times to light up. Reason - that customers buys them more often. Its not so rare to manufacture products with planned fault. Almost all businesses use it - you need to ensure that product has certain life time to ensure circulation of market, second reason - for many businesses Tech Support is additional business. On web its used too often in my opinion, certain application realized specially baggy, it creates forums, discussions, back links, communities - AWARENESS and request in new version, updates and so on. New version of iPad will have (in my opinion) only some of missing features, and version after that will have some more added and so on, always ensuring that when new version comes out there is something more required by customers