People - qualified support people.
That is the keystone.
We are actively searching for qualified support people, we just don't take
applications, we also recruit from the industry. (Me for example.) So if
you know of *good* support people, it wouldn't hurt to let us know, or let
them know we're looking. Maybe they'll end up on this team.
There are many reservations about piad support - first off, we're not short
on funded positions, we're short on people to fill them. So it won't help
to increase the resources.
Second - haves and have nots. I saw it first hand at my last job - people who
had money to burn would, and they hogged all the resources. They paid, so
they assumed they could call with the slightest question and we were
contracted to answer quickly. Many just stopped trying to fix their own
problems because "that's what we're paying you for". Which meant that people
lower on the food chain - free support, resellers, etc, suffered miserably.
It was not unusual to see month old tickets unanswered in the free queue,
I saw 6 month old tickets more than once. We were just nailed. And the
solution being discussed was "get rid of free support entirely".
We don't want that to happen here, we are committed to providing free support
to everyone and don't want to start dividing the base into those who pay and
those who don't. The fact that we don't charge is not the problem, the
problem is human resources.
So the "Charge me for support" tack doesn't work.
Honestly, I think that is really the only major problem - human resources to
handle the load.
I'm not a management type, of course, so there may well be things I am not
aware of. That's what I see from the trenches.
-MZ
-- Livingston Enterprises Technical Support Phone: 800-458-9966 FAX: 510-426-8951 support@livingston.com <http://www.livingston.com/> 6920 Koll Center Parkway #220, Pleasanton, CA 94566