> John G. Thompson wrote:
> >If you need a quicker response, please CALL Livingston technical support
> >and open a case. Emails are handled by 2 TSEs on a best effort basis (and
> >by other TSEs on a very irregular basis), calls are handled by 5 CSRs and
> >25 TSEs.
>
> Correct me if I'm wrong here, but:
> - I presume handling a support case through E-mail is more efficient than
> handling one through the phone (on average a person can handle more cases
> through E-mail than by doing phone support).
> - This should drive down the cost of support.
You've obviously never tried to offer e-mail support. You will find
that users NEVER provide enough information in the first e-mail, so you
have to send back a followup asking for version numbers, etc. Then when
the user sends over the additional information, they may not also include
the original information. This means you need a ticket based system that
keeps track of every message received and sent, so when the user finally
gives all the information, support can use the ticket number to pool all
the info. Then support will respond with a "try this", or "do that", then
have to wait for another response.
E-mail support can turn into an endless back and forth.
> - Then why isn't Livingston stimulating users to use E-mail support by
> putting more people on E-mail support?
It would require a huge redesign, probably using fill-in forms to make
sure all the info is submitted at once.
Plus there is nothing faster than getting the ip address, and password
and taking a look yourself, especially when it is one of those "it's
happening right now" type of problems.
> --
> Sincerely, srb@cuci.nl
> Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
>
> Some people live life in the fast lane. You're in oncoming traffic.
>
>
>
Tom