My Customer Support Story
I have to admit that I’ve kinda felt left out of the whole customer support story loop. Everyone seems to have their “yay company x!” story for when they were able to get quick response times when they needed them and actually talk to people on the other end to ask what’s up.
Well, no more. Mine happened today.
I needed to sign a piece of code prior to it being released, so I got my hands on a VeriSign Code Signing certificate. I was (and still am) planning to sign using Microsoft Authenticode.
So, I mosey over to the VeriSign website, which includes instructions for doing this. The first step is to download the Microsoft Platform SDK — 1gb of stuff. 999.99mb I won’t need, but whatever.
I start through the steps — 1, 2, 3 OK, no problems. I get further down the list — uh-oh, something ain’t right. An instruction doesn’t match to the software I’m using. No problem, I send an e-mail to VeriSign asking for help.
No go. I get the, “it’s Microsoft’s toolset, not our problem” response — no once, but twice. grrrr…
So, I check out VeriSign.com, and get to their Executive Management page. I find the right person, guess her e-mail address and send off my query. No bounce, so I figure it got through — I didn’t expect to get a response, mind you.
I was proven wrong. Within 1/2 hour, the Executive VP of Security Services, a lovely woman by the name of Judy Lin, e-mailed me back, apologizing and cc’ing her head of support. The head of support then forwarded my mail on to one of her team leads, who called, left me a great VM, and I will be getting in touch with him to work through my problem later today.
AWESOME!
I’m sure this type of thing happens more than once a day. Some content is neglected on a large, sprawling website, a product mgr forgets to get copy changed to support new versions of tools that things rely on to work, etc, etc… It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it is.
The more this occurs, the more strain that goes on support folks, boosting costs. If the software / instruction / links / etc… were up-to-date, I wouldn’t have taken up a total of 5 people’s time within Verisign. I’m not dogging VeriSign at all, because they totally came through, and I hope that my experience leads them to supporting “Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2″ in the future. It’s more of a general thought.
This all contributes to the product. A product is not just “upload a ZIP file and go.” It’s packaging, documentation, logistics internally, support, and making it easy to do business with your company.
Creation is only 1 component of making something successful. Arguably, it’s the maintenance of items that bite you in the ass. They have an easier time slipping off schedules to make room for new, shiny, bright, fresh, innovative features.
Don’t neglect the bugs and step-by-step updates. It’s all important to release a successful product.
Solutions for API’s
As there are more and more new-fandangled Web-based products released on to the market, one of the things I’ve noticed (yah, me and probably everyone else on the planet), is that they feature the ability for other developers to write their own applications on top of them.
This is typically accomplished using an API. In today’s world, more often than not, it’s a URL-based API. A developer says, “get me this content, based on these parameters” and the service provides an according response in either text or XML or whatever format.
I came across a new company today called Post App. The premise is quite smart (based on what you can tell from a terribly simple home page, and an e-mail sign-up form), in that it’s catering to the set that may want to write their own applications, but don’t necessarily have the know-how to do so.
This is important for a couple of reasons, that I see.
- Developers who write the API’s are probably smarter than most of the developers charged with building solutions on top of those API’s
- Business stakeholder’s are looking for solutions that get built quick (whan don’t they want this), and work really damn well
- Users that are aware of this “Web 2.0″ thing are always on to trying to find that next cool service — that next 30 boxes, or that next Flickr.
I’ve signed-up for their private beta, so I’m hoping that I get invited in. I’d love to see what this is all about, because I’m really into the idea of making the creation of customized Web services on top of existing API’s much easier for a larger set of folks. There are tons of ideas floating around out there that are useful.
The tricky part that Post App faces is opening the service up to a level that’s comparable to actually writing the stuff from scratch. Yes, this seems easy in principle. However, as a hack PHP developer who has entertained and researched the idea of using freeware apps / code that already exist to “try” and get something done “faster”, I know that it’s more often than not, a better choice to write your own application from the ground up.
So, that being said, I’m interested to check it out, as see what the reaction is from developers.
Scoble Heading to Podtech
Robert Scoble is leaving Microsoft and headed for PodTech.net. This is just broke tonight across several blogs. Amazing, this inter-connected World we have here.
I don’t know Robert personally, but I have to say he seems very cool and down-to-earth. I wish him nothing but the absolute best of luck, and know he’ll keep on delivering the same oustanding content he has for many years.
I always love to see exciting and cool things happen to those with nothing but class and a true passion for what they do.
Congrats, Robert!
Best Error Message Ever
Adam Trachtenberg has a post on his blog about the best Outlook error message ever. I can top that with this one I got yesterday while installing the new Windows Live! Messenger update.
I love Microsoft.
MusicIP Goes Live
My friends over at MusicIP have launched their new site and are locked down in Austin getting ready for SxSW. I use their Mixer on a regular basis, and it’s a phenomenal product. They have a ton of really smarty people working there, and it looks as though they are working to expand their offering into a cool stack of services and products.
Having been an independant muscian myself when I was younger, looking at what they have available online for bands now is just awesome. When I was writing and recording music 5 years ago, there really wasn’t a lot of online support for songwriters and bands looking for more exposure. The web really helps out, and I think it’s awesome. MusicIP is really well positioned to be integral in the whole process.
Try out their stuff — you won’t be disappointed.
Well done, guys!
