
A Plea for Companies to Provide Support via Text - newy
https://medium.com/@euwyn/a-plea-for-companies-to-provide-support-via-text-98ce541149fa
======
AdmiralAsshat
A counter-plea from someone in Software Support to _never_ implement something
as haphazard as SMS-based support: We have more than enough trouble already
getting people to tell us exactly what their problem is when they have the
expectation that they must send us a communication with a clear subject and
body (not that this stops the random e-mails with no body and a subject of
"HELP!"; or the e-mail that evidently went through five people in their
company before going to us and contains "FW: FW: FW: FW: App Crash" in the
subject line). Do you really think the kind of support we can provide will
improve if the expectation is that the user is going to provide as little
information as possible? Here's how I expect such an exchange would look:

User [1:51 PM]: help plz

CSR (Customer Support Representative) [1:51 PM]: Hi there! Thank-you for
contacting support. What can I do for you?

User [1:52 PM]: my app isnot working

CSR [1:52 PM]: I am very sorry to hear that! I don't believe we have this
number on file. Can you please tell me your name ?

User [1:54 PM]: john

CSR [1:55 PM]: Hi, John! I am afraid that won't be quite enough on its own.
May I please have your full name?

User [1:55 PM]: john smith

CSR [1:56 PM]: Thank-you, Mr. Smith. Now which app in particular may I assist
you with?

User [2:05 PM]: ThatBusinessApp

CSR [2:06 PM]: I see. You are having a problem with _ThatBusinessApp_. May I
ask on what platform you are using this app?

[Time elapses]

CSR [2:36 PM]: Mr. Smith? Please tell me which platform are you currently
running this app on?

User [2:40]: whats a platform

CSR [2:42 PM]: How are you running this app? On your PC? On a tablet? On your
iPhone?

User [2:45 PM]: tablet

CSR [2:46 PM]: I see! And would this be an Android tablet or an iPad?

User [2:50 PM]: at&t tablet

CSR [2:52]: So you got the tablet from AT&T. Do you happen to know what
operating system the tablet runs?

User [3:00 PM]: no i dont f_cking kno what os it runs. i already said i got it
from at&t. your sh_tty app is broken and its been a goddman hour and u still
haev no idea (1/2)

User [3:01 PM]: wat the problem is? this service is terrible and above all
else u cost me money by wasting all my txts 4 the month! (2/2)

~~~
XJOKOLAT
Cheap shot.

I could describe countless communications where the supposed tech-warrior-
wizard didn't record accurate notes, didn't listen properly, didn't respond
and ... later, this all conspired to ensure that they didn't know what the
hell they were talking about.

And don't get me on the customer services staff ... I name no names ...
(VODAFONE have completely dropped the customer services ball. It's a
disservice).

I actually disagree with the article (from my experience). It's not the
communication platforms that are to blame, it's the rigidity of processes and
the imprisoning of staff within those processes that are to blame.

I feel sorry for staff and despise the people who design such customer service
architecture (at least any I have encountered).

------
michaelbuckbee
We do a substantial amount of support at ExpeditedSSL [1] via email for
precisely the reasons the author mentions.

It's asynchronous but lets you respond quickly and for startups will likely be
sufficiently organized to keep things moving without a full blown helpdesk
application.

Secondly, it lets you be extremely precise and copy & paste friendly in a way
that phone calls can't match. Ex: we often have to help people set their DNS
entries and it's much easier to email someone the following than explain it.

    
    
        Please set your www CNAME to fugu-1111.herokussl.com
    

Email is in fact so predominant as a support tool that you can actually go
quite far with managing support requests in your email client before you need
a dedicated support app/service. Modern email clients that nicely group emails
into threads are more than adequate to get started.

1 - [https://www.expeditedssl.com/pages/how-we-grew-our-
startup-b...](https://www.expeditedssl.com/pages/how-we-grew-our-startup-by-
providing-awesome-support)

------
douche
Not SMS, but I work on a call-center-over-IM product. Our customers usually
end up relegating their phone systems to a second or third-choice option once
it is rolled out and they get their staff trained. Some advantages they cite:

1.) There's no accents in text. Especially for outsourced call-centers and
helpdesks, communication through text eliminates a lot of the difficulty in
variations in spoken language.

2.) Higher through-put. It's just about impossible to service two phone calls
at the same time. It's not nearly as hard to switch between two or three IM
conversations.

3.) With enterprise IM platforms, you've got capabilities to step up into a
phone call, transfer files and screenshots, do a screen-share, and other
things you just can't do with just phone.

4.) Integrating with ticketing systems, customer tracking systems, whatever,
is easier, since you can pretty easily look up the incoming requester by their
IM username or email, and present that information to the agent servicing the
request.

About the only downside is that, developing, you're often dealing with limited
APIs, half-baked, incomplete and even downright incorrect documentation, and
weird, little-known platform limitations.

------
matheweis
It'll happen soon enough. The post millennial generation lives and dies by
SMS. Another (imho) neat thing to happen alongside this will be 911/999
service via SMS.

~~~
chiaro
Actually I think I sent maybe 4 texts last month. That's been entirely
subsumed by Facebook messenger and whatsapp.

------
rokhayakebe
I work for a law firm. We have this in place, and people use it to schedule
meetings, or ask a call back, or even detailed questions.

------
turbostyler
I've been using Sonar [1] to provide customer support for my clothing brand
via text for about 9 months now, and customers have loved it. Interactions are
much quicker than email, so it's great for us as well.

1 - [https://www.sendsonar.com/](https://www.sendsonar.com/)

------
Zaheer
We need a plea for companies to provide support at all. Google _still_ lacks
any meaningful support for many services (AdSense, Google Play, etc)

