Apply HN: Scalable troubleshooting

[tonyle]

A troubleshooting platform for customers to support themselves. Call centres could use this to reduce training time and gain analytics on the troubleshooting process itself. Make technical support as repeatable as writing a unit test and built into the product design.

Problem: Most self service solutions boil down to lmgtfy and rtfm.

Solution: Give people the ability to rapidly compare working and non working systems and the ability to zoom in down to the necessary level to troubleshoot. Any issues that can't be fixed indicate an undocumented part of the system. This would spare developers assisting every single customer as the system would update in real time for everyone.

I spent 5 years in technical support and have given this a lot of thought. There is a lot things that could be automated, but the simplest thing is to focus on call centres for the start. I think there is some potential in using a similar system for coding as well though that is a long ways off.

[buss]

Customers hate reading directions, and many people seem totally incapable of following written instructions. How can you ensure that your service improves outcomes over a call center?

[tonyle → buss]

The initial goal is reduction, It is unrealistic to get rid of the call centre right away. I'm not trying to compete with phone, but existing online solutions such as email, faq, knowledge base and forums.

Most customers would rather speak to an agent who knows what they are doing. For this situation, we can help the tier one agent troubleshoot much faster. Call centres save money by reducing training time. Small companies can scale up by outsourcing the technical support to call centres with the confidence that they will not lose out quality.

There is a group of users who are frustrated with going through all the levels to get an issue fixed. They realize that the person doesn't know more then the manual and they are wasting their time. They only call in when self serve is not sufficient. Over time, more people who would bypass the phones when they can use the same system directly.

Instructions are like a side scroller, This is a more visual tool that lets people bypass the linear troubleshooting scripts we see too often. Not everyone has to start at the beginning.