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OT-ish. Software Support – what are your expectations?
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The point you might be missing is just because a personal response isn’t made about every submitted issue doesn’t mean submitting feedback is futile. More insight here: https://www.fcpworks.com/submitting-better-fcpx-feedback-to-apple/
Appreciate that as a small developer you take pride in personally supporting all requests. But let’s say one day you get 5,000 customers all simultaneously emailing you about the same issue that you’ve already explained in FAQs, user manuals, on your blog, Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere. You likely won’t have the interest or resources to personally satisfy all of them.
Also in the case of non-bug queries- those requests are readily answered in user to user forums, as it should be. That way instead of an individual person getting an answer via email, anyone who searches that forum in the future has open access to the same answer. And that’s every bit as valid as it might be from some official source.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
Perhaps you know something about business that I don’t but I’m having a hard time understanding how a one-time software purchase generates the ongoing revenue to support a full-time support employee over multiple years. Or should direct support only extend to new users for a specific period?
Or perhaps an Adobe-like software subscription model is more what you are thinking about in your calculation- where customer revenue is constant as they continue to have access to the app. In that case, I can see your argument a little more clearly.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
If a customer really wants 1:1 expert support from the manufacturer (beyond standard Applecare level service), it’s readily available. It’s just not free. And that practice is not restricted to Apple:
https://www.avid.com/US/Support/avid-advantage
https://www.adobe.com/support/programs/premiere/?tab:contact=1
https://www.apple.com/support/professional/Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
[Noah Kadner] “More insight here: https://www.fcpworks.com/submitting-better-fcpx-feedback-to-apple/“
I’m really intrigued by your suggestion that the user should rigorously self-censor before submitting enhancement requests to Apple.
What’s the thinking behind that from an Apple perspective?
They don’t have to answer – and of course most of the time they don’t answer. So where’s the harm? What’s the downside for Apple? Most companies are only too happy to harvest the opinions of the client base – it’s valuable market information, whether or not you decide to act on it.
Sorry to keep taking issue with you (but hey, this is the Debate forum, right?) – it’s genuinely interesting to hear your ex-insider’s take on all this, so thanks very much for sharing. I really appreciate it.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Simon- indeed these are good things to debate and as a developer it’s nice to hear that you care more than the norm.
With regards to Wheaton’s law, I’m sure you can imagine the variety of sensibilities expressed in relation to FCPX. As a full-time employee I was more than happy to read the good with the bad as it was all on the same clock.
I wasn’t so much suggesting in that article that customers self-censor their feedback. Moreso that feedback with some sort of actionable data is far more useful than simply expressing frustration. I imagine that almost any customer service/support rep at any company would agree that a “your software is crap, and with that said here’s my console log and repro steps” is a lot more useful than just, “your software is crap.”
In the case of FCPX, all feedback is indeed carefully read and where appropriate— replied to. The feedback that isn’t replied to is no less important; it’s just used in other ways. I won’t say precisely how because that would be telling about internal practices.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
Noah, Thanks for the chance to discuss this. It’s an interesting subject – to me, at least.
[Noah Kadner] “In the case of FCPX, all feedback is indeed carefully read and where appropriate— replied to. The feedback that isn’t replied to is no less important; it’s just used in other ways. I won’t say precisely how because that would be telling about internal practices.”
Rubbish feedback is tiresome, of course it is, but it’s still valuable information about how your customers feel about your brand. In that sense, none of it, however unpleasant in tone, should be rejected out of hand, or actively not sought.
It is after all, all of it data about your customer base, which is a massively valuable commodity as we all know.
That’s why I picked you up on the suggestion that users should self-moderate before submitting enhancement requests, of all things. In that case, you have users actively engaging with your brand in a positive way.
Enhancement requests have value not so much in the sense that they show you what you should be doing next, but because they’re key information about the mindset of your most committed customers.
Simon Ubsdell
tokyo-uk.com -
Couldn’t agree more and suffice to say in my position I was highly impressed by the practices in place.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
[Simon Ubsdell] “If I have 5000 customers rather than 50, I have 100 times more revenue to service their support requests – and so on. There never comes a point of which volume of sales doesn’t entitle the user to the same level of support. “
My own guess is the likelihood of a response from Apple is relative to the potential uniqueness of the bug at the time you report it. While I’ve never received a response for an FCPX bug report I did for FCP Legacy and, in addition to emails, it resulted in phone calls and even an NDA.
If you’re one of hundreds or thousands they may not have anything to say beyond working on the fix.
If you hit on something rarely reported that they may need your help in verifying they’d be highly motivated to contact you.
A developer with a much smaller user base may not know how widely spread an issue is so they may be much more motivated to contact the user for verification.
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As I said, I couldn’t agree more and I was impressed by the practices in place.
Noah
FCPWORKS – FCPX Workflow
Call Box Training -
Simon, what does “support” mean to you?
General help using the system? Emergency help when something goes unusually wrong? Bug fixes for the stuff that’s broken?
Walter Soyka
Designer & Mad Scientist at Keen Live [link]
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
@keenlive | RenderBreak [blog] | Profile [LinkedIn]
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