up one level
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2015-04-27

Strategy for Supporting a Software Customer

Think of software customer support issues in terms of a user leveraging the product’s functionality.

possible questions:
1.
Can one do “__” with the software?
A: Either Yes or No, preceded by a sentence of additional explanation– that is to say, in either case(whether Yes or No), include the answer to the following (question #2.) “What does one… mean?” question! To clarify and be more helpful, or to explain why I can’t be more helpful.

2.
What does one doing “__” with the software mean?
A: point to definition/description of that feature.

3.
How does one do “__” with the software?
A: This only needs to be answered if the answer to (question #1.) “Can one do…” was “Yes”.

Flow: For a question that will be of either form 1. or form 2. or form 3. But the *answer* should take one of two forms: Either the form of the answers to ((2.)+(1))., or the form of the answers to ((2.)+(1.)+(3.))
In other words:
– No matter what people ask, I need to respond to tell them: (2.) my understanding/recapitulation of their meaning, and then (1.) confirmation yes/no that this can be done.
– If the answer is yes-this-can-be-done, then on top of those two points I also need to to respond to tell them (3.) how this can be done.

Flow, SHORT VERSION:
A. Define what one’s attempting to do with the software. Determine “__”.
B. Determine whether “__” can be done with the software. (YES/NO)
C. If YES, then determine how to do “__” with the software.

I’ll look to apply this to software support inquiries, and see how this process/strategy fares.

a food image:




[2019 edit: Moved to: https://i̶n̶v̶e̶s̶t̶o̶r̶w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/2015/... .html.]