E-Mail Support (was Re: Accusations (fwd))

C. Harald Koch (chk@border.com)
Fri, 11 Oct 1996 12:02:45 -0400

In message <Pine.LNX.3.95.961011000726.2100A-100000@inorganic5.fdt.net>, Jon Lewis writes:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 1996, Jed Stafford wrote:
>
> I think the moral to this story is email is too easily ignored, lost,
> missed, misinterpreted, etc. If you NEED support, pick up the phone, dial
> the 800 number and ask for a support person or leave a voice mail for
> one...

I've done support; both e-mail and telephone. They both have their uses.

It's true, E-mail can be slower than voice; if you need instantaneous
response, use the phone. If you're rebuilding the T1 circuit between
Vancouver and Seattle (5 telephone companies involved :-), use a conference
call. If you have a category 1 outage (equipment is down hard) use the phone.

But for most other problems, e-mail is better. It's *much* easier to deal
with e-mail problem reports; the dialog is *detailed*, and directly between
the customer and the engineer.

And besides, MegaZone has already said that e-mail is likely to get a faster
answer than telephone.

Also, It doesn't *have* to be the case that e-mail is ignored, lost, etc.
There are some very good trouble-ticketing systems that use e-mail (or are
e-mail based). These systems will raise a flag (to a manager, for example)
if a ticket is not answered within a certain timeframe.

-- 
C. Harald Koch           | Senior System Developer, BorderWare Firewall Server
chk@border.com           | Secure Computing Canada Ltd.
+1 416 368 7157 (voice)  | 20 Toronto Street, Suite 400, Toronto ON M5C 2B8
+1 416 368 7789 (fax)    | Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.