How do you deal with your users?

[reinaldocrespo]

Today I had to return a call to a user. I hate speaking on the phone. That’s why I created a web based app where users can login to create a service ticket. It is very simple, they state the problem, and I answer with the solution. But some users simply create a ticket basically asking for me to call on the phone. I try to be polite, so sometimes I do call.

Now this particular user is the type that is confused about the difference between a problem and a solution. So she rambles on and on. I patiently listen. I’m thinking --“gee she is going to have to stop to breath at some point”. But she is relentless. I soon realize that what she really needs is a therapist that will comfortably sit her on a couch and charge her just to listen. Maybe she is also confused about the role of the computer programmer and a therapist. I don’t know and I don’t care. But, you know, she is also one of God’s creatures. So let her talk.

Well…, after about 20 minutes I was finally able to interrupt: “…yes, ok, ok, but would you please tell me the problem now?” So she starts all over again, only louder this time. Now I realize that I’m going to have to listen to the whole non-sense from the very beginning. So I lay down the phone, go to the bathroom, do number 1, and come back only to find her at about mid point. I know the rest of the story, so I interrupt again: “Listen –there is a difference between problem and solution. All you’ve talked about are solutions, all of them totally incongruent with each other. But those are solutions to a problem about which I do not know anything about unless you are willing to share it. Your solutions might be correct, but let me be the judge of that. Now, again, STATE THE PROBLEM!”. “State the frigging problem”, using the 4 letter word is what I really wanted to say. But I held back.

So she starts complaining that I don’t listen to her, which in part is true. By now we’ve been an hour into the conversation. My phone’s battery is going dead soon. But, again, I try to be polite. Sometimes I wonder why is it that I find myself so often having to listen gabble I don’t’ care much about. Some users will fight tooth and nail to avoid telling you the problem. They want to tell you the solution. It’s like they dream with being programmers. Most times, their solutions are worthless. This is why I always insist in knowing the problem.

As it turned out, today’s problem could have been said with just one sentence. And the solution already exists. She only needed to enter the correct information in the correct field. That’s all. But she did not want my solution. She insisted in speaking for ever and ever more. Perhaps my solution was too simple, too quick, and she needed to speak more. I honestly believe that to state a problem shouldn’t take more than three sentences. As a rule of thumb, if a user takes more than 1 minute to explain a problem, then they are confusing a problem with a solution.

Today I tried to “educate” this user. This is always a waste of time. I don’t think I achieved the goal. After an hour on the phone listening noise, I couldn’t take it any longer. I tried to explain the difference between a problem and a solution. I tried to explain that my job is to come up with solutions and that her job is to bring me problems. She said that she was trying but that it was too hard to talk to me. I’m going to have to try a little harder next time and especially avoid trying to “educate” users. Well, like I said… it was a waste of time.

[fraxzi]

Reinaldo,

Maybe she likes you... because you're handsome


Regards,
Frances

[Antonio Linares]

LOL

Very true. At a certain point you can not use the phone, or you will be on the phone all day long...

Forums and emails. Phones ? No thanks

[sambomb]

Do a plan with an Telephone provider that make you earn money for each minute in the phone.. something like 1$ per minute...

This way you will simple discourage the cliente to call you.

[MarcoBoschi]

Reinaldo,
I understand.....
marco

[James Bott]

Reinaldo,

You are not alone, we've all been there, done that.

As Sambomb said, the best solution is to charge at least as much for phone support as you do for programming. That way you can listen all day long and make just as much money. If you really don't want to listen and would prefer to program, then charge way more for phone support (and make sure the called knows it).

If you provide tech support as part of the licensing fee, then you may have dug yourself a hole that is hard to get out of.

Getting information from users is one of the hardest parts of being a programmer. However, to be fair, the opposite is often also true. Many programmers are not able to speak to the users in terms they can understand.

James

[TimStone]

I think you are on a very risky path. As a consumer, before I make a phone call for assistance, I try the online documentation, email, chat, and even Google searches. However, if none of these avenues provide answers, I need to call.

I am very frustrated when I can't find the number, or when I reach a script reader over a bad connection and that person can only detect "keywords" and then gives me a trully inappropriate answer. In fact, my clients hate that also when they try to get support.

My advice is do not pull the phone plug. I've been in this business since 1982. I have some clients who have been with me most of that time. Sometimes we take a few minutes for personal chat, and that makes our relationship stronger.

I don't spend much time chatting about a problem. I invest in a contract to use LogMeIn Rescue, so I almost immediately go online and have the client show me the problem. Not only is it faster, but it also eliminates frustration, theirs, and mine. In this case, you could have gone on line with her at the beginning of the conversation and had her show you the problem, and you could have shown her the solution. It takes about 5 minutes to connect, resolve, wish her a nice day, etc.

Finally, I don't charge by the incident for tech support. I only provide support to people who are on an annual contract. They get support, and updates, for one fee. If they don't pay it, I don't provide support. When they call I simply say "I'm sorry, but you made a business decision to not pay for support, and this business must be paid for its services to continue." Also, they can't simply start paying at that point. They have to pay to upgrade to the current version which is usually the same as paying for ongoing support over time.

[reinaldocrespo]

Tim;

I agree.

But, you need to see the lighter side of the story. I usually get to work with system administrators. It is a lot easier than with an end user. But this particular end-user was driving crazy the office-manager, so she was allowed to create a ticket... I later spoke to the office manager, and she was having a blast.

I also use LogMeIn Rescue. Great tool. Thank you for the tip. The problem was not a visible problem. The problem can be stated as: "When billing CPT code G0181, Medicare denies the claim 14 days after being transmitted".

The solution is: When billing any CPT code where Medicare requests a facility, you must send the facility's NPI (she had removed NPIs from the facilities table and ignoring the warning when sending claims). Instead she wanted changes to the ANSI X12 format, mixing of "indicators", "place of service codes", "some tcp/ip things I didn't understand", "send UPINs and not NPIs", "change the browser", "reconfigure the computer's registry" ... non of which had anything to do with the problem.

But the chat is supposed to show the divide between programmers and users. Especially users that want to design solutions to problems they can't even spell. I'm sure you can see the humorous side.

I once had a user send me a few pages with diagrams and screen designs for a whole bunch of new data entry. It was very detailed. It must've taken a few weeks to prepare. It took me a while to see that what the user wanted to do, the system is already doing without the need of additional screens for a whole bunch of data entry. The app was already running a regular expression search on results transcriptions extracting all data that needs to be collected by all the screens the user had "designed". The only thing that was needed was to change the regular expression on the ini file. If the user is the typical user, not a system admin, it will take a lot faith to understand that all those new screens for data entry aren't needed. That, indeed, there is a "special magic" that collects the data from transcriptions and that furthermore, it is more accurate, it does it when a new transcription is saved and it is so fast, you can't tell.

Back on the subject; having a working-profitable billing schema is very important. Providing good service takes daily inspiration. Finding ways to solve problems using the least amount of time on the phone, is what everyone is looking for. All comments are appreciated.

I think we should get an effort going to prepare an xlm parser that will read rss and displays on a window. I hope that made sense. Something like a trss class that we could all use to display news on our apps that users will have to turn off not to see. I started a thread on the subject. Rochina seems to have something we can start working with.




Reinaldo.

[James Bott]

Reinaldo,

>Something like a trss class that we could all use to display news on our apps that users will have to turn off not to see.

This is difficult to do without annoying the users. If they can turn it off they will. If they cannot turn it off and it takes up too much display room or keeps popping up in a window they will be annoyed--especially if they have already read it.

I think a good design would be to popup a message with a summary of the change and ask them if they want to view it now, be reminded later, or never see it again. It would have to keep track of each users actions. They should also be able to go to some view where they can look at all the news they have already read or ignored.

As I suggested, it will take some thinking to come up with a good design.

James

[reinaldocrespo]

James;

Yes. Good design. I know you can help with that.

I'm thinking that we could have a mdichild window on the right-hand side displaying just the titles with a couple of lines of the rss feeds. The user would click on-it to open the reader and read the full article. Minimize, close, etc... if so desired. But let that window be overlapped and/or covered by other windows the user might open.

Have a menu choice under help to turn off permanently. Keep that on an ini file so you know not to show the window again to that user.

The rss preview window can stay on the background when other windows/dialogs open on top. Show the window right after login only to users with a given permission so you don't show the rss window to every end-user on the lan (only to admins and supervisors?).

I'm thinking that we need to have a way to make it easier for users to stay informed. They are certainly not reading my what's new section of the web page. Even the very same webpage they use to create service requests.


Reinaldo.

[James Bott]

Reinaldo,

Around here I shoot MDI windows on sight. I am not a fan.

However, since your app is already MDI you are stuck with it. I would only check for news when the user logs in, and then popup a dialog saying there is news, Read, Remind Me Later, Ignore.

If Read is selected, THEN you might use a MDIChild window as you describe.

I don't think that your users are going to be getting news that is so important that they need to see it the minute it is posted to your site, so checking at login should suffice. If you really have time-sensitive news then you could consider using the status bar to notify users. This way they don't have another window to deal with and they can see it without opening a window or moving it to the top.

If we could figure out how to tell when an app has been idle for a period of time, you could use that to trigger a notice or a reminder. I have never been able to figure out how to detect all keystrokes so we can determine when the app is idle. Maybe someone knows?

Only you can determine which users/admins need to see the news. I would think a lot of it may apply to everyone and if only the admins see it, then you may end up with support requests anyway because the admins aren't going to be religious about telling the users. If you have info that you only want admins to see (like security issues, or something) then maybe you need two RSS feeds.

However you implement it, you don't want to get in the user's way, but you still want to notify them and allow them to get reminded later if they choose.

Regards,
James

[Otto]

This is how I handle the infos:
I test once a day if there is news on the server and I only show the infos if they are new.

I think it would be important to make a tool to update easily the news on the server.

Best regards,
Otto

Code: Select all  Expand view

//================================================================================//
 if ctod( GetPvProfString( "SETUPDATEN", "DOWNLOAD", "  .  .    ", "INI\update.ini" ) ) < date()
    if  Memoread(cAppPath + "\ini\update.txt") = lookforupdate("http: //www.wtesttestel.at/update.txt")
    //msginfo("keine Änderungen")
   else
    msginfo( Memoread(cAppPath + "\ini\update.txt") )
   endif
endif

//================================================================================//







function lookforupdate(cUrl)
  local cAppPath     := cFilePath( GetModuleFileName( GetInstance( ) ) )
  local cPageContent := "Error: " + cUrl + " not found or timed out."
  local oConn

  IF Upper(Left(cUrl,4))#"HTTP"
     cUrl:="http://"+cUrl
  ENDIF

  TRY

   oConn := TipClientHttp():New(TURL():New(cUrl))
   oConn:nConnTimeout := 20000

   IF oConn:Open(cURL)
      cPageContent := oConn:ReadAll()
      oConn:Close()
   ENDIF

  CATCH
   cPageContent:="Error opening " + cUrl
  END



  MemoWrit(cAppPath + "\ini\update.txt" ,cPageContent)

  WritePProString( "SETUPDATEN" ,"DOWNLOAD", dtoc( date() ), "INI\update.ini" )



RETURN cPageContent


//================================================================================//

[reinaldocrespo]

That's a very good idea. The more I think about it, the more I like it.

Thank you Otto.


Reinaldo.

[Otto]

Hello Reinaldo,
But I am so lazy updating the update.txt
Best regards,
Otto

[TimStone]

In my program, under the Help menu I have a "Notes / Bulletins" option. It takes them right to my Blog. I never do advertising there, only tech notes and info about new features in updates.

When they sign into the program, it checks my webserver to see if a new note has been posted. If so, there is a quick popup that tells them to check the new bulletin(s). Then it leaves them alone.

If they say later "I didn't know anything about that " I tell them to go read all about it in the bulletins.

They can also read the bulletins from home after hours.

I keep my comments short ... they don't want to read a long post.