As usual Drew, a well thought post.
Drew Jensen wrote:
'I also advised her that I am an OpenOffice user and not "customer
service".'
Actually one sees this type of comment on a fairly regular basis. It
is from a lawyerly perspective quite true, but is this lawyerly
perspective the only perspective? I think not.
To some extent, I consider this the same as those people interviewed on
TV that for some reason try to use "legal speak" because it is about a
criminal or accident. For example, most people never use the term
"perpetrator" and then they do on the 11:00 news.
This function of user support is unique within the organization in at
least one respect. It is the only role for which there are no clearly
defined steps that designate a person's willingness to take on the
role. For example a code contributor must exercise a legal document
with regards to ownership rights of the code the they submit, they
must ask for and be granted rights to the version control repository
for this code. Much the same is true for those producing the formal
documentation. In other projects within in the organization that do
not require this type of access control it is still required that the
person request to join the particular project.
Not so with this 'role' of user support however. All that is required
is that a person read and respond to another persons request for help.
It is this difference that leads most to then say; "There is no user
support group, only users offering help to other users." Much the same
as someone offering a little advice during a conversation at a dinner
party.
For the vast majority of individuals that will submit an email to a
mailing list or post a message to a web forum this is true. But there
is another group of individuals, a much smaller group that by their
own decision go beyond this. This smaller group accounts for the
majority of traffic on these same mailing lists and web forums. I
would suggest that their participation in these organization supplied
and supported communication channels can no longer be viewed as
serendipitous exchanges of information in a social setting.
These individuals have IMO taken on the role of first line customer
support. By the very nature of their continual offering of support
they take on, intended or not, a certain mantel of authority and do to
many end users of the application appear to be representatives of the
organization. I believe that it is prudent for those of us that have
by our own actions taken on this role to keep this in mind.
Am I suggesting that this designation of 'user support representative'
be somehow codified? NO, I'm not. I am merely putting forward what I
perceive to be the reality of the situation and ask, respectfully,
that those individuals in this self selected group think about this
from time to time.
Well said!
Best wishes,
Drew
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Andrew Pitonyak
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