Tuesday, August 04, 2009

bug reports from the public

From "Dr. Kronkheit and His Only Living Patient":
SMITH: Doctor, it hurts when I do this.
DALE: Don't do that.
Dear Enterprise Rent-A-Car,

That was called a "bug report". It was not actually a request for a condescending message about how I can still rent a car by navigating the website in a different way. I knew that.

I took the time to write up detailed instructions for reproducing the bug as a professional courtesy to your developers. Unfortunately, they will never see my message, since your customer service is managed strictly from a "deal with nuisance customers" point of view. Looks like I wasted a couple seconds of your time as well as several minutes of my own.

RESOLVED: If I ever work on a project large enough to have a customer service department separate from development, I will insist upon bridging this gap. I will make sure customer service has the access, knowledge, and encouragement to communicate constantly with me. I will regard customer service as a valuable conduit for end-user feedback rather than a distant, uninteresting group of non-colleagues.

1 comment:

oraclenerd said...

Sounds familiar:

Hertz Sucks, USAA Rules

Hertz Still Sucks

Are you sure you aren't a nerd instead of a geek? ;)

chet