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ASP Forum
Tracking Bug Fixes for Customers
"When we send a bug report to our developers, they're supposed to
enter status information in our case management system so we can
send progress reports to our customers. Of course, most of the time
they 'forget' to update the system, so everyone gets annoyed and
my support team looks like we're not following up. How can we fix
this problem?"
—Victor from Vancouver
Victor's problem is common in organisations where the following
conditions may prevail:
i. Customer satisfaction is mythically assumed to be the sole
responsibility of the Support department to maintain — this is
false.
ii. There are no clear operational processes between the support and
development teams with regards to call handling/updates.
iii. If there are processes between the departments, they may not be
adhered to, managed or monitored properly, which is a failing of
management.
iv. Operationally, the tools being used by the Support department
and Development department may not be integrated well enough, causing
frustration for the users which eventually leads to abandonment of
its use by the teams.
The best way to cure some of the causes mentioned above is to change
the environment culture of the organisation in all departments so
that all employees understand that their actions and work impacts
customer satisfaction. (You need high-level management sponsorship
and championing to make this work.) Support impacts customers
directly so their impacts are obvious; developers impact customer
satisfaction indirectly, e.g., supplying duff bug fixes or no updates,
which irritate customers and cause increase in incident volumes as
well as complaints. Victor's developer colleagues need to see that
their lack of updates in the system will cause the business to suffer
in the long-term, and you can use workshop scenarios as part of
training and awareness campaigns to get this message across. The
support manager should be actively running such campaigns and the
support director needs to wake up to address service delivery
attitude issues.
Some companies who really take customer satisfaction very seriously
also make the above skills/attitudes mandatory requirements and
training for all staff, regardless of whether they are client-facing
or not, because even an admin person may cause a customer to get
upset by sending them the wrong invoice!
I have seen some companies incentivise their staff on improving
customer satisfaction, e.g., developers are measured on their
bug-handling skills in terms of quality of updates and reports.
However implementing this requires a lot of careful thought and
planning as gathering the metrics required can be arduous for a
manager to do quantitatively and objectively. It also needs
sponsorship from executive managers.
If the case management system is not integrated well with the
developer's bug management system, then this will cause problems.
Suggestion: Look at the practicalities of why the developer actually
cannot udate the call — is it because (s)he has to update
multiple systems repetitiously or is the support case tool too
cumbersome and awkward to use? You need to analyse the 'whys'
first before assuming the developer is lazy. Sometimes a simple
change of the tools usage can greatly improve call-handling and
customer service.
The call-handling and transfer processes between Support and
developers should be reviewed frequently to see where loop-holes
exist. Examine the controls and management inputs in the process
to identify why calls not being updated are slipping through the
net, etc. Management needs to get behind and improve the process or
change it.
Also take a look at what metrics you are producing for the
performance of the support team and the development team. It's very
useful to walk into a quality service management meeting armed with
vital statistics from your system — e.g., a table showing the
percentage of bug calls updated by development vs. those not updated.
Make sure you balance these with performance stats on support to
show where Support is responding/updating and vice versa. It's
more useful for managers to see a metric on where the problems are
coming from rather than listen to a bunch of moans about people.
The development manager can then help the support team drive
improvements.
I sympathise with Victor, but his problems are very fixable.
—Anonymous
[Any advice on this question? Please send an email to
membership director Jane Farber at jfarber@asponline.com, and
we'll post your feedback.]
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