I stumbled across this transcript of a support issue today. It’s somewhat amusing but you can also see how frustrating it must have been for both parties. We get our fair share of awkward support issues, but so far, touch wood, nothing quite as agonising as this one!
However, I think there’s a reason for that. In situations like this when it becomes clear that we aren’t being understood, or the issue is just turning into a fruitless game of email tennis, we pick up the phone. I’m quite convinced that the issue in the transcript above could have been nipped in the bud in a matter of minutes had the support guy picked up the phone and politely explained why it wasn’t their problem and what the ‘customer’ had to do. There are some things that are much more efficiently dealt with on the phone. Someone suggests this in the comments at the end of the transcript. But because the software in question is free, the support guy claims he should not have had to provide phone support and that he shouldn’t have to pay for the phone call.
Firstly I think this highlights one of the big problems facing open source or free software compared to commercial software. Had the software been commercial the support guy would have thought nothing of picking up the phone and sorting the issue out straight away. Companies that use open source software need to think about how it is going to be supported and how to get support quickly should a major problem arise. Ok, in this case the issue should really have been with the web hosting company, and the customer was emailing the wrong people. But the problem was further exacerbated by support refusing to just pick up the phone and deal with it.
Secondly, with cheap calling plans and VoIP, how much is a phone call really? In the case above both parties were in the USA. I find it hard to believe that the cost of a phone call to sort this issue out would be worth more than the time all those emails took to write! I can call a number in the USA from the UK for less than 2 cents a minute.
