We are trialling a new live chat support system. It seems to be really popular. People seem to love getting answers quickly. <\/p>\n
Of course it keeps us busy, but I do love talking to our software users and prospective customers. <\/p>\n
The majority of people are polite and courteous. But I am amazed at a small minority.<\/p>\n
On one occasion someone asked us if we had software which could record a sequence of events in an application in order to generate a user manual in Word document format. Of course this isn’t really what we do so I said so. I even said “Sorry, that’s not something we do.”. No more than a second later the user logged off without even a “Thanks for your time”. Not a word. I couldn’t believe it.<\/p>\n
On another day someone was reporting an error during installation. He didn’t give me anything to go on and was quite rude. I asked what the problem was and said I’d be happy to help get it sorted. He said “it goes error” and then said “what the f*** is that all about”. I asked him not to swear and warned him that we won’t tolerate abusive language. He responded with some even more vile comments and then signed off.<\/p>\n
And something I’m seeing more and more of are chat requests which appear to be little more than people asking us to do their home work for them. Yesterday I was asked to describe the internal format of a Linux .exe file. I explained we don’t support Linux and that was outside of our remit anyway. “Ok” he said “Please explain the difference between a .lib file and a .dll file”. When asked, politely, what the relevance was to our products and services he said “Nothing, I only want normal difference”.<\/p>\n
Is this the nature of the anonymous web? Would these people be the same in a bricks’n mortar store? <\/p>\n
I’ve talked about strange support requests<\/a> and ones that require us to be clairvoyant<\/a> before. <\/p>\n Sometimes people don’t even ask for help. Alwin over at Collectorz.com<\/a> is seeing cases where people post complaints on other sites instead. He asks “What happened to asking for help?<\/a>“. Why are people complaining anonymously when they encounter a problem rather than actually asking for help?<\/p>\n Small companies like us and Collectorz take support seriously. We strive to give the best support there is. It’s one way that small companies can differentiate themselves. But I guess that quick, helpful support is so unusual in the software world that people just assume it’s not even worth asking. That’s a real shame. I also wonder if the people who shout and scream anonymously on forums realise what it feels like to be on the other end. To be a small company, working flat out to do the best they can, worrying about what other people might read.<\/p>\n