My technical meanderings and other nonsense. Published since 2002. No, really. I'm *that* internet-old. I remember the days of Please don’t tell me to “read the thread” – there are always new support representatives jumping in on tickets, and do not know the entire history of the ticket. You do, since you’ve been there for it all. But if I have a question, please don’t shoot me because maybe you mentioned it in an earlier reply. Excuse me for not catching every single detail.
Please don’t submit follow-up messages saying, “Hello? Any progress on this?” This will do nothing to speed up the resolution of your support ticket.
Be specific, like you’re talking to a dummy. Don’t say things like, “Certain things, on occasion, will not work.” What things? What occasions? Provide all necessary information: details that are required to replicate or fully examine the issue.
Please don’t self-diagnose your technical issue. You may be well-versed with the system or technology used, but that doesn’t mean you know the exact cause of the issue. Tell us the issue, and we’ll tell you what the problem is, or could be.
Please don’t include multiple (distinct, separate) issues on a single ticket. This only hampers the efficiency of the support system. By overloading one support representative with many issues, you are not taking advantage of “the masses.” However, if you submit many tickets, it’s possible many support representatives will be reviewing your tickets simultaneously. On the other hand, support reps handling multiple issues on a single ticket can easily get overwhelmed, impeding progress.
Please don’t use the support system to vent, or offer suggestions. There is a place for that – it’s called the community forum, where you can talk with other users. The support queue is for time-sensitive problems that need immediate attention. By submitting your suggestions, or just venting, you are wasting the support representative’s time from handling real problems, and making the product better.
Please don’t say “ASAP.” If you’ve submitted a ticket, it can automatically be considered time-sensitive, so adding that horrid acronym does nothing to speed things up. And please respect the fact that support tickets are normally answered in the order they are received, including any work or investigation that needs to be done for each ticket. You are not God, nor our most important client. Get over yourself.
Ah. You’ve hit the nail on the head. I can’t tell you the number of times when I’ve looked at supposed “high priority” tickets and thought: “This is so not high priority.” I honestly believe that customers like to overstate the urgency of a request, just to hopefully get the work done faster. And how can they know what is truly high priority for me? Have they undergone a thorough evaluation of my open tickets and then objectively assessed theirs to be the highest priority? I think not!
At my job, we have a category beyond high priority: Drop Everything. But what happens if someone is assigned multiple Drop Everythings? He’d keep picking up and dropping the Drop Everythings in perpetuity and nothing would ever get done.
Haha, good stuff. Yeah, the “high priority” option needs to go away. It is meaningless – it only deceives the user into thinking they will get better and quicker support – but that’s never the case.