In Regards to Support

Re: Support is a blog about software support.

I’ve worked in one aspect or another of software technical support for nearly fifteen years. I’ve worked at my own small business (failed), other people’s small businesses (some successes), failed startups, successful startups, and a very large technology company in roles working with technical support. I’ve worked with large customers and small, individual customers as well las trans-national companies, with teams located in a warehouse, and those spread across the globe. I’ve been an individual contributor, a manager, a supervisor, a leader, a business owner, a technology buyer, a technologist, an engineer, a scientist, a therapist, a referee, a counselor, a company officer, a software engineer, a digital designer, a technical account manager, a systems architect, a network engineer, a monster, and a saint.

In short, I’ve been at this a while, seen a few things, learned a few things, and experienced success and failure.

So far, I haven’t found much on the web around providing technical support. I don’t know why that is. What I do know is that I work every day with people who have unrealistic expectations, who are terribly unpleasant to deal with, and often in the worst circumstances. I also been part of technical support teams that were unpleasant sweat shops with high turnover, incompetent management, bad morale, and impossible service targets. There are many reasons why tech support teams can be distant or impossible to work with, or customers can be difficult to work with or unwilling to do what’s necessary to repair their systems.

This blog is my attempt to help support professionals do better at their jobs, and for software customers to get the most out of their support subscriptions. I’ll even discuss strategies and tactics for providing support to free or freemium users.