That requires a good support team that follows process.
It falls apart when support doesn't train newcomers in what engineering needs, or when support just "throws things over the wall" to engineering.
I once worked with a very bad "director" of support who couldn't figure out that a customer was sharing something to the wrong email address. She did absolutely no diagnostics. When I called her on it, and explained that she couldn't throw everything over the wall to me, she quit the next day. Her replacement was much, much better.
> That requires a good support team that follows process.
> It falls apart when support doesn't train newcomers in what engineering needs
It requires as low skill level from support as you can get. Some rudimental diagnostics skills and understanding of the product itself are needed; from there, if it's not in the FAQ, let engineers handle it in full.
One of three things then happens - in my experience, anyways:
* The engineers prioritize fixing the stuff they don't want to repeatedly deal with.
* The engineers populate a FAQ for the stuff when it's low impact enough that they're OK with support copy/pasting the FAQ item until they address it - if ever. Which can lead to further questions that get fixed or expand the FAQ, but that's fine too.
* (In rarer cases) some of the engineers quit because they think support is beneath their pay grade.
> It requires as low skill level from support as you can get. Some rudimental diagnostics skills and understanding of the product itself are needed; from there, if it's not in the FAQ, let engineers handle it in full.
Management has to enforce that tickets aren't thrown over the wall. I can't count the number of times that your approach is misinterpreted as, "I don't need to know much about the product or try to understand the customer's problem and communicate it correctly."
Anyway, without support that takes pride in, well, support, it leaves customers very unsatisfied.
It falls apart when support doesn't train newcomers in what engineering needs, or when support just "throws things over the wall" to engineering.
I once worked with a very bad "director" of support who couldn't figure out that a customer was sharing something to the wrong email address. She did absolutely no diagnostics. When I called her on it, and explained that she couldn't throw everything over the wall to me, she quit the next day. Her replacement was much, much better.