Developed In House Software Client Dealings
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
All of my "clients" are in-house and we use a mix of phone and e-mail, depending on the urgency of the issue. I work for a very large, privately-held company and all of my work is for internal use.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
Mostly via a support team so I never have to meet the actual clients. All clients for all projects are in-house (I work for a county government) so I rarely meet clients - although I have for some smaller projects.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
That depends, how far away is the client, how much needs to be discussed, how important is the discussion, how well does the client pay... I prefer face to face, but I prefer not spending hours in traffic even more ;)
Best, Sander sanderrossel.com Continuous Integration, Delivery, and Deployment arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
For me it's almost always phone/email/remote desktop. I handle frontline support for the software I develop and 'rent/lease' to clients around the US. Over 20 years this now includes 2 major desktop apps, the 100 or so add-on modules/utilities that support them, and around 2 dozen web applications. Devs dealing directly with the clients may be uncommon, but I believe it has benefits for both parties. 0: The developer gets to practice their people skills. 1: The client gets a direct line to the person who can most likely fix/improve something. 2: The developer sometimes gains domain knowledge. 3: Products improve quickly to eliminate those annoying client phone calls. Regarding #3, this has been the biggest driver for me...to lessen the length of time I need to be on a call/remote to find and fix a problem. To this end, our main products have some really nice support features for submitting and receiving files for troubleshooting/fixing problems: a: downsize/zip/upload feature for our managed sql server users to instantly post a customer database. The downsized file is in Access format. Our apps are agnostic (for the most part) so it's possible to stay online with a client while I download and hookup to his current database to find a problem. b: download/run script files. The main apps also have the ability to download and run script files for anything from automating imports, to fixing a specific problem, to pre-configuring a new module. c: easy to use updaters. Having an automated deployment chain here is essential. It has occurred when an issue has been debugged, fixed, recompiled, and redeployed, (signed/sealed/delivered), and downloaded in < 10 minutes without leaving the remote. Stupid mistakes happen, but are dealt with swiftly! :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
I try to maximize the time spent with the client's credit cards.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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That is the only way that works.
I'd rather be phishing!
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
At my last job I just had managers making design decisions in-perpetuity. There were no clients. Manager: If we build it, clients will come. Me: What exactly are we building? Manager: Whatever the clients want. Me: What clients? Manager: The ones we'll get after you're done building it. Me: Build what exactly? Manager: Whatever the clients want, we've been over this already. Meanwhile, whatever we were building was already getting a price tag of 15k a piece. :wtf:
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Do you do most of your dealings with the client face to face or are you more phone and email?
One client in town where I live, Face to face. The others, phone and email.
Technology is wonderful, WHEN IT WORKS.
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For me it's almost always phone/email/remote desktop. I handle frontline support for the software I develop and 'rent/lease' to clients around the US. Over 20 years this now includes 2 major desktop apps, the 100 or so add-on modules/utilities that support them, and around 2 dozen web applications. Devs dealing directly with the clients may be uncommon, but I believe it has benefits for both parties. 0: The developer gets to practice their people skills. 1: The client gets a direct line to the person who can most likely fix/improve something. 2: The developer sometimes gains domain knowledge. 3: Products improve quickly to eliminate those annoying client phone calls. Regarding #3, this has been the biggest driver for me...to lessen the length of time I need to be on a call/remote to find and fix a problem. To this end, our main products have some really nice support features for submitting and receiving files for troubleshooting/fixing problems: a: downsize/zip/upload feature for our managed sql server users to instantly post a customer database. The downsized file is in Access format. Our apps are agnostic (for the most part) so it's possible to stay online with a client while I download and hookup to his current database to find a problem. b: download/run script files. The main apps also have the ability to download and run script files for anything from automating imports, to fixing a specific problem, to pre-configuring a new module. c: easy to use updaters. Having an automated deployment chain here is essential. It has occurred when an issue has been debugged, fixed, recompiled, and redeployed, (signed/sealed/delivered), and downloaded in < 10 minutes without leaving the remote. Stupid mistakes happen, but are dealt with swiftly! :)
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
:thumbsup: that's an outstanding reply, and I congratulate you on your implementation. if only a mere mortal, like me, could create such an update facility !
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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:thumbsup: that's an outstanding reply, and I congratulate you on your implementation. if only a mere mortal, like me, could create such an update facility !
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
Thank you for the kind words! :)
BillWoodruff wrote:
if only a mere mortal, like me, could create such an update facility
Don't underestimate your abilities...it's just moving bits! Seriously though, if you need ideas, I'd be happy to help.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
