Dealing with clients
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
so so so so agree with u on this after 3 years in the financial services software industry as ceo/programmer/client support dweeb i never want to see another client again in my life these days (hopefully) i have users ... very different creatures indeed :)
"even if my world is weird it's my world"
biz stuff about me -
I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
Paul Oss wrote: o Clients lie. There is the reason I got out of end user support, in a nutshell (no, this isn't a book from O'Reilly's, it's a genuine observation from Riley's). Why do end-users feel the need to say "no, I didn't do that" when they clearly did? All we want from a user is enough information so that we can replicate the problem repeatedly until we find the solution. It doesn't matter if one of the things they did was something really stupid, we NEED to know. No replication, no solution, simple as that. I once spent an entire day (honestly, an ENTIRE day) on the phone to a guy who's PC he swore was on the other side of the office, so he had to keep walking off and coming back. Within the first ten minutes I said "Did you...?" and I heard that tell-tale pause as he internally said "DOH!" and he denied it. I'd developed a knack over a couple of years to leading users into traps that prove my initial theory when I hear this pause but he was smart - every time I got close, he did something other than what I asked for and then moaned at me that he'd had to walk across the room to do that and it was my fault for giving him bad instructions. ALL DAY! If he'd fessed up in that first ten minutes, it would have been resolved. Oh no, we couldn't have that, could we? :mad: Okay, rant over. This was a long time ago and still I have bitter reactions like this when people talk about end-user support. :-D Paul Why don't you take a good look at yourself and describe what you see - Led Zeppelin, Misty Mountain Hop
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
I think quite often the problem is simply that they have NO idea what is going on 'under the hood' and therefore will form opinions that simply cannot be true ( "it broke when I used it just after doing my nails" ) and then try to steer us towards them, with the best of intentions. Either that, or they are scared that THEY broke it and will get into trouble. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
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I think quite often the problem is simply that they have NO idea what is going on 'under the hood' and therefore will form opinions that simply cannot be true ( "it broke when I used it just after doing my nails" ) and then try to steer us towards them, with the best of intentions. Either that, or they are scared that THEY broke it and will get into trouble. Christian Hey, at least Logo had, at it's inception, a mechanical turtle. VB has always lacked even that... - Shog9 04-09-2002 During last 10 years, with invention of VB and similar programming environments, every ill-educated moron became able to develop software. - Alex E. - 12-Sept-2002
Christian Graus wrote: towards them, with the best of intentions. Right, exactly what the road to hell is paved with.:rolleyes: But seriously... Yes, 99% of my clients all have the best of intentions, including those who lie. Often the lying is almost subconscious. Especially when asking yes or no questions. What I discovered (after too many years of experience in this field) was that they will weigh the answer based on something they think would reflect best upon themselves and answer appropriately. But when you say "what happened after 'x'" they'll be forced to give you details-- at which point you can separate and discard the inconsistencies in their story, and start piecing together what really happened. Paul Oss
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
I think a lot of the problems with end-user support are that they just don't wan't to admit that they don't have a clue a) what they did and b) what you are asking them. As profesional programmers we are so used to be around really clever people all the time that we tend to forget that there exists those that have no idea how software "works". All they wanna do is get the task done, with the minimal effort possible. And to be honest, do you really remember *exactly* what you did the last time an application crashed on you? I certainly don't. These things I can accept, they don't bother me much. What really drives me nuts and ruins my day is when clients become rude and blaming *me* for the evils of the world. Hey, I'm trying to help you dammit! These days I truly hate what I do for a living. Then, once in a blue moon, a clients calls *just* to tell how great your application works, how clever it is and that it really should cost *more*... *Sigh* Make up your mind, will you? :) Other than this, your "commandments" are dead on.
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
log files, I hear thy praise. What I consider hardest is dealing with the "he lies" situation: you know from log, from program flow etc. exactly that A happened, but the customer insist on B, or even !A. I know most of the time it's unconcious, I don't blame them personally for it, but sometimes I wish we'd live in a world where I could say, "I think you must have done A because of foo bazzle bar fem boo ping tognok" and he says "Ok, you're the whiz, I guess you're right and I just forgot that doing A while getting some coffee..."
Auch den Schatten will ich lieben weil ich manchmal lieber frier' Rosenstolz [sighist]
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
Well, you're right of course, but the same can be applied to a lot of categories. Replace "client" with "salesman": o The salesman is never reporting the whole story. o The salesman is almost never to be trusted. o The salesman will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The salesmen perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a salesman a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. o Salesmen lie. Replace with "politician", "journalist", "official" - still true. Who's left? ;) Vagif Abilov MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
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Well, you're right of course, but the same can be applied to a lot of categories. Replace "client" with "salesman": o The salesman is never reporting the whole story. o The salesman is almost never to be trusted. o The salesman will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The salesmen perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a salesman a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. o Salesmen lie. Replace with "politician", "journalist", "official" - still true. Who's left? ;) Vagif Abilov MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
And of course, your client will be thinking o Tech support never reports the whole story. o Tech support is almost never to be trusted. o Tech support will change the facts, often subconsciously. o Tech support's perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask Tech support a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. o Tech support lies. -- Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
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Well, you're right of course, but the same can be applied to a lot of categories. Replace "client" with "salesman": o The salesman is never reporting the whole story. o The salesman is almost never to be trusted. o The salesman will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The salesmen perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a salesman a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. o Salesmen lie. Replace with "politician", "journalist", "official" - still true. Who's left? ;) Vagif Abilov MCP (Visual C++) Oslo, Norway Hex is for sissies. Real men use binary. And the most hardcore types use only zeros - uppercase zeros and lowercase zeros. Tomasz Sowinski
Vagif Abilov wrote: Replace with "politician", "journalist", "official" - still true. Who's left? ;) Wives... oh wait, they fit in there too. :rolleyes:
David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk
An orgy in Tiverton... ({) `/\^^/\:p (Z) :$/\^^/\` (})
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I'm going to try to make this my last post borne of cynicism, 'cause I don't want to get a reputation 'n all. However, I have just spent another two hours of my life that I'll never get back dealing with an end user. Most of that time was spent just trying to figure out what they did. (Actually, I'm not done yet, I'm running a program against their data to see where the problem may be). What I have is a bit of advice for any programmers who have to do end user support in addition to programming. For those programmers who don't have to do end user support, kiss your monitor and hug your boss- be thankful. But for those few programmers who do have to do end user support, there is a list of tenets I've developed for dealing with end users. Now, admittedly it may seem cynical, but you can deal with the customer in a friendly, non-condescending manner, and actually help them effectively, if you keep these tenets (quietly) in the back of your mind. They are as follows: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. My belief is that these tenets are probably very similar to what police detectives adhere, just replace word 'client' with 'witness'. Your support experience will be far more fruitful if you keep these things in mind when discussing a problem, bug or general software anomaly with your clients. The client doesn't have to know you believe these things, but if you treat the situation assuming the above, your extraction of information from the client will be far more effective. Paul Oss
Paul Oss wrote: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. But remember the most important tenant of this little missive. CLIENTS PROVIDE YOUR PAYCHECK - They may be pains in the ass but ist their money and if you don't make them happy they will spend it elsewhere. Richard When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to better world, I am moved to lead a different life. Mark Twain- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
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Paul Oss wrote: o The client is never reporting the whole story. o The client is almost never to be trusted. o The client will change the facts, often subconsciously. o The clients perception of events is almost always wrong. o Never, ever, ever ask a client a question which requires a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Always always always word your questions so as to require a verbose explanation from the client. o Clients lie. But remember the most important tenant of this little missive. CLIENTS PROVIDE YOUR PAYCHECK - They may be pains in the ass but ist their money and if you don't make them happy they will spend it elsewhere. Richard When I reflect upon the number of disagreeable people who I know have gone to better world, I am moved to lead a different life. Mark Twain- Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar
Richard Stringer wrote: But remember the most important tenant of this little missive. CLIENTS PROVIDE YOUR PAYCHECK - They may be pains in the ass but ist their money and if you don't make them happy they will spend it elsewhere. Right. Which is precisely why, if you live by those six golden tenets of customer support, those people who provide that paycheck will be blissfully happy and their problems solved ever so much more effectively. Guaranteed. Paul Oss