[Stu Kopelman] There are a few comments I would like to make about what users want - at least this user. I will list them in the order of importance. A good company will flourish if it treats people respectfully, has a good product, and the price is reasonable for what it is expected to do. Most people will find it satisfying to pass good information on to others so that they will benefit from the secret treasure they discovered. I found eleven people who bought CounterSpy because of what they offered, and I was delighted to do it:

1. Excellent customer service. Everyone makes mistakes, and although I would like to see a perfect product, I am not counting on it soon. A vendor should provide a physical address, a 1-800 telephone number, and a real person to talk with. They should be as willing to put as much effort into their business after a sale as they do before one. A perfect example of excellent customer service is Executive Software who makes Diskeeper. They are quick to respond, pleasant to talk with, and very technically able. Once I called in about a version of Diskeeper I had a problem with. They could not fix it. Instead they sent me a full, professional version of their newest upgrade without charge. That solved the problem I was having, but who can refuse being a customer to that kind of kindness. Diskeeper did whatever it took to make a customer happy with its product.

2. I like simple things that work well. I do not like “three-in-one” software. Not only does it seem to grow into bloatware, but if something fails, the customer might be faced with a multi-failure product. To make a consumer believe that more is better is deceptive. Work on one product and make it work well.
3. Cost. “Every workman deserves his wages.” Unfortunately pirates who steal other people’s property force the vendor to increase his price on goods sold. This is sad that we must pay for what the thief steals. But price-gouging is just as corrupt a practice as the thief who steals. An excellent example of good service, good quality, and good price is CounterSpy. It does what it claims to do well for $19.95/year and $9.95/each year after. They have a physical address, a 1-800 number, and excellent support. When I called for assistance, they were right on top of it. For that service, the price is excellent?

[Mike Riley] I agree with your comments about “users taking charge”, but how realistic is that unless you have been, like me, dealing directly with those developers? Over my career as a technical documentation guy, I have had numerous opportunities, and used every one of them, to point out where the software strengths could lie if the dev team worked on them. 3/4 of the time I get resistance from managers/directors because of time constraints. Time constraints are usually based on financial considerations (getting the build out to meet a deadline, which brings in projected revenue; putting in a special fix for a high-paying client, etc.). The other 1/4 resistance is from coders who don’t understand the necessity of a good interface: they figure if they can figure it out, so can everyone.

Most often, the software I’ve worked with has been the customer’s only access to the product (for example, telco users being able to manipulate DSL hardware settings). Imagine a quarter-million-dollar software for managing complex manufacturing and supply chain at a company like Boeing aircraft; now imagine a piece of software so complex to operate that it looks like a spreadsheet with hundreds of columns, whose only nod to Windows’ graphical interface is that it… well, runs in a window. The only reason users ever used it was because management bought it, and were forced to implement it.

But back to my point: can the average joe or jane user really be heard? Let’s look at Office 2007: wow, it looks really cool, doesn’t it? That’s one of the criteria we are looking for. But I (being an experienced Office user) could only think “Jeez, what do I do now?” I’m not sure that the new interface has much to do with user input, regardless of Microsoft’s much-touted testing groups; it looks more like the design team (and bless ‘em) held many think-tank sessions on their own. And I sure cannot call them up on the phone and expect my miniscule voice to be heard among the hundreds of thousands.

Not that we should stop trying; no sir, far from it. But where do we go to do it? BloggerCon? Just between you and me, it wouldn’t matter a wit if every blogger put forth the same strongly-voiced opinion, written on paper and witnessed by a thousand lawyers. Even if we convinced the most powerful manager at Microsoft, it wouldn’t last for more than a day. Am I wrong?

Tags: software, customer service, developers, users, software developers, feedback, excellent customer service, user feedback