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>> I'd like to see startups have a full-time technically-literate support person in the team by default. Have them sit in on meetings and such, but no time on c
by unohoo 16y ago
>> I'd like to see startups have a full-time technically-literate support person in the team by default. Have them sit in on meetings and such, but no time on code, only customers.
+1 for that. Although I think having a full time support person might not be feasible for small startups, overall, I feel that customer support is grossly undervalued. Developers see tech support as beneath them. while management teams tend to view support as a cost overhead. Not only can great customer service lead to a extremely satisfied customer, it also helps close the feedback loop from actual customers back to development / product features.
and i say this based on my brief experience working in tech support.
- drewbuschhorn 16y agoHave you actually experienced that 'Developers see tech support as beneath them'? In the interactions I've had with both computer and science start-ups ( admittedly a small sample set, 3 companies ), I never actually seen this, though maybe I've just lucked out. By and large the fellow devs or engineers did either take care of it or make sure someone was taking care of it as soon as an issue came in. It's not about altruism, it's just that's the best way to convince people to part with their money. As a 'support manager' / back-end coder myself now, I try to follow their example. Got to agree with you that having a dedicated support person might be nice, but I can't imagine it becoming common ... first for the reason you mention, but also the types of people attracted to the instability of start-ups usually wouldn't respond well to 'oh no, John, don't muck about with the code/schematics, we want you to be customer focused'.