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We make B2B software, and we have roughly the setup described in the article, where L3 are the devs. I don't recognize what the article describes at all. There

We make B2B software, and we have roughly the setup described in the article, where L3 are the devs. I don't recognize what the article describes at all. There are tons of questions answered by L1 which are not even issues with our software. And us devs certainly feel responsible for what we produce, and we still talk to our customers when needed. So I think it's more a culture and possibly management problem than simply layering.

jonathanlydall 2y ago
I don’t necessarily think tiered support is the wrong way to go. But as someone developing a product, sometimes when you’re closer to your users you find that many users get told to RTFM on a particular feature and maybe the actual problem is that the feature is unintuitive.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  But I get feedback from L1/L2 when some feature generates a lot of support requests, and I've many times sat down with support and even called up customers to improve such features. That said, I agree with the sentiment that as devs one shouldn't be far removed from customers. For example I do take time every now and then just looking at support working if they've got a customer showing an issue or similar. Or just hang around to hear what they complain about. This is of course much more difficult if support is in another building and not just down the hall.
- HL33tibCe7 2y ago
  There are ways to deal with that without putting devs on the front line though.
mrweasel 2y ago
Years ago I worked for a telco. As part of trying to identify recurring problems and design possible solutions, we would sit in on support calls for a few hours a day, for a week. While we did find a few things that could be improved by adding more software, or reworking solutions, that wasn't what was needed. 90 - 95% of support calls where related to technical issues, which required first level support to create a ticket for technical support, or escalate to them immediately. First level support was pretty much not needed. It would make more sense to reverse the call flow and have technical staff pick up support calls, then transfer to first level support if the issue turned out to be non-technical, which it would be in 5% of the cases. To this day that is still my issue when call ISP or telco support. Why am I trying to have some 19 year old, with access to nothing but my billing information, trying to solve the issue of my router not connecting? The type of first level support most technical companies offers could be solved by better monitoring, better self-service and well written documentation.

jonathanlydall 2y ago

I don’t necessarily think tiered support is the wrong way to go. But as someone developing a product, sometimes when you’re closer to your users you find that many users get told to RTFM on a particular feature and maybe the actual problem is that the feature is unintuitive.

magicalhippo 2y ago
But I get feedback from L1/L2 when some feature generates a lot of support requests, and I've many times sat down with support and even called up customers to improve such features. That said, I agree with the sentiment that as devs one shouldn't be far removed from customers. For example I do take time every now and then just looking at support working if they've got a customer showing an issue or similar. Or just hang around to hear what they complain about. This is of course much more difficult if support is in another building and not just down the hall.
HL33tibCe7 2y ago
There are ways to deal with that without putting devs on the front line though.

mrweasel 2y ago

Years ago I worked for a telco. As part of trying to identify recurring problems and design possible solutions, we would sit in on support calls for a few hours a day, for a week. While we did find a few things that could be improved by adding more software, or reworking solutions, that wasn't what was needed. 90 - 95% of support calls where related to technical issues, which required first level support to create a ticket for technical support, or escalate to them immediately. First level support was pretty much not needed. It would make more sense to reverse the call flow and have technical staff pick up support calls, then transfer to first level support if the issue turned out to be non-technical, which it would be in 5% of the cases. To this day that is still my issue when call ISP or telco support. Why am I trying to have some 19 year old, with access to nothing but my billing information, trying to solve the issue of my router not connecting? The type of first level support most technical companies offers could be solved by better monitoring, better self-service and well written documentation.