Is it hard to get help?
- the categories of issues logged by users
- time to resolution
- usage of documentation, knowledge base, and other existing information (and how hard it was to get to them)
- the number of back and forth exchanges during troubleshooting
- how many people it took to resolve issues. Did the customer find a knowledge document (1 person), or were 3 support engineers, 1 manager, and 2 development engineers (6 people) required? For a nightmare scenario, see the $10,000 escalation.
To be sure, some of the elements above may reflect factors other than supportability. For instance, a lackadaisical support engineer may neglect cases, eschew consulting the knowledge base, ignore troubleshooting checklists, and needlessly escalate, inflating the apparent complexity and effort of cases. But that’s just the point: we need both good processes (backlog management, knowledge use, troubleshooting discipline, escalations) and good adherence to the processes to deliver the low-effort experience we all want.
Have you tried to create a resolution index for cases? How did it go? Please share in the comments.