Support Issues could come in via several channels like phone, fax, email or internet (Support System?). Phone, fax and email are unstructured and require action from your site... to put them in a format your organization can digest them. Having the customer register a support issue that contains all necessary data is a lot cheaper than doing it yourself. A Support System via the internet could do the trick for you. Such a system should have the following characteristics:

  • Customer master data (CRM?) 
    • Customer details 
    • Contract Details 
    • Active applications or versions 
    • Contact information 
    • Dial in information
  • Product Master data 
    • Application / Version Information 
    • Package/Module/Session information 
    • Toolset information 
    • Database information
  • Support Issue related data 
    • Customer Master data 
    • Product Master data 
    • Problem Description 
    • Reproduction Material (for example an attachment with screen dumps) 
    • Impact Description 
    • Expectation Description

A Support System should provide you as well as the customer a follow up mechanism. The follow up mechanism should manage the expectations of your customer. By providing data about progress for example by showing the current status (new, on hand or closed for example) the customer knows a bit more about what to expect from you.

The Support System should provide you with the option to move Support Issues to and from different people. After first analysis the support issue should move to a more knowledgeable analyst on the matter, sometimes it needs to move to a different group within your organization.

To get a support issue on the right spot the Product Master data, set by the Customer on the Support Issue, should be the basis to rotate issues to the different groups or individuals within your organization. Of course the Customer could be wrong about the product/package/module/session and the first contact person within your organization has to reroute. The quicker this process can be executed, the quicker you will be able to provide a solution, the more at ease (not satisfied) your customer will be