How helpful are in-world helpers (and maybe LL support)?

[arabellajones]

It seems to be happening in a lot of places. I ask a question, giving as clear a description of what happened as I can, and get a response that is consistent with a bot scanning messages for keywords and sending back a list of URLs. And there's a comment tacked on that makes it look as if the responder didn't even read my question; some trite, rather smug, one-liner about this can happen with any viewer.

Gentlemen, I have just reported a problem with your product. Yes, it might happen with some other viewer, but the only way I can fix it is to use some other viewer. It all looks like an excuse to blame somebody else, made on autopilot.

And I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that nobody bothers to listen. You try to put everything in your posted question, as you are asked to do, and then all that feels to be wasted effort.

And on so many things Linden Labs is just the same. Was there any point in making that AR? You do get an auto-reply for your first AR of the day, but if you make two—you think there aren't days like that—there's nothing about the second. And you never even learn whether your AR had enough information  to be investigated.

I'm left with the feeling that everything I send to a helodesk is seen as full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's as if they have all taken the same course, from the same college in Bangalore which teaches those telephone salesmen that solar panels work on a roof which faces away from the sun, as long as you pay them.

[Freya Mokusei]

I'm assuming you're talking about LL-hired support - people who represent the service provider? 'Cause there's nothing unofficial helpers can do about feature requests or viewer complaints.

Additionally, if you're sending ARs to highlight viewer faults well... you should get the short shrift. I'll go ahead and assume you know what you're doing however, and only filing ARs where they're relevant.

What you're probably doing is hitting First Line support. When a request for support is generated it gets categorised and thrown to a first liner. In most companies, these guys take the heat and translate incoherent user complaints to find underlying problems. Their secondary purpose is to save on skilled developer/engineer time (and ideally, critical thought as a whole). This is why you're getting copypaste answers.

There's tricks - each company has different quirks and policies - to getting promoted to Second Line support. Second Line typically are aware of the product or service and may have some understanding on how it works, but they won't be development or engineering staff. Second Line - as you can no doubt imagine - deal with issues that the First Liners can't resolve, or that can't be solved by the user altering their actions/behaviour.

Third Line support is the holy grail. They may or may not be directly involved in developing products, but they will certainly know the arcitecture and probably high level operational knowledge about maintenance and development. Their time is often spent more productively working on service level problems, which is why they're the most protected class.

Of course in this example, I'm speaking mostly in general terms about companies that operate in the same sector as Second Life. Few companies are as opaque in their support processes as Linden Lab.

[Qie Niangao]

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arabellajones wrote:

You do get an auto-reply for your first AR of the day, but if you make two—you think there aren't days like that—there's nothing about the second.

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That hasn't been my experience. Doesn't happen very often, but when there's a widespread Mainland griefing attack there's sometimes need to send multiple ARs in a short interval, and in those cases I've (always?) gotten multiple automated replies. I wonder if your mail provider might be eating some as spam?

[Theresa Tennyson]

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arabellajones wrote:

It seems to be happening in a lot of places. I ask a question, giving as clear a description of what happened as I can, and get a response that is consistent with a bot scanning messages for keywords and sending back a list of URLs. And there's a comment tacked on that makes it look as if the responder didn't even read my question; some trite, rather smug, one-liner about this can happen with any viewer.

Gentlemen, I have just reported a problem with your product. Yes, it might happen with some other viewer, but the only way I can fix it is to use some other viewer. It all looks like an excuse to blame somebody else, made on autopilot.

And I am left with the uncomfortable feeling that nobody bothers to listen. You try to put everything in your posted question, as you are asked to do, and then all that feels to be wasted effort.

And on so many things Linden Labs is just the same. Was there any point in making that AR? You do get an auto-reply for your first AR of the day, but if you make two—you think there aren't days like that—there's nothing about the second. And you never even learn whether your AR had enough information  to be investigated.

I'm left with the feeling that everything I send to a helodesk is seen as full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. It's as if they have all taken the same course, from the same college in Bangalore which teaches those telephone salesmen that solar panels work on a roof which faces away from the sun, as long as you pay them.

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Hmmm, everyone acting like they're the same person, saying the same things over and over? Interesting. Have you asked Wolf and Carol if they're seeing similar behavior?

[WolfBaginski Bearsfoot]

Thanks for that idea. I shall check the spam folder if the situation arises.

[Phil Deakins]

There are no official in-world helpers. Any that exist are merely users, like you and me, who help voluntarily, and are nothing to do with LL. So there can be no criticism of them in the same way that company's help line can be criticised.

[Lexbot Sinister]

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Phil Deakins wrote:

There are no official in-world helpers. Any that exist are merely users, like you and me, who help voluntarily, and are nothing to do with LL. So there can be no criticism of them in the same way that company's help line can be criticised.

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Any in-world helper that isn't a Linden employee (and even sometimes actual Lindens) will not be able to "fix" something for a single user. Which is actually fine, since 99% of all the problems are user errors.

In-world helpers are very valuble, they help users to help themselves. Showing them where to read about the thing they need help with, so they don't have to search for sollutions themselves.