{"id":1962,"date":"2009-04-06T09:34:33","date_gmt":"2009-04-06T16:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=1962"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:31:46","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:31:46","slug":"customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=1962","title":{"rendered":"Customer Service"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"flickr<\/a>
flickr photo by jm3<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was listening to an NPR talk show segment about customer service last week.\u00a0 It was mainly about being on hold, the friendliness (or unfriendliness) of the support givers, etc.\u00a0 There was a quote from a customer service person who said that they were rude because the customer service expense \u201csucked out whatever profit they made on the actual product\u201d.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what drew my attention.<\/p>\n

My thoughts were drawn to something we tried to emphasize at my last company: the better the quality of the product, the lower the customer service expense.<\/p>\n

I credit the high quality of our product to the practical-but-mandatory nature of our development process.\u00a0 And, there is a direct correlation between good-quality software and customer service expense.\u00a0 Duh.\u00a0 Yeah, I know.\u00a0\u00a0 But this isn\u2019t always obvious to people who should know better.
\nGood-quality software, in turn, results from good software project management practices.\u00a0 But, you\u2019d be surprised at the number of times I hear some executive (or potential executive) say \u201coh, we\u2019ll just let the developers choose the process because they know what\u2019s best.\u00a0 No need to have requirements written down, or schedules.\u00a0 They just slow things down.\u00a0 We need an Agile-like process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAgile-like\u201d usually means no process at all, just keep it \u201cflexible\u201d, able to adapt to last minute brilliant flashes of marketing genius.\u00a0 No need to write down requirements \u2013 that\u2019s so \u2026 20th century.<\/p>\n

A lack of software project management practices results in poor-quality software.\u00a0 Poor-quality software causes high customer service expense (if there are customers).\u00a0 Paying attention to the bottom line \u2013 that should be important to someone, even one who doesn\u2019t understand software development.<\/p>\n

Anita Wotiz
\nwww.duckpondsoftware.com (see the Consulting tab)
\nInstructor, UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley
\nSoftware Requirements Engineering and Management (next class Aug 2009)
\nSoftware Project Planning, Monitoring, and Management (next class Oct\/Nov 2009)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was listening to an NPR talk show segment about customer service last week.\u00a0 It was mainly about being on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[39,11,50],"class_list":["post-1962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-miscellaneous","tag-best-practices","tag-implementing-project-management","tag-requirements"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14221,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions\/14221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}