Important Change to Technical Support!

[battists]

Hello everyone!

OOTP Developments is happy to announce the introduction of an improved Technical Support model! We have implemented a new ticketing and knowledge base system that will help ensure that we don't lose track of support requests, and that we are able to provide as many helpful anwers to your questions up front. We're hopeful that these changes will help us to provide you with better support for our products!

Here are some changes that will be going into effect immediately or shortly thereafter:

1. Support requests should now be submitted through our new support site.
2. The new site includes a searchable Knowledge Base that we will grow over time to include many answers to common support questions. It will also dynamically offer relevant articles when you submit a support ticket. Feel free to reach out to me if you feel our Knowledge Base would benefit from a certain article.
3. Once you submit a support request, you will receive an e-mail with a specific ticket number. You can check on the status of your ticket online and refer back to that ticket number if you ever need to follow up with us.
4. The support site is integrated with our vBulletin forums, so you can log into the support site using your OOTP forum user name and password.
5. The existing Technical Support forums will be gradually closed for new posts over the next few weeks. We will continue to work through outstanding issues in those forums until we have addressed them, but you will only be able to reply to existing threads, not post new threads.

Thanks very much, we look forward to getting this rolling!

Steve

[Cryomaniac]

I get the feeling some people are going to really hate this.

[Andreas Raht]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

I get the feeling some people are going to really hate this.

Our plan is to create a searchable, up-to-date, growing knowledge-base. Why should anybody hate that?

[ctorg]

I doubt there will be many haters. There are always a few who just don't like changing things, but this area has needed this exact kind of change for a while. This sounds great.

[RchW]

This is a progressive move. I can't see the downside. Unless no one wants to help.

[robc]

It is a good idea even if they don't get more people to help. It will be a better system then what exists today, even with the same level of assistence.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

Our plan is to create a searchable, up-to-date, growing knowledge-base. Why should anybody hate that?

It sounds like it's going to be more work to both get help and give help so I'll be surprised if there isn't some backlash.

Tech Support has needed some kind of fix for awhile so I'm going to try to keep my mind open, but I'm afraid this is more going to hide problems than solve them.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

Our plan is to create a searchable, up-to-date, growing knowledge-base. Why should anybody hate that?

Because people don't like change, and this:

Originally Posted by kq76

It sounds like it's going to be more work to both get help and give help so I'll be surprised if there isn't some backlash.

[Nutlaw]

Can non-OOTP, non-support staff view and/or respond to the submitted tickets of other users? The wording on that site suggests that one can only view one's own tickets, though I can't really determine if that is the case as it is possible that no one has yet submitted tickets.

If normal users cannot view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system will clearly be infinitely worse than the old one. Users won't be able to answer each others' questions or even compare notes on related issues. Furthermore, you'll end up with many more duplicate reports as users will be unable to see if someone else has listed an issue, whereas with the old system, you would tend to have one thread and a bunch of "yeah, I'm having trouble with that, too". This will put considerable additional strain upon your support staff (who might I add, would ideally be closely involved in at least monitoring the beta process so that they aren't forced to guess at how the game is supposed to run.) You would be bottlenecking the troubleshooting process through a few individuals even more than in the past.

If all users can view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system ought to be an improvement if only for the improved search and categorization. People might resist having to use a separate site, but I imagine that they will get over that.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

Our plan is to create a searchable, up-to-date, growing knowledge-base. Why should anybody hate that?

Wonders never cease, they say.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

Can non-OOTP, non-support staff view and/or respond to the submitted tickets of other users? The wording on that site suggests that one can only view one's own tickets, though I can't really determine if that is the case as it is possible that no one has yet submitted tickets.

If normal users cannot view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system will clearly be infinitely worse than the old one. Users won't be able to answer each others' questions or even compare notes on related issues. Furthermore, you'll end up with many more duplicate reports as users will be unable to see if someone else has listed an issue, whereas with the old system, you would tend to have one thread and a bunch of "yeah, I'm having trouble with that, too". This will put considerable additional strain upon your support staff (who might I add, would ideally be closely involved in at least monitoring the beta process so that they aren't forced to guess at how the game is supposed to run.) You would be bottlenecking the troubleshooting process through a few individuals even more than in the past.

If all users can view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system ought to be an improvement if only for the improved search and categorization. People might resist having to use a separate site, but I imagine that they will get over that.

Excellent point. I never would have thought of that.

[Andreas Raht]

The idea is to put all frequently occuring problems into the knowledge base. That's where users should look first, before they open a new ticket. Each new ticket could lead to a new article in the knowledge base.
We want to reduce the number of tech support requests as much as possible by making it easier to find a solution before posting the issue. For example, the new system does fulltext searches while the user enters a text for the ticket and presents solutions.

Can non-OOTP, non-support staff view and/or respond to the submitted tickets of other users?

No, they can't. But they could join the staff!

Despite all the great tech support work of a lot of people, tech support was almost "dead" now. We really need to improve this ASAP. That's what we try to do!

[Nutlaw]

Hrm. Maybe frequently logged bugs that are not yet fixed could be added as a brief article stating that a fix is pending? That might solve some of the problem.

I suppose that if people can't talk over new bugs and workarounds in the Tech Support forum, they can always do it in General Discussions.

Anyway, good luck with the new system. I'm sure that I'll use it a few times myself once the new version comes out.

[battists]

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

Hrm. Maybe frequently logged bugs that are not yet fixed could be added as a brief article stating that a fix is pending? That might solve some of the problem.

Yup! Good idea (as always).

We'll do our best to ensure that the end result is more satisfied customers... As with many such things, I'm sure more opportunities for improvement will become apparent as we work with the tool more. We already are working on 2 "real" issues through the new system!

Steve

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Cryomaniac

I get the feeling some people are going to really hate this.

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

Our plan is to create a searchable, up-to-date, growing knowledge-base. Why should anybody hate that?

Originally Posted by Nutlaw

If normal users cannot view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system will clearly be infinitely worse than the old one.

If all users can view and interact with each other's tickets, then this system ought to be an improvement if only for the improved search and categorization. People might resist having to use a separate site, but I imagine that they will get over that.

Originally Posted by Andreas Raht

No, they can't. But they could join the staff!

The idea is to put all frequently occuring problems into the knowledge base. That's where users should look first, before they open a new ticket. Each new ticket could lead to a new article in the knowledge base.

We want to reduce the number of tech support requests as much as possible by making it easier to find a solution before posting the issue. For example, the new system does fulltext searches while the user enters a text for the ticket and presents solutions.

Until we got to Andreas' last sentence, this sounded exactly like the VP Games support system, which is legendary for its disfunctionality, in spite of being staffed by paid professionals.

I hope that the 'fulltext searches' render this system usable, otherwise you've discarded one of the best things about OOTP Developments. Even if it does work (and I have my fingers crossed), I'm going to miss the community involvement in chiming in to help out with a problem. More than one of my numerous difficulties has been solved by an unexpected drive-by comment.

Progress has just killed off another stud farm.

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Curtis

Until we got to Andreas' last sentence, this sounded exactly like the VP Games support system, which is legendary for its disfunctionality, in spite of being staffed by paid professionals.

I hope that the 'fulltext searches' render this system usable, otherwise you've discarded one of the best things about OOTP Developments. Even if it does work (and I have my fingers crossed), I'm going to miss the community involvement in chiming in to help out with a problem. More than one of my numerous difficulties has been solved by an unexpected drive-by comment.

Progress has just killed off another stud farm.

I kind of am sitting on the fence about it myself. I understand this concern, and I share it with you myself.

Why not just keep the tech support open, and when a REAL problem occurs that someone asks about, they can be told to either open a new ticket by one of the other veteran forum members, or the vet him/herself can open the new ticket.

I think that would the MOST efficient way of going about it. Like, Andreas, Steve, and Markus don't even need to poke their nose into tech support at all. And some minor things that could be seen as bugs, in which a newer member asks about in the forum, will automatically be filtered out from having one of those three guys and/or other tech support people from having to worry about answering that question.

Or, instead of calling that section of the forums "Tech Support," call it instead "Help Desk" or something. And have the description say something to the effect of this:

"Unofficial support for minor questions about the game answered by others in the community."

Leave a sticky up top of that forum, advising new OOTPers to first search the ticket system for the proper article. If unable to be found, they can open a new thread asking the community at large, or open a new ticket. Or both.

[Curtis]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

Or, instead of calling that section of the forums "Tech Support," call it instead "Help Desk" or something. And have the description say something to the effect of this:

"Unofficial support for minor questions about the game answered by others in the community."

Leave a sticky up top of that forum, advising new OOTPers to first search the ticket system for the proper article. If unable to be found, they can open a new thread asking the community at large, or open a new ticket. Or both.

I like that you're thinking outside of the box. My experience with hybrid systems is that they tend to get in their own way and work less efficiently than either of the systems they replaced. That's why I'm hoping the 'fulltext searches' really do work.

Still, I'm glad you're thinking, instead of just complaining (as I did).

[Vinny P.]

Originally Posted by Curtis

I like that you're thinking outside of the box. My experience with hybrid systems is that they tend to get in their own way and work less efficiently than either of the systems they replaced. That's why I'm hoping the 'fulltext searches' really do work.

Still, I'm glad you're thinking, instead of just complaining (as I did).

hhmm...

Granted, i don';t have much experience of running a message board. Certainly I have no experience of running a message board of even this magnitude.

I am thinking that maybe have one tech support person keeping an eye on the "Help Desk" forum, and just add the tickets from there, rather than have 30 million people submitting the same tickets over and over. Even for the most minor of questions, a ticket can be submitted by the "Help Desk" support person himself, and an article written up for that particular question. That way, you can build the database of articles up dynamically, without being overhwelmed by 50 millions tickets of the same question, submitted by those who are too lazy, or don;t know any better, to first search the appropriate subject of their question

It could also be a way of filtering the harder questions. The "Help Support" person could just be the only one submitting and answering tickets of questions himself, that appear in the Help section. Harder questions which remain unanswered by the Help person can then be answered by those who are part of the tech support team.

The Help person (or any volunteer vet) could also search the ticket system, and copy-paste an article into the thread that was started by a newbie. This way, the newb customer doesn't have to be bothered about searching the answer him/herself. They can have someone do it for them. (Of course, vets should know better to search for the answer themselves initially. lol.)

The person/people who run in the capacity of official "Help forum" personnel would already be familiar with what is and is not in the ticket system, and therefore, could probably search and find the correct answer quicker than a newb could, who is unfamiliar with the system.

The name of the game is Customer Service. The more/better service we can provide, the better it will be for word-of-mouth. Especially for a game as huge and complicated as OOTP has become. It is rather overwhelming. Those of us who started playing this game back before even 6/6.5, have been slowly being introduced to all the new features, interfaces, and menu systems over time. Someone just diving headlong into OOTP 11 for the very first time, can be totally overwhelmed. And being told to peruse a "ticket system" could also be rather overwhelming for a new person. For the sanity of new customers and the sanity of OOTP Developments, if they have a simple question which can be answered relatively quickly by any number of vets who are not on the support staff, I honestly think that a Help section can still be quite useful.

Whoever is the official "Help person" monitoring the Help section, should also have the power to lock threads, as they become answered. Locked threads would be a great indication that a question has been answered satisfactorily without having to click on the thread, and going in to read it through.

Another idea:

It also wouldn't be a bad idea to perhaps add a WikiHow section for OOTP, and link it directly to the help forums as well. The WikiHow could have every single article written up in the ticket system, and categorized by an index.

I know of a couple of game developers use multiple help outlets like that. Also, setting up a Wiki section for OOTP could also help with the numbers of hits in Google. It could be used for PR purposes. New prospective buyers, for example, could peruse the Wiki articles to find out more about the game, without having to register for the forums, in order to peruse the ticket system. It owuld have more extensive information related to the game, than any single article could have from such sites like Gamespot or what have you.

I would be all for copying, pasting, and categorizing the ticket articles to an OOTP section of Wiki. It would also be great to have an opinion section there as well.

Perhaps this idea should be pasted into the marketing section of the forum.

[battists]

I appreciate all of the feedback. I'll ponder this some more, but for now we're all pretty well wrapped up in getting OOTP 11 out the door, so we're unlikely to make any further changes at this time.

Remember, though, people can (and typically do) post questions in General Discussion or New to the Game, so I'm not sure that leaving Tech Support open really adds anything, especially if OOTP Dev isn't monitoring that area.

Will respond more when I get a chance. Tickets are starting to come in via the new system, and we'll add more articles as we can... The Knowledge Base already contains about 40 articles.

[Cryomaniac]

Originally Posted by Vinny P.

hhmm...

Granted, i don';t have much experience of running a message board. Certainly I have no experience of running a message board of even this magnitude....

I can't believe I'm the only person to thank this post.