On Wed Oct 13 2010 17:19:55 GMT-0700 (PDT) Marc Paré wrote:
No better time than now. We should make sure that the user support links on our webpages are
clearly well placed and visible. How about reviewing this right now? Let's take a look at where
the links are and if they need new placement, let's do it now.
I will have to leave that to the experts. Even with the "Support" tab on the OOo site it is
hard to find stuff, especially when you do not know what your looking for. To me that is the
problem with _any_ web based system. If you know what your looking for then "Google is your
best friend", if not all you can do is follow each path to see if it helps. I hate automated
phone systems for that reason.
We should use this video to analyse the main complaint -- support and show how wrong it is.
That is the point, it may not be wrong. Not everyone that uses a computer has the will to lean
when for years all they had to do was pickup a phone.
We should all be on the user support mailist (yes I am on it) to assure quality and familiar
support to users. Nothing better than a familiar face.
I have been on the OOo Discuss and Users list for well over a year. I have in the past few
weeks started scanning the forums, OOo and OOOForum. As soon as LibO user, discuss list were
announced I joined them. I also scan the LibO form even though not much is there at the present
time.
We will also need something similar to "corporate support" (maybe set this up in the very near
future) with help with devs who could trouble shoot networked installs of LibO distro. Again,
here, familiar faces count for a lot.
I would be interesting to find out how much business is generated by the OOo support links.
I have been part of many school board It committees examining the use OpenOffice installs and
this is one of the main reasons/complaints behind not adopting the distro. For some reason the
view is that the OpenOffice support is inferior to anything else, even if the help tickets
going to MS Office product lines take 2-3 days to get back to you -- not only that, but this
poor support is actually paid support.
It may not be inferior but it is not what they are use to. Again picking up a phone means they
do not have to think.
I happen to think/know that the Ooo user support online is one of the best support services
anywhere. Very few support systems free or paid can come close to it. We just advertise this
and make good on it.
Support will sell the concept.
How many Open Source programs have 24hr phone support, even paid?
Other things that the video brought up was the lack of compatibility with MSO, which is not the
fault of Open Source but MS's. Until there is a demand from users that MS products comply with
the ISO requirements there will never be 100% compatibility, anyone that come close would be
sued by MS for copyright infringement.
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