Github support done right | Hacker News Reader

Github support done right

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19 pointsmarak8 comments

What am I missing? This seems like a reasonably okay exchange, but what's special about it that makes it worth singling out as an example that all other tech support folks should aspire to?

Never belittle your customer and never assume that they hold you as the pinnacle of excellence. Most customers understand with success come mediocrity. For those customers that don't, learn tact and how to close the conversation GENTLY or pass the support to your manager.

If you don't feel offended by the entire tone of this post, then I think we live in two very different worlds. Paying customer or not, public interaction is very difficult to manage well.

..... from Kyle... Will,

For reference, I deal with 89 repositories I have access to. I have no issues with the repository lists. Keep in mind:

If you don't know what repository you want to work on, alphabetical order will have absolutely no effect. Alphabetical order is only helpful when you know what the repository starts with. If you know this, use the filter.

If you're coming to a new project, I sure hope your co-workers / manager have told you what the name of it is. Just type in a few letters of that name and you've got it.

I have a really hard time believing you don't know any portion of the project's name you're looking for. I can see not knowing the entire name, but even two or three letters usually narrows the list down to ~5-10 repos.

If this is really important to you, you can always use our API to develop a custom dashboard for your company and implement all these features. http://develop.github.com/ — or even write a chrome extension / greasemonkey script to re-order/re-arrange the repository lists as you see fit.

Really, if the problem is you need to communicate to your employees that certain repositories are important for a period of time... tell them. Email, phone, in-person. We don't deal with communication problems on GitHub, we deal with technical problems.

I know it can be sort of heartbreaking when companies don't accept your feature requests, but we're here to look out for all of our users, and a lot of times that means not implementing features for the greater good.

The overall feel of the sequence is a mixed bag. On the plus side, kneath offers a workaround (filtering + APIs), apologizes for initially misunderstanding which feature the customer was talking about, and doesn't promise miracles. On the minus side, the "hard time believing" and "sort of heartbreaking" lines don't sit so well.

I doubt kneath was trying to belittle his customer--which reinforces your point that customer support is hard. My original question should have been, "Why this particular title?" Was the poster holding this up as an example of perfect support, or mocking it as an example of terrible support? In reality, it was neither.

Is it ironic?

I didn't see particularly stellar customer support on the page (not malicious, just a misunderstanding)

i created a simple and stupid project to sort repos through brute force instead of using the github.com website.

you can clone that project listed and sort your repos.

I guess, that the whole point of the thread is: Dont implement every feature request, KISS ala 37signal

ohmy kyle... wonderful guy at the lousy job. he'd be great at the suicide prevention hotline

I have to hand it to Kyle. That's just how we roll on 3rd shift!!! But on a serious note, I suppose this just shows that customer service is quite a difficult thing to balance. I recall seeing some similar interactions between 37Signals and their customers as well. If you build opinionated software then unfortunately not all opinions agree with yours. But how you handle the exchange of opinions is quite a fine art.

I particularly like this line "We don't deal with communication problems on GitHub, we deal with technical problems."

ok...I'm done with my break. Time to go deal with those damn customers again. Can you wake me about 15 minutes before 1st shift arrives? I need to prepare the handoff report for the EMEA guys. :)

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