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The top support call was a problem nobody could see whole.

Customers called it “app failure,” and it could be any of dozens of things. What began as an internal startup became part of the company’s cloud.

Sector
Enterprise software
The problem
The top reason customers called support
When
Before EightPX
The problem

Failed apps were the top reason customers called support, and nobody could trace them.

What we did

Co-founded an internal startup and put prototypes in front of customers every week.

What lived on

A product the company kept, carried by a new cloud group.

01 · The moment

A lawyer couldn’t open the app, and the clock was running.

They call their IT admin. The admin digs in, can’t find the cause, and calls the software company’s support line. Now three people are stuck on one failure.

Across universities, banks and law firms, it added up to the number one reason customers called support.

Where it surfaced

A list of support call themes, read out in an executive meeting. Application failures were at the top.

02 · The gap

One name for dozens of different problems.

“Application failure” could be any of dozens of things, and finding which meant following hidden paths through separate consoles and logs. Even the company’s best engineers found it hard.

Customers usually ended up blaming the platform.

03 · Who we listened to

We went to the people who took the calls.

The support engineers on the phones. Admins from the customer council. And, at the executives’ request, some of the most vocal and demanding customers in finance, education and law.

We heard what a bad day cost them, in lost work for their people and in hours for the support teams.

  • 01Admins tried first, then called support.
  • 02Every product had its own console and logs.
  • 03Tracing one failure took the best engineers hours.
  • 04A bad day cost users their work and support its time.

What we heard, in our words

04 · Why it lasted

Every product had an owner.Nobody owned the space between them.

People, budgets and even design were organized around business units, and every unit had its own console.

A failure that crossed three products belonged to none of them.

05 · What lived on

From nothing to a product the company kept.

Our founder co-founded the work with one of the company’s technical architects, through its internal startup program. We went from nothing to a concept, then prototypes, then working product, and put it in front of customers every week.

  1. 01ListenSupport engineers, admins and the most demanding customers.
  2. 02Bring the ideas togetherMany products’ views brought into one picture of a failure.
  3. 03PrototypeFrom a concept to prototypes to working product.
  4. 04TestWith customers, every week.
  5. 05Hand overTo a new cloud group, formed to carry it.

What happened to it?

It lived on.

It outgrew the startup program. A new cloud group was formed to carry it, and it became part of monitoring and troubleshooting in the company’s cloud.

The problem only had a name once someone went looking for what was behind it.

Could this be happening in your business?Seven questions, and you see where your customers fall through the gaps.
See your gapsNext story: Nobody had asked the people installing it.

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The top support call was a problem nobody could see whole. · EightPX