Learning From Customer Difficulties
February 4th, 2008
From the merchant’s perspective, it can be difficult to troubleshoot a problem, especially when you’re not seeing the same thing (or receiving the same results) as the customer having the problem. Unfortunately, there can be a loss in translation when trying to get the root cause of something.
Today, I was just reminded of one simple, yet highly useful technique for getting to the root of the problem…a screenshot.
It Can’t Be Duplicated
One of my customers was having problems logging into his account and I had no problems logging in under his username with the details provided. Now, I’m not doubting that he received an error when trying to log in, but 9 out of 10 times someone receives a password error, it’s because there was an extra space or invalid character copied from the confirmation e-mail.
For a while, I hadn’t heard from him again, so I assumed (silly of me, I know) that all was well and the issue was resolved. Well, today, he sent me an e-mail containing a screenshot of the error he was receiving. That saying, a picture is worth a thousand words, is oh so true because I was able to spot the problem within a matter of moments — the username was case sensitive and it wasn’t being entered exactly as it was issued in the e-mail.
Lesson Learned
The screenshot explained why he continued to receive the error message and I couldn’t duplicate the problem. This incident has taught me two things:
- Spell everything out. Never assume that a user will understand that usernames/passwords are case sensitive or that everyone uses the same format to enter their data (i.e. copy/paste), so add it to the confirmation e-mail. (I’ve already updated my confirmation e-mail with a note about case sensitivity.)
- Ask for a screenshot. Whenever you’re receiving different results and can’t replicate a problem the user is having, ask for a screenshot so you can see exactly what they’re doing and exactly what’s happening on their end. It does wonders.*
*This reminded me of one of my previous clients, who I really enjoyed working with, because he would always send me a short Camtasio video explaining what he was having problems with or what he wanted to have done. They were wonderful because they were short, concise, and gave me a visual.