Allow tech support to input ideas from tickets

[David Goldsmith]

The majority of people will not submit feedback because this requires work. The best way to facilitate this is give more than the forum as a tool for input.

Idea #1

Let the tech support upload and idea as long as it comes over in written form.

Idea #2

When an individual (with certain rights) submits a ticket, also offer the option of a feedback button on how to improve. This would mean that while I'm cursing out the software and asking for help, I can also input my suggestion on how to solve the challenge or to at least advise you of my concerns. Hey, make it easy for me to give you feedback.

Idea #3

Give me a feedback button in the control panel so I don't have to go through all this extra work.

I teach New Product and Service Development at NYU and what you're doing are classical mistakes. That's not good.

[Morrigan]

Don't quote me, since I'm not staff at IPS, but I think part of the reason they require you to post here is to see it's popularity as well as arguments for and against it. While I can see a point to your suggestion, you must also must see it from the other side of the spectrum. They aren't a huge business and so getting suggestions, products improvements and the like in so many different places and ways could just be too spread out for them. Having all feedback here and all bugs in the tracker is simple and consolidated. It's also easier for a customer to find and support a suggestion that has already been posted.

:D Hope that's not too big an inconvenience for you.

PS. About the lazy thing? If a person is too lazy to suggest or look for something then they obviously don't want it bad enough. ;)

[Mat Barrie]

I believe they've mentioned that the large corporates with no presence on these forums also submit their improvement requests via alternative channels (probably via an email to their account manager).

[bfarber]

We aggregate feedback from many different places, however typically we request that customers post suggestions in this forum for a few different reasons.

1) We can gauge how many customers want the particular feedback implemented. Maybe we didn't think much of the idea, but suddenly 4 or 5 dozen customers are chiming in that they want the idea implemented. Maybe we thought the idea would be good, but customer start posting reasons it would be bad to implement. Maybe there's a better way to implement something that a customer has already tried.

2) As developers, it's a little difficult handling suggestions in 5 or 10 different places. You get more duplicates, and you don't get as clear a picture of how much something is needed or wanted. It's easier to funnel everything into fewer channels so you can better manage the suggestions presented.

3) Suggestions that may not have got much steam at first might get a second revival following other software changes. For instance, customers may be averse to a particular suggestion, but once a different part of IP.Board is changes, it might make the first suggestion more worthwhile, so everyone can come back to it and reconsider it.


Just some food for thought.