Comment by sunir
16 years ago
The best thing you can ever do for your company is to put every employee in front of customers. One of the things that attracted me to FreshBooks was that they rotate everyone through customer support continuously. As a (former) developer who was tired of consistently building the wrong thing because sales and marketing jealously guarded the customer, this was very refreshing.
This isn't a novel idea. Many companies with customer service orientations have done this. If you're selling Software-as-a-Service, that ought to include you!
Not necessarily a good idea. I could probably handle it now without a problem, but when I was 25 or 30 I would have quit first, and you should have your head examined if you would have put me in that position back then. Given how many high functioning autists tend toward techie type jobs, it may even block your hiring good tech talent (it may even be an ADA violation).
Personally I would hate to do customer support, and I must question its value as a learning tool. Getting your customer to plug in the mouse is hardly going to make your system any better.
If you absolutely must have developers on support, at least have them as the top tier and only available when the problem is technical.
Of cause if you are at a startup you have to do customer service yourself, but that is to save the money on a second salary.