Learn to read, please

[docjeff.livejournal.com]

We are rolling out a new feature and, since it's alpha code, we don't really want to offer support for it as of yet. No docs, no help for it available yet, etc. We even have a nice plain "leave us alone" about it in our notices area:

Being in alpha means there is no support for this yet. If you cannot get it working we cannot help right now. There is also no documentation and the service is subject to outages. Sounds brutal, huh? It's really not that bad, it's actually pretty easy to use.

Would you like to take a guess as to how many customers have asked me, both officially as well as unofficially, how to make it work/set it up/etc. ?

38. Less than twenty four hours into our testing and 38 people can't read. This doesn't bode well at all...

*considers a trip to Jamaica*

Comments

[kizayaen.livejournal.com]

I've learned the hard way that you can't be polite (or subtle, either) about such things. People just take advantage of it.

"This is an ALPHA VERSION and is NOT SUPPORTED. Service outages may take place AT ANY TIME with LITTLE or NO WARNING. ALL USE of this version is AT YOUR OWN RISK. NO SUPPORT OR DOCUMENTATION is available for this release. We are NOT RESPONSIBLE for ({"data", "time", "money"}) lost as a result of using this UNSUPPORTED PRODUCT."

[pantherchild.livejournal.com]

~38....That's pretty exsecssive!

~*shakes her head* "If it's in there, why don't you support it?" "It won't take long, can you just tell me how to...." "Hey, there's this new thing...what does it do?" "What does 'alpha' mean?"

~What's worse is when management says "Oh, don't say 'upsupported'....help them if you can!"~

[major-error.livejournal.com]

You could make it so that they had to jump through a ton of hoops and wait as important information was scrolled before their eyes, and they still won't read it.

As a bit of revenge, put one of those "I have read and understand" checkboxes after that disclaimer. When someone asks for help, ask them if they checked the box--if they say yes, say "Great!" then walk away :)

[floatingpencil.livejournal.com]

I love it when one of our customers gets wind of a new feature for the next version and starts asking for "the copy you people are testing". It usually takes a good fifteen minutes of "No, you really don't want that. No, it will eat your data. Trust me" before they finally realise that there's a reason the damn thing isn't released yet.