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Thread: Solution to problem of people not reporting bugs quickly enough...

  1. #1
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    Default Solution to problem of people not reporting bugs quickly enough...

    Hi All,

    Toward the bottom of this post: this post, you'll see a scenario that has been frustrating me for a while. Someone experiences a problem and then, instead of contacting Pangolin right away, they get up on the forum and start complaining (although Lassie didn't complain all that much).

    This frustrates me because we want to deliver the best products possible, and we often need feedback in order to do that. It frustrates me that something about our product is causing problems for customers. And it frustrates me that they didn't contact us directly and immediately, so we could solve the problem -- not only for them, but for others too.

    As I wrote in the past, we are not able to constantly monitor this forum, and so the best way to get the fastest help possible is by contacting Pangolin directly. Even if I am not in town, I could easily forward any message to another team member who could help.

    Within the walls of Pangolin we have a "no complaining" policy. We define complaining as "talking about a problem and not a solution". We want every team member at Pangolin to be concentrating on solutions, not problems. So team members can't talk about a problem unless they have at least one solution in mind (and three proposed solutions are preferable).

    Anyway, while thinking about this problem of people not reporting bugs, and not reporting them quickly enough, I came up with the following solution, which I think is quite good.

    If a customer discovers a problem with a Pangolin product, and they are the FIRST TO REPORT THE PROBLEM and report it directly to Pangolin, that customer will receive one piece of highly coveted Pangolin swag for FREE (including the shipping)! In particular, choices of swag includes:

    * Pangolin T-shirt
    * Pangolin mouse pad
    * Installation CD or DVD with the latest software, videos and shows/workspace
    * A copy of my new book Game Changers (to be released on Amazon.com November 17)

    In order to participate in the offer, the customer has to report the problem as soon as possible (because they want to be the FIRST, and thus, don't want some other customer to report the problem before they do), and they have to report the problem directly to Pangolin, preferably using our contact form.

    This gives strong incentive for people to find problems , and report those problems to us before anybody else does , and of course it gives Pangolin strong incentive to produce products that don't have any problems .

    Maybe we'll call it the "Find a problem, win some swag" program.

    I don't know of any other company that is doing this, but it seems like a very good idea. Let me know what you all think of this idea.

    Best regards,

    William Benner
    Last edited by Pangolin; 11-06-2010 at 13:57.

  2. #2
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    Default

    Does the microsoft XP program-not-responding send-report? ever end up at pangolin?
    Or is that a service that microsoft charges megabuck for ?
    Or does it not contain the info you're interested in ?

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by -bart- View Post
    Does the microsoft XP program-not-responding send-report? ever end up at pangolin?
    Or is that a service that microsoft charges megabuck for ?
    Or does it not contain the info you're interested in ?
    Hi Bart,

    Normally when a program not responds, it will generate a error report to Microsoft.
    Its not possible to relay that data to Pangolin, but with the correct tools you can read the error that is generated.

  4. #4
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    Thumbs up

    Quote Originally Posted by Pangolin View Post
    Hi All,


    If a customer discovers a problem with a Pangolin product, and they are the FIRST TO REPORT THE PROBLEM and report it directly to Pangolin, that customer will receive one piece of highly coveted Pangolin swag for FREE (including the shipping)! In particular, choices of swag includes:

    * Pangolin T-shirt
    * Pangolin mouse pad
    * Installation CD or DVD with the latest software, videos and shows/workspace
    * A copy of my new book Game Changers (to be released on Amazon.com November 17)
    If this was the case, I already should have a wardrope of Pangolin
    No, just kidding of course.

    But i like the idea that you reward bug reports..
    Maybe something like a bug tracker could help us see if we are the first
    that submitted the problem? Something like Mantis for example?

    Bob

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by -bart- View Post
    Does the microsoft XP program-not-responding send-report? ever end up at pangolin?
    Or is that a service that microsoft charges megabuck for ?
    Or does it not contain the info you're interested in ?
    It's really very difficult to crash QS. We have a lot of internal monitoring, and when a problem is detected, it will almost always give you the option of continuing, or ending the program (at your choice). And either way, it creates a log file that can be automatically sent to us during the next start-up.

    If you get some kind of error with Windows, then it would most likely be an error with Windows.

    Plus, Bart, I don't recall you sending any reports or letting us know of any problems, have you?

    Also I am more talking about the kind of thing that was experienced in another post. Lassie says "hey, this version is nothing but trouble for me", but never bothered to report it to Pangolin until we write him a private message (after we discovered his complaint on this forum). We would like people to report troubles, and report them ASAP, so they can get fixed ASAP and then a new version made ASAP. Had Lassie reported the problem to us instead of on this forum, we probably would have shaved 1 week off of our responsiveness (because that's how long it took me to discover his post)...

    So I am hoping we encourage people to write directly to us and write quickly. And a mysterious thing like "my windows crashed" is not descriptive enough. One thing we battle is sub-standard PCs and bad USB cables and things like that. A good bug report would be like "I do this, I do that, I do the other thing, and then this unexpected thing happens every single time." Or when something unexpected happens, send us the log file and we'll see what it thinks. We've found more bad USB cables and low-performance PCs that way than anything else...

    As for bug tracking, hopefully people will trust our integrity, which has certainly never been brought into question in the past (no ILDA ethics complaints over the past 25 years)...

    Best regards,

    William Benner

  6. #6
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    Angry

    Plus, Bart, I don't recall you sending any reports or letting us know of any problems, have you?
    I was merely suggesting a possible solution, I don't expect to be talked down upon in return.

    And as a matter of fact, I have been sending reports and letting you know of any problems. I've been sending Alexey (12-1-10 till recent) and you (31-12-09) minor and major reports.
    And if you value our cooperation, you'd better change your tune !

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by -bart- View Post
    And if you value our cooperation, you'd better change your tune !
    Whoa, calm down Bart, I was only asking a question!

    What I said was a true statement -- "I don't recall you sending any reports"... (Remember: here on PL, clients use nicknames, while they use their real name when contacting us. I'm just not able to connect your real name with your nickname here on PL.)

    Of course we always thank people for sending reports so we can solve the problem -- not only for you, but for everyone else. That's the who point of this thread -- delivering better and FASTER service to clients.

    In your case, if you've been doing it all along, then you have certainly helped out the laser community, and this thread is for those people who post to a forum FIRST rather than contacting is as soon as they see a problem.

    Best regards,

    William Benner

  8. #8
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    Did I win a T shirt?

    Gene

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by -bart- View Post
    And as a matter of fact, I have been sending reports and letting you know of any problems.
    Thanks for the private message Bart! Yes, you are one of the good guys who has been sending us direct feedback, and you were instrumental in helping us fix a problem with the software early-on, regarding the laptop recovering from power-down. I am sorry I didn't immediately connect your nickname with your real name. It's amazing how many Barts there are in this business


    Quote Originally Posted by Phredy1 View Post
    Did I win a T shirt?

    Gene
    Currently we've run out, but we are having more printed. Please contact me privately and I'll see what we can do

    Best regards,

    William Benner

  10. #10
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    How about a good deal on the software cost, I'll pay you back with bug reports!



    But seriously, your idea is a good one. As a developer myself, I understand that you can not fix a problem if you don't know about it... Do not get me started on the "quality" of bug reporting.... Ok, I'll start! Unless a bug report details how to recreate an issue then it is almost as good as not reporting the issue (well in many cases).

    Just curious, do your customers have public access to your issue tracking mechanisms such as Bugzilla?
    This space for rent.

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