OT? support

From: wes 
------------------------------------------------------
my company hits pretty low on all those metrics. we have about 10 indians
plus me and 1 more here in the states for escalations, supporting about 300
end-users both in the US and in india.

-wes

On Tue, Oct 23, 2012 at 7:46 AM, Ed King  wrote:

> went to Google and searched for "support staff ratio" and found all sorts
> of
> "testimonials" and food for thought
>
> there's no right/wrong answer but considering
>
> 1) how many users we support
> 2) how many physical locations
> 3) how many servers
> 4) tech saavyness of our users
> 5) how many applications and their complexity
>
> I think we're doing pretty effin good with only 2 "support" people.
>  Good to
> have this thought out, the next time "someone" ask why we need "so much"
> support.
>
> cool, its almost time for my 2 hour lunch break
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Ed King 
> To: chugalug@chugalug.org
> Sent: Tue, October 23, 2012 9:04:38 AM
> Subject: [Chugalug] OT?   support
>
> I'm not a PMP project manager nor do I play one on t.v.
>
> However, my team *delivers* and our systems make money for the company.
> We
> don't have any failed projects where the servers are sitting in storage
> room
> gathering dust.
>
> Now, I never said we were perfect.   Does our software have bugs?  Hell
> yeah it
> has bugs.   Some of them never got caught during testing because our field
> users
>
> are a lot more clever about breaking things than we are.
>
> Anyway, my question is, how many support personnel "should" be expected
> for any
> given software system of significant complexity?    I know thats kind of a
> vague
>
> question.
>
>
> I'd love to get some real world examples of how many support folks your
> software
>
> has (and the size/complexity of the system being supported)
>
> If a team is constantly cranking out new products, isn't it just common
> sense
> that the need for support going to increase?
> 
===============================================================
From: Ed King 
------------------------------------------------------
A certain company I know has...

14 servers
9 applications
3 physical locations
1060 users 

supported by 2 people on a daily basis, with 2 other people "on tap" if 
needed.   Seems like a darn good ratio to me, yet, we're, I mean they, are under 
the gun to "become more profitable."  Support, of course, is seen as 
unprofitable.   Maybe we, I mean they, should just turn off the damn lights, 
lock the building, and go home?  That would save all kinds of money!  Yeah!








===============================================================
From: wes 
------------------------------------------------------
if you have 9 applications out there spread across 1060 users, you, I mean
they, are not monetizing the apps well enough.

I'm all for user-friendliness, but there is no reason you, I mean they,
should be paying people to use any app.

-wes



===============================================================
From: Ed King 
------------------------------------------------------
how can you say that if you don't have a clue what the apps are?  we service a 
very niche market

I've been told we're the market leader...    so why am I driving a Chevy Nova 
instead of a Mercedes?  Oh yeah... because I want to, lol






===============================================================
From: wes 
------------------------------------------------------
if there's an app that someone is willing to pay me to use then sign me up
cuz I want on board that wagon (at least while it's still rolling)

-wes



===============================================================
From: Ed King 
------------------------------------------------------
save this thread and come back to it when you get sober