(Originally on my Flatburger.com Blog) FlatBurger is in a position uncommon to some ISV’s in that we do have direct partners that use our software and services, however that technology is then directly integrated into their products, which is distributed to their customers. Any issue in our partners products due to our technology is absolutely unacceptable. One of our largest priorities is making sure no such issues arise, and we have invested substantial amounts of money into intense testing in order to make sure that does not happen.
However, no software system is perfect, and issues do sometimes arise. Unfortunately, this creates a complicated situation in our case because the end users of our partners do not always know that the issue is with the FlatBurger technology, so they logically go to either the developer of the application, hosting provider, or the place the got the product from. This results in potential increased support burden on our partners, which we again consider absolutely unacceptable.
To mitigate this issue, we have attempted to communicate to end users in as many ways as possible instructions on how to use the licensing technology as well as any critical known issues. We have invested in creating a detailed online knowledge base and full support system, which we promote and offer for anyone to come to for support. However, again, that is sometimes missed, and as a result, support requests and forum posts are occasionally created in our partners systems.
To assist with this, and to extend our support reach beyond the realm of our own support site and system, we have setup a series of google alerts that constantly monitor all available web content for any possible error associated with the FlatBurger system. As soon as Google finds a support issue, post in a forum , etc., from an end user asking for help due to an issue that might be somehow related to our technology, our support team is immediately notified and able to respond in a quick and efficient manner. As a result, we are often able to respond to an issue even before our partner is. Yay Google and yay technology!
We are very much trying to fine tune our product and address any issues that arise as soon as possible. Identifying and diagnosing those issues is the first critical step in making that happen, and we are making considerable efforts in that regard. If anyone encounters any sort of issue that might be associated with our technology, I ask you to please visit support.flatburger.com. As we discover issues, we have been creating local accounts in all of your support systems (ie. Username = FlatBurgerSupport) to attempt to address all issues directly within your current support system for your users.
While Google is good, it can’t compete with automated immediate notification systems built directly into a partners support system / forums, so I do encourage all partners that are notified of an issue, to notify us via support.flatburger.com as soon as soon as you receive that notification so we can get a jump on the issue. Additionally, we have created a new email address for partners to directly forward issues to at FBSupport@flatburger.com. Any email sent here will go both to our entire support staff, as well as myself.
