nothing personal, but..

[EasyTarget]

Is amy the best person to have as a customer service moderator? For one she doesn't seem to have the time, judging by her responses in her hack releases, and two she doesn't seem to know how to interact with newbies, which from what I can tell is the main group at the site. (the whole, sorry, you don't know enough to install my hacks/deserve support from me thing).

Maybe a better place would be with Paul, as a site coder. I think/assume (hard to say since I can't code) he's a great coder, but his ability to provide 'customer service' is definately limited.

anyways.. just my 2 cents :p

[Krahl]

In my limited time here (six months or so), I've seen some incredibly helpful posts by Amy.

Granted, she is a busy person (who isn't?) but let's hope she's not going to be the ONLY person doing the job. Added to that are the facts that she's incredibly knowledgeable about vB and that her posting is the first step in a series of upgrades to the methods and staff here at vB.org.

Unless your post is purely based on some personal agenda, how about we just give Amy time to see if she does a good job.. or if she even wants the job long-term?

Krahl

[sambah]

Amy has always been helpful in the few times i've interacted with her.

[vBintense]

I have only delt with her in past via pm, and she was always nice.

[EasyTarget]

I'm not saying she's not a nice person.. just saying it seems an odd fit for customer service seeing as how most of her hacks that I have seen have little service involved and her own sig would say not to bother installing her stuff if you're a noob cuz she's not going to help you with the basics, that apart from her being very busy. Whereas paul is a coder, so he doesn't have to worry about customer service, seems amy would fit better there imo.

I haven't had any bad dealings with either, just from observations.

[SuperFly]

I think amy is perfect for the job, lets leave it at that.

[Dan]

If she was meant to help you learn to code she'd be on the coding team, she's on the customer team to help manage customer service type questions not coding questions.

At least that's my two pennies.

[kurtbarker]

I agree with what Krahl said, maybe they need more people on the Customer Service team... It's the 21st century, people are bound to be busy, but she knows her stuff, is helpfully to the members... what more do you want in customer service?

[Wayne Luke]

Amy has actually been on staff here for quite a while, if only behind the scenes. Her previous role was to be a community liaison. Since this was the case, I feel that she is fine where she is.

Each of the Admins are building their teams based on a lot of things. All the criteria for their selections are not necessarily public knowledge. However they are building teams. These people will work together to make sure that the community is taken care of. Right now, they are in a transition period but as time goes on, they will be able to provide better support and service while not increasingly taking up their time. As time goes on, the teams will be adjusted as needed to provide this support.

[Paul M]

Limited :confused:

Feel free to explain what you mean by that, but I think you will struggle to find many people who provide a better service for their mods here than I do. I've logged onto more peoples forums to fix bugs than most people have "had hot dinners". What exactly do you expect to get for free/nada/ziltch/nothing ? - which is what I get.

[amykhar]

I am going to agree with the original poster on a couple of points. I haven't got a lot of time right now for coding support. And, I don't release a lot of newbie friendly code. I tend to release conceptual mods for coders to build off of.

For me to provide coding support for more than the most basic questions, I have to have access to the source code and my test site. Because I work two jobs right now, I just can't do that easily. Hence, the no support on the mods. I leave the code there and rely on peer support rather than take the code away from the people who do know what to do with it.

But, when I'm on the phone, I'm here. When I'm stuck on a line of code for work, I'm here. I move threads that are in the wrong spot and I answer the quickie questions that I can. It's not coding instruction, but it's necessary work.

So, I do what I can to help out and I try hard not to get grumpy in public anymore. I don't always succeed, but I do try. ;) Just don't make 95 mod requests and then pitch a fit when one isn't filled in 2 days, and we'll get along just fine. ;) (Don't laugh. It's happened)

Petra and Boofo are always going to be better at answering elementary questions than I am. Erwin was always a better diplomat. My strength is that because I have two desk jobs, I can pop in very often and handle the cleanup stuff that needs to be done every day on a forum this size.

Amy

[smacklan]

Thanks for the effort you put in Amy...I remember a while back you thought RL was going to cause you to leave the site...glad it didn't work out that way ;)

[EasyTarget]

ahah, don't get me wrong, you guys are great coders and are an essential part to the community whereas I'm just a fly on the wall.

I guess the hangup I have is just the area Amy is assigned to as "customer support" staff. As amy was saying about erwin.. to me helping the customer is all about being a diplomat, saying the right thing in the right way, taking time to make sure someone feels welcomed, comfortable, etc. But apparently, as amy stated, there's also more to it than just The Customer support group will mainly deal with users, and help members whenever possible when it comes to modification requests, or posts in the site feedback forum. So I was just getting caught up in the semantics of it all.

and for paul, I just mean that most of your answers are really abrupt and it seems a lot of your replies to people are like "just follow the instructions" or "just do it the right way" even after they've said they've tried to follow the instructions (kinda like andreas does). I'm not taking anything away from the time you have spent helping people, I just mean to say you're definately more a coder than a customer support person, so you're a great fit where they have ya. :p

[Freesteyelz]

I'm just a fly on the wall.


EasyTarget. Hehe. :D

[ericgtr]

Personally, I have seen Amy support people left and right on this forum whether it's regarding her own mods or support in general. Yes, she is busy but has always made time to work in the general public and behind the scenes and IMO is a great fit in the customer service area as well as many other areas she doesn't get credit for.

Supporting the new people is important as well but there also must be some diligence on their part to use the search buton and post their questions publically as opposed to PM's, this way the answers are out there for everyone.

As for Paul, he's right to the point that's just his nature. However, he will always help anyone who asks for it one way or the other. He just doesn't pussy foot around about it :D

[Mark.B]

I'll vouch for both Paul and Amy in their new roles. I think they're perfect for it. Both tell things like they are without unnecessary fluff, and Paul in particular provides outstanding modification support.

I'm delighted to see them both with official public roles on the site. (Although I realise Amy was here anyway).

[Guest190829]

Is amy the best person to have as a customer service moderator?

Yes, that is why she is a Team Leader as well. :)

Amy has been a great staff member, even before the restructure took place.
She is doing an excellant job as a Team Leader, and she is perfect for the role.

Go Amy!

* Guest190829 takes out the Thank You cake for Amy.

[EasyTarget]

ah cool.. didn't know she was the team leader. I think that's probably a better role for her than being one of the reps.

And sheesh everyone.. how about some objectivity? I'm love my mom but I hate when she starts telling me about her job. You can still like someone while recognizing their weaknesses. If you think paul and amy are excellent at supporting newbies, patient with redundant questions or small overlooked instructions then I think you either need glasses or need to read a few of their release threads.

I have nothing against either of them, they've done great things for the community and will continue to do so in their new capacities.

[COBRAws]

Amy looks good to me in the position she is today. I really cant tell if she's the right person for the job (not really a job because she's not gettin $$ out of it).