Good examples of Troubleshooters?

[richm]

Hi,

Anyone have any good examples of using troubleshooters?

Kayako's own members ticket area (at least when I log in) doesn't even have the widget exposed and every site I have visited from links in these forums (so far at least) seems to have nothing under the widget at all.

Just wondering if there is any point to this part of the app.?

I'd love to see a great example of this in use. Anyone have a public example you'd care to share?

Thanks,

Rich

[Siora]

Originally Posted by rixm

Hi,

Anyone have any good examples of using troubleshooters?

Kayako's own members ticket area (at least when I log in) doesn't even have the widget exposed and every site I have visited from links in these forums (so far at least) seems to have nothing under the widget at all.

Just wondering if there is any point to this part of the app.?

I'd love to see a great example of this in use. Anyone have a public example you'd care to share?

Thanks,

Rich

Me too. I'm in IT support so not sure how well that would apply and if it would be better then the KB articles.

[Brent]

I have one up that is very very simple:

But you would need to register to see it... seeing its only for customers..

I like them - If you spend some time setting it up - especially if it was a step by step walk through for a specific issue - I think they could be very helpful... sadly my products are a bit too technical for the proper deployment of this - yet - I use them for items like registration problems - changing passwords etc for the Supportsuite app side..

[Siora]

Originally Posted by brentwic

I have one up that is very very simple:

But you would need to register to see it... seeing its only for customers..

I like them - If you spend some time setting it up - especially if it was a step by step walk through for a specific issue - I think they could be very helpful... sadly my products are a bit too technical for the proper deployment of this - yet - I use them for items like registration problems - changing passwords etc for the Supportsuite app side..

It is handy but in IT there are 1000's of issues that could be described step by step. Unfortunately that would take a large number of man hours to implement.

[Brent]

Yes - and honestly KB articles to me are better... its all about Kayako trying to cater to mutiple marketplaces and that I cannot fault them for....

Its pretty much - KB or Troubleshooter...

Thou the problem is for a non registered user you can make comments in both KB and troubleshooter and to me without some kind fo spam protection for this I will never allow non-registered users to access KB or Troubleshooter.. I want to know if they are my customers before they access anything..

[supportskins]

Its quite true and suprising that not many have used the Troubleshooters to its potential. For a small size business company like ours, it is okay but a medium or big companies receiving numerous queries, Troubleshooters would do a great deal especially reducing alot of tickets. I remember telling Varun how Kayako too can impliment it when I was working for it. It works something like Query > Solution > Sub-solution > If yet not solved > Submit Ticket.

[Jamie Edwards]

We will be implementing Troubleshooters soon, along with a revised KB.

[Siora]

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

We will be implementing Troubleshooters soon, along with a revised KB.

Can you expand on this a little more? What will you be changing?

[Jamie Edwards]

Simply enhancing the content available in the Knowledgebase, so there is a searchable and definitive library of questions and answers - and when common issues come up, new articles will be added.

[Siora]

Originally Posted by Jamie Edwards

Simply enhancing the content available in the Knowledgebase, so there is a searchable and definitive library of questions and answers - and when common issues come up, new articles will be added.

Ohhh...you mean enhancing it internally, I was hoping you meant the product itself.

[fritter]

http://helpdesk.stormhosts.net/

[supportskins]

Originally Posted by fritter

http://helpdesk.stormhosts.net/

Thanks for sharing, thats well done indeed!

[ccj]

I find this question very interesting, because the Troubleshooter is what drew me to Kayako in the first place.

We provide hosting services for local NPOs, community groups, and artists. As a result of our niche, we have a lot of clients who are not technically-savy. They know their email doesn't work. They have no idea if its because their spam filter is being overly zealous, if their email client settings are incorrect, or if there's a DNS issue which is preventing them from reaching our mail server.

KB articles are great when you all ready know what the problem is, and just need a howto on fixing it. But when you don't know what the problem is, and aren't comfortable enough with technology to try searching for possibilities yourself, the Troubleshooter is fantastic. We use it to ask our clients a series of stepped questions (Do you use a spam filter? If so.... Have you checked your mailbox quota? Do you know how to? &c.). These questions enable us to eliminate possibilities, and at the end of the path, we can provide the solution within the Troubleshooter itself, direct the client to the appropriate KB article, or request that they submit a ticket (while also telling them what details they should include in that ticket).

Besides helping us get to the real problem without having to go back and forth over email, the Troubleshooter also has the effect of training our clients. It gets them thinking about details they were previously unaware of, and helps to acquaint them with the technology we provide. This means the next time they run into something unexpected, it won't feel like such a crisis.

Two features I do wish the Troubleshooter had are (1) the ability to loop back to a previous step, and (2) integration with the Knowledge-base. Currently, we're duplicating a fair amount of information between the two, and being able to link directly to a KB article within the Troubleshooter would be great. (I know we could manually link, lazy options often win out.)

[craigbrass]

Please post these feature requests in the Feature Requests sub-board so that the developers will notice these for possible inclusion in V4.

[bmcclure]

I know this is kind of old, but I came across it and wanted to chime in.

Yes, the KB can be used in place of the troubleshooter, or vice versa, but that doesn't make it ideal.

We run a student support help desk for an online school. We use the KB for providing support documents and other information, as well as fixes for specific issues. There's more information here than we provide in the troubleshooter.

What the troubleshooter is great for is when people don't really know what their specific problem is or what they want... You can start it off at the most basic of levels, like "I can't connect to the Internet" or "I can't get my email" or "I can't print" and just keep getting more and more specific as they go along. This allows non-tech savvy users to figure out for themselves what problem they're having. With the KB, it would be more difficult to narrow down an issue if you don't know what you're looking for.

In essense, the troubleshooter works well for troubleshooting, and the knowledge base works great as, well, a base of knowledge...