Instruction manual versus workaround

[MarcelBeug]

I'm curious about your opinion on the following.

I consider known errors and workarounds like the appendix to the instruction manual titled "what to do in case of issues?"

Customers may have different ideas then service providers about:
1. Something being an issue or not.
2. Something being part of the service or not.

Can you imagine of any situation where a perceived issue (by the customer) is considered and accepted as a problem, while it's actually part of the normal service ("works as designed") or not in scope of the service? I see some grey areas.

Looking forward to your opinions!

[UKVIKING]

If a service has a built in fault, then it is a not service that I as a customer would want to pay for.

End.
_________________
John Hardesty
ITSM Manager's Certificate (Red Badge)

Change Management is POWER & CONTROL. /....evil laughter

[mredekar]

Interesting post!!

The situations you are referring are not common scenarios but they are not very rare as well.
The situations can arise due to many reasons, few to list here are:
(1) Users are not aware or trained-enough on service features/capabilities/limitations
(2) Service features/limitation, not well defined/documented by service provider
(3) Service design assumptions, not verified with users/customers during requirement analysis etc.

To give example, I am using non-IT situation:
User calls up Desk registering that the air conditioner (AC) blower is not working evenly. It blows cold air in waves of high and low blowing. – Desk explains this being a ‘Sea-shore” effect setting, a new feature of the AC, asks user set it to ‘Normal’ if it is not desired. (Reason 1 above)

Operating temperatures (a range of temperatures within which the equipment is supposed to work normal) is one of the criteria any equipment manufacturer would provide. If equipment is used outside this range, it may breakdown or behave unexpectedly. If these limitations are not provided by service provider to user, the user may use the equipment outside operating temperatures, and call desk reporting an issue if it breakdowns. (Reason 2 above)

Incompatibility of an application designed and developed for specific Operating System (OS) does not work with previous version of OS. User calls desk to realize that the assumption that the application will be used only with the specific OS was not validated with user. (Reason 3 above)

Hope it is useful.

[Diarmid]

The customer does not have an interest in "works as designed", but rather in "works as required".

A design failing is no better than an implementation failing from the customer perspective.
_________________
"Method goes far to prevent trouble in business: for it makes the task easy, hinders confusion, saves abundance of time, and instructs those that have business depending, both what to do and what to hope."
William Penn 1644-1718