Support:ImprovingSupportOptions

Improving Support Options

I kicked off some discussion about how we can improve Firefox support options here:

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=494282

Lets summarize and roll up ideas for how to improve and integrate all the various support channels including IRC, Newsgroups, and possible new ways to provide help to users on this page and use it as the central place for building a plan

First lets Catalog all the support channels where we have interaction with users so we can figure out which ones need attention and improvement.

The end goal of all of this is to retain more users that encounter problems when using firefox and to continue provide the best browsing experience. Like with all the places where we have been successful with mozilla in the past we will need to engage and leverage an active and passionate development and community. In the short run we need to build and improve the support offerings that are currently provided to end-users, do things reduce the number of mouse clicks and keyboard entries, and system interactions to providing helpful information. But in the long run the goal should be to not make the support systems we develop not needed -- the browser should just work! '-)

To achieve that goal we need ways to surface critical problems and make sure they get addressed in product releases, and back end services that are connected to the browser.

Catalog of all the places where users report problems and try to get help

Real-time:

• IRC #firefox
• qunu or similar zero software install options? http://alpha.qunu.com/index.html?search=firefox
• voice services - something like ether? http://www.ether.com/
• automated voice navigation to answers and solutions?
• others?

Time shifted:

• Mozillazine Forum http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=38
• bugzilla https://bugzilla.mozilla.org
• others?

Documented Help/Support Baselines:

• http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=106431
• http://en.www.mozilla.com/en/support/
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Issues_%28Firefox%29
• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Category:Firefox
• others?

Other kinds of related Feedback Systems

• Talkback http://talkback-public.mozilla.org
• Reporter http://reporter.mozilla.org
• Henrdrix http://hendrix.mozilla.org
• security@mozilla.org
• webmaster@mozilla.com/org (last or sometimes first resort if all the options above are too confusing)

General thoughts on integration, dependencies, and coordination among the channels

Just about all depend on a good back end of current and useful knowledge base entries. I think hooking all channels into a central knowledge base that can be used in a variety of ways is key to many improvements and reduction of duplication. Lucy suggests this central KB needs moderation and ownership, and arbitration among contributors when disputes arise.

Each of the feedback and support systems needs to be able to provide metrics that help to surface the most frequently reported and/or important problems.

Each of the feedback and support channels need to consider how to address localization issues so the support options can be extended to reach the maximum number of Firefox users.