It seems so obvious: if you want to develop software that’s useful to people, you’ve got to talk with them. But too many developers take the anti-social approach and consider customer support to be beneath their status…If you really want to write useful software, stop spending all your time keeping up with technology. Don’t worry if your resume isn’t filled with the latest buzzwords. Instead, invest your time in talking with your customers. They don’t care what programming language you use – they only care whether your software meets their needs, and the best way to ensure that is by breaking out of your cone of silence and opening the lines of communication.
via 37signals.com
I’ve always believed that a software developer’s duty doesn’t end when his code is pushed live. Your software is never perfect and you will always have a user who finds problems with your UI, doesn’t know what this feature means or you’ve simply misunderstood the requirements.
Support for your software shouldn’t be like an add-on warranty you purchase at Best Buy. It should be given away because support is a feature of your product.
Software without support is useless.
