Abuse response [Was: RE: Yahoo Mail Update]

Wed Apr 16 17:50:28 UTC 2008

Dave Pooser wrote:
>> Handling the abuse desk well (or poorly) builds (or damages) the brand.
> 
> ...among people who are educated among such things. Unfortunately, people
> with clue are orders of magnitude short of a majority, and the rest of the
> world (ie: potential customers) wouldn't know an abuse desk from a
> self-abuse desk.

I think that depends on the nature of the abuse desk, how it interfaces with 
other networks and the customer base. Of course, I get to be the NOC guy and the 
abuse guy here. It's nice to have less than a million customers. However, I find 
that how NOC issues and abuse issues are handled are very similar. It is, of 
course, easier to reach another NOC than it is the senior abuse staff that 
actually have clue, generally. Both departments need a certain amount of front 
line protection to keep them from being swamped with issues that can be handled 
by others. Never the less, when they can interface with customers and with the 
other departments that spend more time with customers, it does improve the 
company's service level.

If there is a routing, firewalling, or email delivery issue with a much larger 
network, the effectiveness of the NOC/Abuse Dept will determine how well the 
customers will handle the interruption. If the company has built trust with the 
customer and related to them in a personal way, then the customer will in turn 
tend to be more understanding of the issues involved, or in some cases at least 
point their anger at the right company.

-Jack

Learning to mitigate the damage caused by Murphy's law.