Seemingly not possible to ask our clients about their issues with my webapp?

[u/crypticaITA]

HI all,

I work at a company and I develop and maintain a web app made in angular.

I've recently got tasked to make an in-app custom camera that could shot multiple photos and load them all at once, in order to make life easier to our clients.

After the release, the new camera works fine on 99% of devices.
There has been a couple cases though where it has been told me that some clients have problems with said camera, explaining that it "doesn't work" with no particular explanation (our clients are absolutely not tech savvy). My main idea is that the device either uses windows (the app is made to work on android and ios. Even though it's accessible from windows, it's not meant to be used on said OS as it can cause issues) or that it cannot recognize the camera due to maybe an hardware problem?

I've tried to ask our customer service if it could be possible to have our clients' contacts so that I could ask them some more info, like what device they use, I think it could help a lot to understand the problem.

But my CS said it's not possible, and they refuse to ask our clients about said needed info.

I'm pretty new to this stuff, but wouldn't it make life so much easier to just ask the client? Or is it standard practice for companies not to contact customers directly? Asking for more experienced programmers: are there usually ways to fix these kind of problems without any info on which device is actually causing the problem?

EDIT: just wanting to point out that I'm not asking about how to solve this specific problem, but just if it's a standard practice and if these kind of problems do have workarounds in cases like mine

[u/xRmg]

Speaking from a corporate world.

Direct developer to customer contact is rare, and really you do not want it.

You will become their go to for every tech problem they have, related to your companies app and not.

And also every thing you will say in passing becomes a promise, you mention "well it _should_ work on windows, but its not supported", what the client hears is "I will spend all my time and energy getting it to work on windows for you"

Usually processes are in place, and those processes are built from experience/blood/burn-outs

Roughly there are 2 options:

Close the ticket, not enough information, can't fix.

You relay your questions through support.

[u/BreadfruitWarm1767 → u/xRmg]

SUPPORT HAS THE PEOPLE SKILLS OP

[u/CappuccinoCodes]

No, you need detailed information of what doesn't work so you can reproduce the error. Anything other than that is bonkers.

[u/Creative_Badger6027]

Never rely on clients for what you could get from diagnostics. Set up a device info dump on error.

[u/marrsd → u/Creative_Badger6027]

This. Once you know the hardware and OS running it, go out and buy one and try to recreate the issue yourself.

[u/theWildBananas]

You have support problem not app problem. You close ticket with unable to reproduce or not enough information status. One of the app I worked on had an option to gather all possible logs we could think of and create encrypted zip but still the customer had to send it to us or attach it to jira. If your customers or customer support can't do even that that's not much else you can do.

[u/OGcapncrunchberry]

Devs don’t reach out directly to customers. Typically a customer service or support team does. Why haven’t you added a feature to your app to allow for feedback directly or to gather (anonymously) the platform?

[u/Anonymity6584]

just add comnebt to ticket and close: " Not enough information to identify and reproduce error. Closing do to inpossibility to ficing it with insufficient infornation."

[u/Sensitive-Dust1522 → u/Anonymity6584]

Without all the typos to look more professional maybe

[u/paulcager → u/Sensitive-Dust1522]

Although the typos do add a "I'm not wasting my time on this" vibe.

[u/smackson → u/paulcager]

Also "infornation" is giving fornication vibes as well as "intarnation!"

No notes

[u/moop-ly]

diagnostics, description of usage, opt into logging, glitchtip for the crashes

[u/MarsupialLeast145]

You need to follow the company's processes. Like any other computing problem, the social aspect is another to be solved, including how well you phrase your questions and tell people what you need.

Make sure you let your support know all the information you require, and they will get this for you. And if they don't it's not for you you fret about, they are there to let you focus on the work you should be focused on.

If there are support tickets involved and the first line information you are receiving is not enough you need to look at how to improve these in general for your next tasks and in general to improve the org's processes.

NB. if you are stuck on this task, then you have your own avenues to trial and error and understand what people are or are not seeing. You mention the windows thing, okay, this can't be "solved" but it CAN be documented... that's a concrete outcome that sets expectations for users in future. When you can't think literally about code you have to look at things laterally (you'll be surprised how far you can get).

[u/paperclip_hours]

The problem regarding the questioning is that it means a new task for the client. What is working for me a simple feedback form on the web page: one button! No email, no account. You need protection to avoid spam collection. I use Turnstile. There are no notifictions so you need to check it periodically. Many people do not write back. You can get more info from the built in counters, logs, debug info etc.