On a day-to-day basis, my interactions with customers are limited, but every once in a while I get some support calls that just take me by surprise. Today was no exception.
To give a little background, in our software we have a feature that allows us to catch any crash that is about to bring the software down and send a log of recent activity along with a short note from the customer. The customer put in the note, "Trying to print ReportA". Definitely wanting to help resolve his issue and correct any defects that might reside in our software, I asked for a little more detail, since the log file didn't have anything relating to that report. I asked questions like: What screen were you in? What item were you trying to print the report from? etc. At this point, I hadn't offered any suggestions, I was just doing the typical detective work to narrow down where the defect may be. A few minutes later an email arrived in my inbox. It was a reply from the customer. Anxious to nail down the defect, I opened the email. The email contained only two words: It worked! Okay, great, I was glad the software was working for him, but what did he do differently this time? I replied asking some more questions to see if it would be possible to narrow down where the problem was and sent off the email. Again, only minutes later, I received a reply. Expecting some sort of explanation about the different approach he took, I opened the email. Just like last time, only two words were in the email: Never Mind.