Improving the customer support process for a software product: A holistic view

Abstract

A ship spends most of its life cycle during its service phase. This includes customer support for onboard software systems advising the crew on optimal vessel operation. To improve the relationships between the customers and the case company, this thesis investigates how can the customer support process for a software product be improved at the case company.

First in this study, a literature review was conducted on software customer support frameworks to understand the existing methodologies and their strengths and weaknesses. Then, an empirical study at the case company was conducted by interviewing both the support engineers and a customer organisation of the system.

The research found out that while the internal customer support process was well defined, some customers had problems with consistent communication from the case company. Also, issues with knowledge management were found which are tied to internal documentation and reporting practices. The supporting systems of the customer support, such as the ticketing and monitoring systems, had great usability and technical issues. Adopting process models from either CMMI, a maturity model for services, or ITIL, an IT service management framework, could improve the quality of the customer support. In addition, service design can help find future improvements for the service system.