One very useful way to reduce workload answering queries, specifically for support is farming that out to your users. Many companies have forums for their users, usually hosted by the company if it's large enough but it's mostly run by the users and they answer a lot of questions that can tie employees up.
I really don't know why Tim Ring does not actively (or at all) promote this group, or any others if they exist, as a place where users can get some support. I know Bill invited Tim to join but that's as far as it got as far as I know. I guess Tim must be time poor and not have time for forums and such which is a shame; time on the phone or replying to an email services one user, a message post on a forum services many and could save much time from not having to get many phone calls or emails for the same thing.
Now, am I ungrateful (I suspect that my comments in another thread might have driven part of Alan's post)? No certainly not, I'm quite happy with RailPro as well but that doesn't mean that I can't drive it to be better. This is what product improvement is all about, being driven by yourself, your competition and by your users to be/stay number 1 in the marketplace. If this did not happen improvements would not happen; well not nearly as fast anyway. I don't and wouldn't expect RE to be able to provide improvement's "overnight" so to speak but if I can help improve it by driving it along I will. This is what a lot of my study with Loksound and RailPro has been about.
- Tim