How developers can communicate with customers?

[Алексей Цыганков]

Hello. Our customers write us about bugs. SD agent creates a linked bug in Jira Sofware for this issues. After that developer needs to get details from customer. He needs write public comment, but he can't without SD agent role. Why? How developer can ask question about bug from customer?

[Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria) · Accepted solution]

Hello,

This is how Jira Service Desk works - only agents have certain permissions. This is also connected to licensing - if you want your developers to talk to customers, they need to have agents license. Currently the developers can write internal comments and the agent can communicate that to the customer. 

Best regards,

Boyan

[Алексей Цыганков]

But this is huge overhead. Agent spends time to copy message. And time between developer's comment and customer's answer is increasing. This is work for machine. And developers don't need full agent functions. Just write comments to customers.

[Алексей Цыганков]

May be there is some workaroud?

Is there any possibility to sync comments between Jira Software and Jira Service Desk?

[Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria)]

Look at it like this - your agents are the L1 customer facing support. Everything conserning customer should go through them. These agents are usually trained how to communicate with customers. Your developments usually are not.

[Алексей Цыганков]

Yes, developer can ask technical question more accurately then agent because agent don't knows what information developer needs. Usually developer is more competent then support agent.

[Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria)]

That is true, but often developers lack the real life communication skills needed to talk to clients, so you should be careful allowing developers to talk to your clients. I am sure your agents can redirect the developer's message to clients, making sure it has no offensive issues included.

In any case, the only way to talk to customers directly is to have agents rights. Maybe there are addons that get around this, but I am not aware of them.

[Mike Bowen]

Hi @Алексей Цыганков @Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria) 

There is another way, you can grant your Developers the Service Desk Collaborators role.  This allows them to comment on the Jira Service Desk request but only Internally, as Boyan mentioned.  The SD Agent can then respond to the customer externally using the internal comment. 

To set this role do the following as a Service Desk Administrator: 

1. In Jira Service Desk click on Project Settings.
2. Click on People.
3. Add People (add your developers).
4. Set their roles to Service Desk Collaborators. (note: the developers will be able to comment internally on the ticket only, they also don't appear as a licensed user, therefore no cost. They can't make changes to the service desk ticket either). 

But Boyan is correct in everything explained above. Keep your developers away from customers. 

-Mike

[Алексей Цыганков]

Yes, our developers now can write internal comments. But we want give developers the ability to communicate with customers directly (via public comments). I believe that our developers can communicate not worse then agents.

[Mike Bowen]

I agree with you on Developers communication, but you'll find when a customer knows they have direct access to a developer, it causes more requests. Your Developers time is worth a lot more than your Service Desk agents time. 

But, if you want them to communicate to customers, simply add them as a licenced user on Jira Service Desk. It will be more cost to you both in licence fees and developers time.