[scrollaway]

I just assume that they put this in regardless to get some amount of people to think "Oh well I better send an email instead...". Emails are cheaper to deal with.

And in emails they put in "We're experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of support requests and we encourage you to look at the FAQ instead".

Every. Damn. Time.

[perl4ever]

As has been pointed out in past threads, the typical HN reader probably only calls on the phone when something has failed or is unavailable on the website, but from the point of view of the call center, most of their incoming calls are going to be people who refuse to use the website for things that could in principle be easily done there. So they are always trying to cut that fraction down or automate it.

[Sohcahtoa82]

> And in emails they put in "We're experiencing a higher-than-usual volume of support requests and we encourage you to look at the FAQ instead".

To be fair, you wouldn't believe the number of people that will send a request to support before looking at the FAQ when the item (and resolution) is in the FAQ.

[scrollaway]

I would :) I also do CS for my company.

I honestly believe almost nobody reads FAQs, and the presence of an item in an FAQ is a symptom of a UX failure somewhere down the line.

[mistermann]

And the inability to find it in the FAQ is itself a failure. It seems like almost no one is even trying, no wonder we tend toward monopolies.