[anilakar]

The reason lower-tier support personnel are employed is because someone reasoned that the engineers' time is too valuable. If 90 % of incoming support requests will be escalated to developers, it makes little sense to have extra people whose main task is to create SAP tickets or press "forward" in Outlook.

Another extra perk of making devs handle the support is that they also have the chance to fix the underlying problem. Remember that for an engineer, fixing broken software is always less of a burden than correspondence with customers.

[mike22]

For our on-prem enterprise software, we have two levels before a ticket reaches the dev team. Level one handles RTFM-type answers, and asks for log files (and then provide RTFM answers or engage a dev). Level two handles demos, implementation and architecture guidance, and reproducing more complex bugs. Dev handles the most complex issues that trickle down, and backup when staffing is short (mainly only around holiday weekends).

[MBCook]

> Remember that for an engineer, fixing broken software is always less of a burden than correspondence with customers.

Don’t be so sure. Just because you’ve identified the issue or a good fix doesn’t mean the ticket won’t go in the backlog to die a slow death before you’re allowed to fix it.

[Aeolun]

Best way to make me improve software is to force me to use it.