Creative Suite Installation Support across all platforms.
Streamline support and installation of Desktop Publishing applications from a single installation.

Client/Company/Project type  

Adobe Systems Inc

 

My role

My job was a Technical Support Specialist Senior for the suite of products included in the Desktop Publishing bundle, along with being the SME for Adobe FrameMaker. I gathered data from calls, determined trends and patterns for  repeatability, and best solutions that were being used by coworkers.

 

Project Summary/About this Project

This project was to provide top level installation support as a free service, to customers with proof of purchase of the $1200-$1500 software package. The primary support professionals role was to show confidence and knowledge of the software installation, while educating customers on support and training options.  Challenges encountered during this project included: long hold times for customers to reach technicians;  up to 2 hours to install the software; delays in getting replacement media sent out; missing fonts; applications; and systems that did not meet system requirements.

 

Due to the challenges encountered during the new installation process, the results included a rewrite for the next release; a way to  download the media as a backup if there happened to be a damaged disks; an email version of the installation guide; as well as a link to the support website where they could check the system requirements and find the installation guide.

 

The Challenge

Challenge 1: The installer would freeze, hang or generate an error. This impacted customers because these messages could appear when the first cd/dvd was inserted, or at any point during the installation. It could take minutes to hours to  generate an error message, or fail to complete the installation.

Challenge 2: Creating a Desktop installation folder, which resulted in copying the discs to the folder, and finding bad media. This resulted in the challege, with a lack of free  hard drive space; not copying to an internal drive; copying to an external drive.

 

With each challenge above the customers were impacted with time wasted: waiting for the software to install, and therefore unable to use their computers. The Creative Suite(1) took about 2 hours to install; if you had to copy media, then that was time consuming, and took up to an additional 2 hours to copy the data to the computer before you started the installation. Customers lost productivity while waiting to confirm if all the applications installed from the hard drive

 

Primary Support Professionals had resources to read and guide customers through the troubleshooting process. This process took time to document the solutions were working, and were clear enough for most customers to follow without needing to have a technician available. The other challenge for the primary support professionals was meeting the high call volume,demand for services, and customer frustrations as a result of the installation issues.

Solution
From the challenges, the following solutions were tested in real time, proven, and documented.

Solution 1: Troubleshooting guide for installation that is published on the Adobe Support Website for Mac / Windows. This solution resulted in a troubleshooting guide, which includes: system requirements; hardware comparability; video cards; and required amount of free space hard drive space required to install.  This guide advised people who were upgrading how to back up previous versions preferences plugins, ad customizations that may have been made. It documents how to copy to the desktop, and what the folder structure should look like, and advises if you need to disable your antivirus software.

** note these are for current releases ** https://helpx.adobe.com/download-install/kb/failed-install-creative-cloud-desktop.html

Solution 2: Improved methods for confirming damaged Media and replacement options. By creating a folder on the desktop, inserting the disc, and then attempting to copy the disc contents to the folder we were able to rule out bad discs. The disc can’t be read, try on a different machine, and error happens while copying. This resulted with an increase customer satisfaction with response times.

Solution 3: Downloadable backup media was created after proof of purchase was confirmed. Improving customer satisfaction.

Results  

Project was successful as we were able to have the installation guide become published, and included in all releases involving physical media. Another success was faster resolution for the primary support professionals with creating a new installation structure to confirm downloads have completed or software copied, and when expanded you have all the required packages. The primary support professionals are better equipped to handle solutions faster, due to improved documentation,step by step guides, and the ability to follow up with customers to confirm everything was installed and working as expected.

Figma: Persona:

Figma: Flow: