So shit hits the fan

So after weeks of hard work you release your work into production. The release is fine, then users start to use it and then... you inbox gets slammed with bug reports and your phone is ringing with angry people on the other end. What you released wasn't working properly and people are getting mad.  This is natural because at the end of the day they paid for it and it is not working.  You would get mad too!

What to do... what to do? Freaky out? Panick? Get angry? Have you ever dealt with customer service and they were rude or unhelpful? You probably got even more annoyed with the whole experience as a whole. What to do? Be calm and try to listen to your users. If they are swearing at you, just try to be constructive and get them to demonstrate the issue to you. Keep these interactions going for as long as you need to get all of the information on the issue, then tell them that you will look into the issue and this is going to be treated as a high priority.

1. This will buy you some time to investigate the issue
2. Don't forget to keep people updated of your progress
3. Try to figure out within 30 minutes if a fix can be done quickly or a work around is possible so that the necessary paperwork or steps to rectify the problem can be initiated.

Be prudent to test more in the future to prevent this case from happening again. Even the best tech companies release things into production with bugs (ie. Apple iPhone 4's antenna issue), but it is how you deal and manage the situation that will separate you from one stupid product to a respected product. Afterall to err is human.