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As technology becomes more complex, and an exponential number of things become more connected, the underlying code that powers it all becomes more difficult to produce. As a result, hardware and software defects sometimes crop up, causing problems for our customers and headaches for our support teams.

Cisco’s goal is to minimize defects, but when they appear, we work hard to give customers and partners the information and assistance needed to fix them, work around them, or avoid them altogether. For the more significant, critical issues, we do this through our Field Notice program.

We publish Field Notices to notify customers and partners—who have opted-in via the
Cisco Notification Services—about issues in Cisco products that typically require an upgrade, workaround, or other user action. Cisco Notification Services is a valuable service, but there’s always room for improvement. Our customers and partners tell us that they want to see better, easier-to-access documentation to help them get back on track after encountering a defect.

We recently made several changes to our Field Notice content, tools, and processes to help customers get the help they need as swiftly as possible.

Enhanced search capability on the Field Notice Summary site.
  1. Enhanced search capability on the Field Notice Summary site makes it easier for customers to find Field Notices related to specific products or defect IDs.
  2. Updated Technical Support mobile app pushes notifications to customers via a new channel.
  3. “Digitized” Field Notices with digital signatures automatically link defects with Field Notices. This means that defect information and Field Notices are always in-sync. Our case management system automatically searches customer device output logs for digital signatures that match field notices and the defects they address. When the system spots a match, it notifies TAC engineers about relevant Field Notices so they can speed up the troubleshooting process and proactively spot defects customers might be experiencing but not even know about yet.
  4. Better internal tools simplify the Field Notice publishing process. This means we can produce Field Notices more quickly for our customers and our support teams.

Combined, these Field Notice improvements will help customers find Field Notice information more easily, resolve service requests more swiftly, and head off brewing issues before they cause problems.

Resources

Product Field Notice Summary: for the latest published Field Notices or to search for Field Notices related to specific products.

Cisco’s Notification Services: to receive notifications about Field Notices.

Cisco Technical Support App: to find and receive Field Notice notifications via mobile devices.

 

Got feedback? We’d love to hear it. Reach out to us at customer-listening@cisco.com.



Authors

Curt Hill

Senior Vice President

Customer Assurance