QA and Support - what is the connection

In the general scheme of things as I see it there are two avenues between the manufacturer and the costumer.

The First is from the manufacturer to the costumer , in which a product is manufactured then tested and at the end released for the costumers use.

The Second is from the costumer to the manufacturer, in which the costumer will report a problem to the manufacturer and hopefully be presented with a solution by the support team.

obviously the two avenues must mix, the question is where and how often.

In the following caption I'd like to present what I think is the proper manner for interaction.

When a problem arises from the field (costumer) the first task is information gathering, if this is performed well then we are one step closer to resolving the problem.
In one of my previous entries I mentioned this when I noted you have to know what questions to ask and what to look for.

One of the most popular support method involves different TIER levels.

Each level is suppose to perform a sort of analysis and attempt to resolve the problem... only upon reaching a deadlock will the problem ticket be passed on to the next TIER level.

Each TIER has different capabilities and is intended to handle different sort of problems;

TIER I - will usually handle small operative problems : electrical and other communication problem should be ruled out, if the problem has not been resolved by this level it shall be passed to the next level.

TIER II - this level will usually handle all configuration malfunctions in order to rule out problematic setup and system definitions. Once this option has been ruled out the next support level has to be involved

TIER III - in this level actual debugging of the problem must be done ... for this the support engineer will need the system configuration files and proper relevant logs ... all of these can be collected in advance by the previous TIER level in order to save time and face with the costumer.
Once configuration has been determined and an exact suspect scenario has been chosen the support engineer needs to attempt to reproduce the defect for the benefit of the R&D team which will need to handle the problem.

reproduction is critical because it will allow us to verify the fix once it has been implemented ... but in order to be able to do so the details mentioned above are a must!!

The next phase in the support cycle will be the TIER IV.

TIER IV - this support level is with in the R&D and its role is to co-ordinate the fix and its release.

Once the Fix has been completed by the R&D team it is up to the QA to retest according to the scenario detected by the TIER III engineer.

In some cases QA may also handle the original reproduction instead of the TIER III engineer but in order to do this effectively and successfully they must have all the relevant information prior to the reproduction attempt.

To summarize:
A support group MUST have an organized data/ information collection and distribution method!

Since with out it time is wasted in each support level from the beginning which in turn causes great over head for the fix.