Support Matters

I've worked with many different companies throughout my career. Mostly smaller start ups, but a few larger ones too. One common mistake I've seen is the lack of thought and effort that is put into customer support.

Support is the one department in a company where customers have a low tolerance for flaws. Many people will forgive some issues with your sales team, your product feature set, even your product itself, but one area that many people simply won't tolerate flaws in is customer support.

In the software industry, especially software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that are delivered through the browser, its important for users to be able to reach a knowledgeable support tech since there is very little that the end user or their corporate IT staff can do to help in such situations.

So, here are my cardinal rules for customer support analysts in software companies:

Be polite.

You wouldn't think that this is the kind of thing that actually needs to be specified, but it does. Even if a support analyst has to give a customer bad news (for example, that they have encountered a bug that they will have to wait to have fixed), a spoonful of sugar makes that bad medicine go down much easier.

Know the product.

Again, you might think that this goes without saying, but too many companies use their level one support analysts as answering machines who just take messages and log issues for another tier of support to resolve. Having a support agent who knows an application like the back of his hand and can help a customer better understand the product or troubleshoot issues is a huge benefit.

Taking the time and effort to train your support agents to drive as much first-call resolution as possible provides a lot of benefit for your company and the customer. You don't have to manage a list of customers who need callbacks. And your customers don't have to re-explain their issue to yet another support analyst because the call notes are unclear or incomplete.

Provide clear and real information.

Too many times, support analysts don't give you enough information or the information they do give you isn't complete.

During a consulting job, I once e-mailed a company to ask about a proprietary communication protocol that a particular piece of hardware used. All I got back was a one line message saying, "I can't give you that." That left me wondering whether it was somehow against company policy or whether the analyst just didn't have the information.

In order for your support staff to provide information they need to have the information. And I'm talking about information from all other departments of the company: marketing, sales, developers, QA, finance, etc. Of course, there need to be rules about what information is company confidential and what information can be shared, but in general, I find that if you can explain the reasoning behind an answer that a customer may not otherwise like, at least they will understand your position and may even sympathize with you.

Be patient.

Very often, when someone has a need to call support, something has gone very wrong and that creates stress and flared tempers. Sometimes you have to let a customer vent before getting to the root of the real problem. While it's not nice, it is human nature to want to vent your frustrations when you are stressed or upset. Sometimes the best way a support analyst can help a customer is to listen and sympathize.

Listen.

Everyone has probably heard someone say to them, "You hear me, but you aren't listening." We are too often guilty of trying to deliver what a customer asks for without truly understanding what they need. Once, I was asked by a customer if we were ever going to make a certain feature easier to use. After asking a few questions about what the customer was using the feature for, it turned out that there was already a different feature designed to do exactly what the customer needed, they just didn't know about it and the support analyst they talked to previously hadn't taken the time to understand their need, but only helped them with exactly what they asked for.

Support analysts are the face of the company to the customer after a sale is made. They can help make a new customer a recurring customer. They can make the difference between a customer and a reference. Yes, it takes time and effort to find the right people for this job. Yes, it costs more to train and constantly reinforce best practices in your support organization, but the benefits are well worth it.

What works for your company? What is the best support experience you have had?