Thank YOU Support!
Today I had an issue with one of of Australia's telecommunications companies and needed to call through to their customer service center. This company is not particularly well known for it's customer service and support, but I must say that today I was pleasantly surprised. They solved my problem quickly and cheerfully and I went on my way a happy customer.
This really got me thinking about the role of client support and service within companies today and how those people working tirelessly in support are the unsung heroes of many companies. I know quite a few people in this kind of role and I realize that it's certainly not the most glamorous of roles in a company and it can be pretty thankless at times, so let me start by thanking all those of you who work in support and especially those supporting Ephox products, both at Ephox and at client sites.
Computer related customer support has long had a stigma about it. I am sure many of you have seen parodies of unhelpful technical support staff and maybe even been unlucky enough to have had a bad experience or two. Certainly in this day and age of globalization and the internet, as consumers it's often the case that we never speak with, personally e-mail or interact with representatives of the companies whose products we are using. Customer self service has greatly increased - purchasing airline tickets or ordering a Dell PC are great examples of this - and with the introduction of self-service many have been under pressure to further reduce customer support costs, particularly post-sale - after all the money is in the bank right?
However, take a look at support from another angle and it becomes immensely more valuable and more important in today's marketplace, particularly the Internet marketplace. As social beings people basically want to make connections with people, yet in situations where products are bought and sold online interactions between your clients and your staff can be few and far between. In fact, its likely that most of those interactions are going to be through your support desk. It's those experiences of your company that your clients are going to remember and theres a good chance they will tell their friends and colleagues about them. Indeed, it's those experiences that your company may well live and die by, at least in the eyes of your clients. Though perhaps even more importantly, these experiences give us within companies the opportunity to learn more about our clients - what do they want, what features they are using, what we can improve, what do they find difficult, what do they wish the product could do or, from one person to another, whether they are having a good day or not.
If I was to look at support in this context I would say that the challenge is not "how do we reduce our support costs?" but rather "how do we make our support more valuable to our clients and to our company?". The value is definitely there, the challenge is to realize that value! As a member of the software industry I think we still have a long way to go. I make support calls to our clients today and often they are surprised that I've called them and that the response is so fast but at the end of the day it is me who should be thanking them, for taking the time to share their experiences with our software and their real-world use cases for it, each call is a valuable learning experience for me (so thank you if you're a client reading this!). There are glimpses of brilliance in the support field out there though. An example of a company who is doing this right is Atlassian. Their promise and delivery of Legendary Service shows that they really understand the importance of supporting their clients.
Finally thank you once again to everyone in any kind of support role out there. Sometimes it might be tiring, often it may be thankless, but trust me, we couldn't do without you and to some of us you're worth your weight in gold.