August 27th, 2008
Support is not a money maker, but necessary
I was just talking with my wife about how being in a support job is not a money maker. What I mean by not a money maker is that in the grand scheme of the company a support person's actions do not produce revenue for the company. A sales person obviously brings in revenue through sales, programmers bring in money by developing new features that the sales people can sell, AR/AP bring in money by making sure people pay. Support just makes sure that people get their questions answered. People can argue that good support makes the customer happy and will help guarantee a renewal, but the short term benefit isn't as visible. That is why it is usually hard to get resources for the support department, if one exists. Usually support is spread out over the whole company. Which is fine with small companies, but if the desire is to grow then you need to be proactive with support. This includes:
- Beefing up documentation to ensure the user experience is good
- Monthly campaigns to check in on customers and help them use the product by introducing them to more resources like webinars, new documentation, blog posts etc.
- Be timely on responses: Nothing impresses people more then getting back to them in a timely fashion...this also helps keep your software at the top of their mind - which is good
- Thoroughly following up on cases - to ensure the question was answered and to document the result of the case
- Test the product to ensure for QA (even though there are dedicated QA people, it is good to have fore knowledge of issues)
- Scan the internet for people struggling with the product - Twitter, blogs, forums etc
I myself love support. Believe it or not. Sometimes I have some rough cases, but overall I learn a lot, I get to help people with their problems, and I get to learn a product inside and out. Many days I just wish I had more time to tackle some of the points above.