CHAPTER 11 Supporting Your Product
Our typical customers are Web designers, many of whom have never
used a CMS, or installed something that relies on a MySQL database before.
So even if our product is incredibly usable and bug-free, we will always
have people with crazy hosting configurations or who are just unsure how
to get started.
Something that has always surprised us is the importance placed on
support by our customers. Early on, we took to marking as favorites on
Twitter the nice things people said about us, so we could display them
on the website. It was notable how many of those tweets were not about
features of the product, but about the support we gave. How you treat
customers who turn up in support will make a huge difference in how they
feel about your product or service. Does their customer experience make
them feel valued? Do they really feel that their call, ticket or email really is
important to you?
Providing a good customer experience is really important in support.
The customer may make that initial contact feeling annoyed about your
product. They have an issue, and it isn’t doing what they wanted it to. Your
aim should be not only to solve their problem, but to leave them feeling
more positive about your product than they would if they hadn’t had the
issue that brought them into support in the first place.The Hidden Value of Customer Support
I hope anyone reading this book understands that customer support and a
focus on customer experience are important in their own right. Therefore,
much of this chapter will deal with how we actually provide support.
Before I talk about the nuts and bolts of actually giving support, I’d like
to start by talking about the hidden benefits great customer support can
bring to your product or service. In addition to shaping a great experience
for customers, support can make people confident to try your product in
the first place; it can be a fantastic marketing tool; and it can be a source of
market research and product development information.