CHAPTER 11 Supporting Your Product
Another way to use Twitter is to be proactive in monitoring what peo-
ple say about your product and jump in where appropriate. We have saved
searches set up for terms such as Perch CMS and sometimes will contact
someone talking about us, even when they haven’t directly replied to
@grabaperch. Used carefully this can be a good way of encouraging someone
into support, rather than just asking their friends and peers for advice.
It also works very well for us in terms of pre-sales as we can ensure their
questions are answered. You need to take care not to come across as spammy
when doing this, however; we tend to just say, “Let us know if you have any
questions” and then leave it up to them to respond to us if they want to.A Final Thought
Always remember that support is about helping people have a great experi-
ence with your product or service.
Support is a vital part of a successful product. It can be beneficial to the
product, even a source of customer research and a way of advertising. The
ultimate aim of customer support, of course, is to help your customers get
the most out of your product or service, to solve their problem quickly and
get them back to doing whatever it is they purchased your product to do.You have to be a nice person to do support well. You have to want to help people.
Everything else — how to phrase your emails, how to use the helpdesk software,
the technical knowledge — it can all be taught. You just have to care enough to
get it right, and to keep caring, even when you are in a bad mood, or the servers
are on fire.
— Jim Mackenzie, 37signalsIf you approach support with the needs of the customer in mind, even
when you don’t have a perfect answer for them, you may find that it starts
to become an enjoyable part of what you do, rather than the chore that
many people believe it is.