You’ve been bounced around like a pinball, from one department to the next. Grinding your teeth, listening to the same bad song, over and over again. Your impression of the company with whom you’re dealing is barely hanging on by its fingertips. It’s the make or break moment. The next person who answers the phone will determine whether the company is slated or celebrated on social media. Is it a Muppet, or a Support Ninja?
Make sure it’s a ninja every time. Ninja’s have the right attitude: an ability to go above and beyond — not just dealing with the customer’s question, but also surprising and delighting them with their interpersonal skills. Steve Jobs once said, “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” Only Support Ninjas have the ability to get that close to their customers. …
Technical support is one of those thankless fundamental business functions that chug along at their own pace and are only noticed when they break. Consumers do not dwell on it as long as their broken widget gets fixed, and companies appear to have accepted an ongoing tax of maintaining whole departments (or outsourcing) to deal with incoming queries. The tax is only bounded by the willingness to take reputation hits. Not ideal, but tolerable?
If you squint and think for a moment, it becomes obvious that technical support is deeply broken. One basic indicator is turnover in the industry. One estimate has customer support yearly turnover at 24% (probably less for technical support, but still). The role is not very prestigious, does not pay well, people do not stay for long, and few individuals will choose to invest the amount of effort into the field that would be comparable to other, more professionalised domains. This state of affairs has been linked to compensation, but that is only half of the story — why pay more when you can get by with less? …
Expectations for customer service continue to rise across the globe. Microsoft’s 2018 State of Global Customer Service Report reveals that 95 % of respondents say customer service is important in their choice of and loyalty to a brand. 59 % have higher expectations now then they had a year ago.
Your customers no longer compare you with only your competitors, but with the best support they have ever received from any brand. Customer support is slowly but surely overtaking product and price as the most important differentiator.
Customer service now is the service.
This is especially true for brands with technical products. You can’t have a great product today without great technical support. …
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