What Tron Can Teach Us About User Support
“I fight for the Users!”
The jury’s out on the quality of Tron Legacy as a sequel to the cult 80's original. But one thing I think we can all agree on is the lessons that we can learn from Tron about supporting users…
What? Did you not see them? Let’s take a look at just some of the lessons we can learn, with a special treat for those who make it all the way through.
Live in your product
The Grid. A digital frontier. I tried to picture clusters of information as they moved through the computer. What did they look like? Ships? motorcycles? Were the circuits like freeways? I kept dreaming of a world I thought I’d never see. And then, one day…
Flynn’s dream: to live in the system, The Grid, which he created. He knew that this was the one true way to experience it. It’s the same for anything. You know the product best if you use it, and you should use it.
Become the user and you can anticipate problems, solutions, and features before you get flooded with support requests.
There is no ‘perfect system’
CLU is tasked with creating the perfect system. Let me tell you, there’s no such thing. Any system that involves humans (that’s all of them), is imperfect. We bring our quirks with us, and we make mistakes.
You’ll moan about how stupid a user is, because they can’t work out how to buy your product. But perhaps it is your system that is the issue. If they’re the only one having an issue, then just help them. I’m sure they’re great at stuff you couldn’t even start doing. Just chalk it up to experience, and take it on the chin.
On the subject of systems: The answer to great User Support isn’t a great CRM system. It’s great people.
Be specific with your goals
“Creating the perfect system” is a pretty wide stretching goal. What’s perfect? When does perfection stop? How big is the system?
Be specific with what you want to achieve from your user support team. Smaller goals help people achieve them, which improves morale, and that’s what you want from your user support team. If your support team are pissed off at you, how do you expect them to stop users being pissed off at you?
Embrace the unexpected
The ISOs, of which Quorra is one, are a completely unexpected quirk of the system Flynn created. Flynn embraces them, seeing the potential they can bring. This sort of thing can happen in programming, but it can also happen with people. When people use your product, they form an opinion. They find the quirks, the ups and the downs, and they thing of ways they would like to see it improved.
Listen to these opinions. You don’t have to act on them, many of them may be complete rubbish. But by embracing the unexpected things your users tell you, you can help mould the future of your product. User support isn’t just about you helping them ;).
Management can corrupt
Tron fights for the user, protecting them whilst they are in the system. With Flynn delegating control of the Grid to CLU, Tron becomes corrupted by this new management. He becomes Rinzler. He fights for the people he used to protect us from.
Management has the ability to corrupt from the top down. If you want your business to provide great customer support, you need to be 100% passionate about providing that support. You should be manning the phone-lines every so often get a taste of what’s going on.
If you think all your users are stupid, and that user support is there to protect you and your system, you’re never going to get customers who enjoy getting help from your company.
But Tron will always shine through
Even as Rinzler, Tron still fights through. When tasked with killing Sam, he can’t. It’s in his very being to fight for the user, and protect them. No amount of corruption can remove his very essence, and he can’t bring himself to ‘kill’ Sam.
This is the same for people. Our conscience is there all the time, niggling away at us when we do things that go against it. Even if management is telling you to speed up turnarounds, there’ll be times when you disobey this order to help someone in need. These people should never be reprimanded. Their steadfastness in standing up for the user should be rewarded, their actions used as an example for the rest of the business. Don’t exile these people, make them heroes.
What other lessons can Hollywood teach us when it comes to treating people better? Did I miss some from Tron? Let me know on Twitter (@smutchings).
