Support as Customer Development

Customer Serviceas Customer DevelopmentSupport | UXDarius DunlapManaging Directordarius@SupportUX.comcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics “Customer service largely determines a companys reputation, so do not consider it a profit sucking necessary evil.” - Guy Kawasaki, Reality Checkcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics “40% of consumers switched to buying from a competitor because of its reputation for great customer service 55% cite great service, not product or price, is their primary reason for recommending a company. 66% said the great customer service was their primary driver for greater spending.” - 2011Customer Service Impact Report, RightNowcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics “Social Metrics are outward measurements of internal emotions. What we want to do is optimize toward increasing the emotion, not increasing the metrics." - Thomas Knoll, Community Architect, Zapposcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics “... the very definition of "emergency" is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.” —Dwight D Eisenhower, US President and World War II Generalcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics Efficacy before Efficiency Effective Support is: 1. Solving Problems 2. Making Commitments and Keeping Them 3. Taking Care of People Once youve got that sorted out, THEN we can talk about doing it all more efficientlycb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics Product Support “Fix Everything Two Ways” - Joel Spolsky, Joel on Software 1. Solve This Customer’s problem … and make that solution available to other customers 2. Fix it in the Product so it Never Happens Againcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics Customer Care • Make Commitments • Keep Them "The biggest difference between acceptable and great customer service is how often and how well the customer service department follows up on requests." - Guy Kawasaki, Reality Checkcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics Listening • Support as “Getting out of the Building” • Seek Clarity • Know your Product • Understand the Problemcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Basics Key Recommendations • Everyone Does Support • Simplify Tools & Processes (so everyone can use them) • Use the OODA Loop Observe, Orient, Decide, Act A key discipline in Support, especially for Escalationscb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Roles Roles are to be Defined and Clarified. Make them Broad. Key Attributes • Technical Expertise Landscape • “People” Orientation - Support is a People Business • Focus & Reflectioncb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Functions "Send the customer a replacement" is a function Functions are to be Minimized and Simplified • Tools should simplify Functions - if they don’t, get rid of them • Require Minimal Training - Preferably self-documented • Spread Functions as widely as possiblecb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People 1. Organization Fit "If youre buttoned up and formal, dont try to become hip and casual. If youre conservative company, be a conservative company; just be a conservative company that puts its employees first and its customers ahead of everything else. There is a way to do that without installing a foosball table or allowing people to wear flip flops to the office.” - Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy 2. Role and Function The ideal customer service person derives great satisfaction by helping people in solving problems. This cannot be said of every job candidate. - Guy Kawasaki, Reality Checkcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People Technical Competence • Not to be confused with “knowing the answer” • Look for Problem Solving Abilitiescb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People People Competence "Learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about listening to customers. They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf" - Doc Searls • Listening • Conversing • Assessingcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People Literacy "Written communications is a critical skill in Support" - Darius Dunlap • Read Critically • Think Clearly • Write Well • Bonus Points for “Tells a Good Story”cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People Initiative "Hire people who Get Things Done" - Darius Outside interests can help you assess thiscb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Hiring and Team Development Hiring the Right People Ambiguity "To the right person, the ambiguous is more interesting" - Darius Tenacity Follow-through, Closure, and Attention to Detailcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support in the Lean Startup Customer Development Support is a “Customer Execution" Function The Intelligence and Insight it provides assists “Customer Vision”cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support in the Lean Startup Key Concepts • Market Type Is it an Existing Market, Redeﬁned/Reframed, or New Market? • Whole Product Hypothesis Assess the complete lifecycle, including Deployment, Support, Service, Updates, Upgrades, …cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

The Customer Experience “There are only two things will convince consumers to pay more for something when they could pay less. One is convenience, and the other is an outstanding customer experience.” - Gary V., The Thank You Economy Who are your Customers? • Develop your “Customer Personae” (there is more than one) Tie this back to your Lean Startup "Hypothesis"cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

The Customer Experience What Product Support and Customer Care do you anticipate? • Sketch 3 - 5 scenarios of why a customer needs support/service • Assess your product for weakness and complexity • How will you mitigate these problems? • What does this mean for support load?cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

The Customer Experience What should the customer’s experience look like? • For each Customer Persona and Problem Type, Storyboard scenarios of customers needing support • How might they contact you? - Most Frequent Method? - Preferred when customer is in a panic? - Preferred when the problem is complex? - Preferred when the problem is simple? • Develop workflows from the Customer Point of Viewcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Process Development Process and Tools "Have standard operating procedures for common things, like cancellations and product returns, to ensure the job is done properly, but never ask or train your representatives to read from a script." - Guy Kawasaki, Reality Check • Make it easy to do the right thing, right • Build-in Information Capture, minimizing extra stepscb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Process Development Process and Tools (2) • Make information dissemination easy - Actionable information is often the “bad” news - Visibility allows you to spot trends and patterns • Instrument Panels, Alerts and Notification - Make information visible - Deﬁne service levels and implement alerts - Make it easy to notify the right peoplecb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Process Development Process and Tools (3) Successful Escalation: Decentralized Decisions & OODA “The person who says to you on twitter, ‘I bleeping hate you!’ is an awesome customer to have. If you can give alienated customers what they want, they will come back to you stronger than ever. Every time.” - Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy - Don’t Panic! - Support Takes the Lead - Support Owns the Customer - Make it easy to get the right people involvedcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Process Development Escalations: One More Thing “Great customer service companies dont shoot the messenger. It could be a customer, employee, vendor, or consultant is doing the pointing. The goal is not to silence the messenger, but to ﬁx the problem so that the messenger never has to bring that message again. - Guy Kawasaki, Reality Checkcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Process Development Practical Advice • Think of your processes and methods as an engineering problem • Simplify, Simplify, Simplify • Small Changes, Frequently Deployed • Make and Keep Commitmentscb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Operations & Metrics Key Concepts Dashboard / Instrument Panel • Tracking Indicators • Warning Indicators • One or Two “Performance Metrics”cb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Operations & Metrics Key Concepts Metrics and Insight Quantitative analysis is only useful where is supports critical thinking - critical thinking is what matters. • Visualize what’s happening, contrasted with projections Waterfall Forecast is very useful! • Measure the customer’s experience, not yours • How will you summarize the day, week, quarter? This should inform your Customer Development effortcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support Operations & Metrics Common Mistakes “Premature scaling is the bane of startups.” - Steve Blank, Four Steps to the Epiphany • Scaling too early • Over-wrought process & metrics • Forgetting that you are here to solve problems and improve the productcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Flexible SaaS EcoSystemcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Key RecommendationsStart with CRM SystemStart with Support Case SystemStart with Engineering systemsConsider Integration into your web-based productcb Darius Dunlap, SupportUX

Support as Customer Development

by Darius Dunlap on May 28, 2011

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

2 Embeds 119

Statistics

Support as Customer Development — Presentation Transcript

http://supportux.com	118
http://www.supportux.com	1