“What role should an organizations leader play in customer support? Is there anything useful to be learned by talking to customers directly every day or is this more of a distraction that should be handled by dedicated folks?”
You may have a full team of people, including marketers, dedicated customer support folks, and tons of infrastructure tools to help deliver FAQ’s and speedy automation.
Q: So why am I fielding customer support calls, live chat and emails?
3 Answers
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1. Customer Support Keeps Us Accountable
There’s a famous military concept called “Leading from the front,” think of the General leading their troops from the front lines, not hidden behind rows of infantry. Organizational leaders should demonstrate leadership from the front, and when it comes to building an organization, customer support is most definitely the front lines (right alongside the battlefront known as sales).
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2. Curate Conversations, Not Surveys
As org. or product developers and marketers we love to rely on surveys to gauge what our customers think. We populate these surveys with loaded questions and rely on arbitrary scales (“five stars!”) to convey what we think our customers mean. This all pales in comparison to having a real conversation with a real customer, especially when they don’t realize they are even being surveyed.
A “survey” may indicate that a new feature isn’t getting much use, or our Google Analytics may show that certain pages aren’t being accessed. But nothing beats a conversation with a real customer to say “That graphic you’re using makes no sense” or “I can’t find out where to see pricing for the product before I buy!”
The early days of any new initiative or product launch need conversations that lead to a back and forth dialogue. We need to be able to ask our own questions — lots of them — to dig deeper into why our new product isn’t performing how we want it to. Those front line conversations authentically occur, every time, in the form of customer service.
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3. Customer Support is the Honesty We Need
Being on the front lines provides – nearly – all of the answers we’re looking for as organizational leaders — what motivates our customers, what really ticks them off — EVERYTHING is sitting right in front of us in the customer support queue.
The great thing about live chat is that no one knows it’s a member of the “top brass”, which means we get unfiltered honesty like “Your product is yuck! I want a refund!” or “You’re close, but it’s missing this feature!” This is the kind of feedback that never shows up in brainstorming sessions or early customer discovery. It’s the feedback that should be shaping the evolution of all our products and services. The more raw, the more emotional, the more detail an organization’s leadership can shape and modify our product and services.
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Contact S3 Solutions to help you develop and analyze the critical business leadership function of hands-on Customer Support to your benefit.