How Do I Start Support Sections for a Company?
Setting up a support section in your company requires a technical foundation for providing services, as well as an operational framework and supporting materials. Implement this system for companies offering services and/or physical products. Apply the methodology to local or global delivery. This support-section business model serves business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) companies.
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Instructions
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Establish a Technical Foundation
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Implement a customer-support technology system with incident-logging capabilities. Depending on the scope of support being provided, your technology foundation can range from a Web-based FAQ to a Twitter account enabling a public forum for Q&A, to a full 24/7 call center. The incident-logging system serves as a to-do list, ensuring that no customer is left without service. Recording incidents also serves as a feedback mechanism for further development of products and services.
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Select an incident-management system that meets your needs. Incident-management solutions come in all sizes and at all price points. Check what your Web content management system (CMS) is and whether that CMS community offers incident-management modules. Another option is to look at your existing customer relationship management solution (CRM) to see whether it offers an incident-tracking solution that meets your needs.
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Publicize your support Web site.
Establish an Operational Framework
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Define an operational framework. Any support practice needs to be adequately staffed and responsive. A poorly staffed and/or underskilled team quickly turns from a brand asset to a liability. If support is being provided 24/7, schedule shifts. If the company has a global presence, establish a follow-the-sun handover workflow.
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Provide training for your team, including everyone who engages customers, regardless of medium. Establish communication policies employees must follow. In today's socially networked world, a single poor customer interaction can tear down years of good service.
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Incentivize your support staff based on success metrics, such as customer satisfaction and/or monitored brand sentiment. Having a customer satisfaction metric requires the organization to systematically collect feedback from served customers and to measure brand sentiment using one of several social media monitoring solutions, such as Twitter (see Resources).
Support Materials and Content
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Produce supporting materials. A well-run support practice offers self-helps for those lacking patience and/or skills to help themselves. Offering a FAQ list is the first step, but also offer product/service descriptions and literature such as case studies and white papers.
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Make materials accessible. An incident-tracking system should offer a wiki function to allow support team members to build a library of responses and explanations. This ensures that all customers have access to the best the team has to offer, and the customer support experience will be more homogeneous.
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Harness the power of the community. Most innovative companies create communities around their products/services and enable the community to generate content. In this case, the vendor takes an editorial role, ensuring the content is accurate and that it meets the organization's communication policies.
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References
Resources
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