Customer Support Challenges


One of the greatest customer support challenges is dealing with companies who did not opt to adequately train their workforce on your solution. This results in a high number of customer support calls. We have a system in place to alert us to extraordinarily high calls from one customer. When this happens, we call them and we go not to the person who is calling, but to the person who signed the contract. At this point, we discuss the situation and ask how we can help fix the situation. More often than not, this person hasn't heard anything because he or she bought it and moved on.

We then go on to explain that while you have hundreds of customers using this package, last week you received 22 calls from this particular company, which represented 10 percent of your calls. You suggest that you haven't done a very good job of training their people, and therefore offer some reduced-fee training, or even free training, to help clear up the problem. You take the stance that your training clearly was not adequate. Instead of suggesting that the customer's employee is not competent to do their job, or the person who understood the system left, you suggest that it might be your fault. You step forward and ask the company to allow you to service this problem.

Basically, we have taken this aberrant problem, which is an untrained person, and turned the relationship around. We initiated the call because we have the system in place to ring a bell that this problem is aberrant. You suggest that the fault is partly yours, and take full responsibility in doing so. We offer a solution, and instead of you being unprofitable because the company is calling too frequently for support, they will realize our fairness and won't take advantage of us. The customer apologizes for the turnover, and subsequent lack of training, and then the profits come back into the relationship and they are probably a better customer and a better reference.




The CTO Handbook. The Indispensable Technology Leadership Resource for Chief Technology Officers
The CTO Handbook/Job Manual: A Wealth of Reference Material and Thought Leadership on What Every Manager Needs to Know to Lead Their Technology Team
ISBN: 1587623676
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 213

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net