Last Updated on March 26, 2021 by David
Back at the startup where I used to work, everyone did customer support. Every new hire, whether bizdev, sales, pm, or engineering, spent time “manning the ship”. The idea that the company’s identity and success was crucially dependent on a ship well steered fused together a strong customer-centric culture.
The idea was that by understanding the full gamut of customer feedback, questions, frustrations, and satisfactions, any employee should be able to apply their core skill set(s) to at least one of those areas. Other startups we’ve hung out with tell us that customer support is one of the most crucial hinges that connect the outward facing side of the company to the inward facing nature of running a business.
If you’re just starting out with your own startup or already steer an established small business, here are some tips and advice for building a great customer support culture:
Get Everyone On Board
There’s nothing more important than aligning everyone’s interests and expectations early on. In a small-team setting, do your best to build a rotation system where every member spends 30 minutes to an hour every week (or any set interval without becoming overbearing) answering customer emails and triaging requests. The goal isn’t to turn every member into a support agent but to give everyone a solid birds-eye-view of the land for how customers are reacting to the business and to instill a deeper sense of appreciation for the value a business is delivering to customers. It’s not uncommon for team members from other departments to draw inspirations from meaningful customer conversations.
It’s also important for Chiefs and team leaders to get involved with this process. As public faces of a company, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t get in front of actual customers through email as well. Not only does it establish fairness but it encourages leadership by example and will further bolster a customer-centric culture.
Value Transparency (treat as cash)
Transparency is the standard unit for trust. And to value transparency, you must understand the difficulty in earning trust over many years and many lifecycles. When “shit hits the fan”, your support transparency track record will make you or break you. Don’t be afraid of owning up your teams’ mistakes. Instead, be proactive about apologies, reach out to customers so they can sense the extra effort you’ve put in to set things right, and make them remember that you genuinely care about how they feel.
Transparency is a strategy so don’t treat it as a one-off tactic just to get out of a mess. This means you’ll need to find a long term process that is not only agreeable for everyone on your team but one that is also applicable to other businesses processes beyond customer support. Being transparent is also about getting your real self out there. Encourage your support staff to be free thinking and creative about how to present themselves and how to solve problems. They’ll enjoy conversing with customers a lot more and customers will enjoy them a lot more.
Play Nice with Others
Staying involved and in sync with other departments is much easier since everyone is on board with a support stint at a preset interval. The goal is to expand and extend the same level of communication with internal team members. Be aware of who you should go to for certain issues and be transparent about what you need from them. This reciprocal process ensures that product feedback, repeating patterns, and urgent matters are swiftly addressed with minimal interference and maximum efficiency, adding tangible value to a customer focused culture.
Keeping customers in the loop about how their request is being handled also adds tremendous value to ensure that they always have something nice to say about your support team. Play nice with your customers.
Don’t Forget to Scale
There isn’t a magical number for the right team size nor is there a wonder potion to tell you how to shape your team. The only thing to be wary about is scale. Focus instead on repeatability for varying team sizes, request volumes, and product changes. If you can’t repeat something at least 10 times in a row for any given scenario then you’re not scaled properly. The tools you use need to match your team size, your on-going process, and what you’re trying to accomplish. You need to scale your culture as well. A growing team means that you’ll need to deal with a variety of personalities. Make transparency a core process when trying to scale a team and its culture.
Discussion on HN