Three-tier Customer Support – the right perspective

This schematic diagram of three-tier Customer support shows the various tiers relate the customer. Usually Customer Support is integrated throughout the entire organization. Well-managed interaction between the Helpdesk (Tier 1), TAC (Tier 2), and Escalation (Tier 3) provides support targeted to user needs.

It is often illustrated as a triangle, where its head illustrates Tier-1 of support, the initial point of contact for the customer. Each level of escalation is wider, as tier-2 and Tier-3 are normally have much more expertise to focus on.

In my perspective, I’m seeing an “upside down’ triangle, where its base is the Tier-1 and head’s is Tier-3.

The reason, regardless the type of support you provide, the lower the (tier) level of support, their knowledge, in high level covers (should be) all product’s aspects while the higher the (tier) level goes, they are focused in vary narrow aspects of the product.

Confused? Don’t be…

Tier-1 needs to have high-level of knowledge with product’s current feature set as well as the roadmap. Basic troubleshooting skills for the product as well as its eco-system (i.e. if I’m supporting a server, I need to know to troubleshoot the client as well as the network in between). The HelpDesk representative, need to determine if the problem is with a creation sub system or another, so when they will escalate it, it will reach the relevant TAC team.

Tier-2, aka TAC, focuses on part of the system, with more knowledge, they can “dive” into lower level of that system/service for troubleshoot and fix.

Tier-3 – R&D like team focuses a specific server or service to provide resolution for a problem.

See the differences?  The wider the base is, the vast knowledge the helpdesk has will make your support organization stable and efficient.

Less escalation means  that cases are being closed faster and efficient.

Quest continues - How you can tell that your service (support) is the best there is?

I have started a discussion on LinkedIn <here – if youregister to the group> how one can tell that an organization has the best support that is available. The responses indicate that we are still “inside the box”, all thinking the same. Conducting surveys, meeting with customers and having the organization ISO certified.  Although this blog written by an old school supports, but hey, I can look (or think) out of the box once in a while.

The questioners that most of us conducting, at this time of the year, are designed to reveal the obvious for us, we have a good support in general, the two dissatisfied customers, which already complain against the representative attitude, will fill the survey in the same manner. Nothing is new. It is the same story all over again.

Once upon a time, when i was working as Technical instate (check my profile), I had a series of session with Tier1 customer in the US. I have met my contact sometime after the training, and told him that checking the CRM, I can see that they are “suffering”. I can see allot of cases and complaints about stability and lack of support etc’. Nonsense he said, that the best product ever and support is prompt and accurate. The explanation that I have got for this dissonance “company policy”.

So with such company policy, the surveys, in my point of view will not be much reliable.

What i have in mind that need to be done, in order to know that I give the best support, to check relevant forums, learning what the silent majority has to say about my performance, service or products.

How you can tell that your service (support) is the best there is?

Returning back to write is not an easy task…therefore is will use that discussion I’ve started in “LinkedIn” as the basis for this post.

In several occasions I was sitting in sales meeting where the salesperson proudly says that their support organization is the best there is. Based on what they said that? A possible answer will be, that the company is aligned with ISO certifications as Ester suggested in the original discussion.

“We tell our clients that the company is an ISO certified company. Which means we give a very high importance on quality and security? We have standards and rules to follow to achieve customer satisfaction and it haven't failed us yet.”

I assume that the reference is to ISO 9000 & 10000 that standardize product’s lifecycle as well as quality. Yes, support is a product, not byproduct.

I know that there are support organizations that send their customers a survey once a case is closed, but dose it really reflect the reality? For instance, you are handling some hundreds of cases per month but only 10% replays back to your survey, does this reflects reality?  I would say, N O T.The common used tool for quality assurance in the support arena is those questioners that are sent to the end users, most likely containers questions and answers (no more than 10), when been analyzed will prove that the support that was received, in most cases was good. What other methods you use?

So here’s a thought, why not doing the same to learn about my products and level of support? Thinking as a customer…If will look around in relevant forums trying to learn about my service and support, do you think that it will educating and empowered then the old school methods?
So here’s a thought, why not doing the same to learn about my products and level of support? Thinking as a customer…If will look around in relevant forums trying to learn about my service and support, do you think that it will educating and empowered then the old school methods?

I had Vasu and Paulo, both are managing support groups, agreed that the use of surveys is somewhat challenging. On top of that, they both agree that some old school method should be used, meeting the customer face-to-face. This helps to keep the customers at satisfactory level, and helps the organization to learn the actual needs and what went right or wrong in the past troubleshooting.

But is this method of meetings is good enough to learn about the level of support you provide?

Assuming that CS VP, or other support officer travels to meet a customer, it obviously will be a strategic one, which needs to maintain (because there is expansion potential). That VP will sit in a meeting with a certain level of decision makers and not necessarily maintain your product.

Having a punch list that marks: Survey – Done; Meeting – Done, it is not enough.

Let’s think out of the box for a moment using the following examples, when I, as a consumer look for a service, I do a survey:

Before I select a restaurant for a romantic dinner, I’m digging the web for feedbacks about quality and hospitality as well as the same level of price.

Selecting my car’s mechanic, I have done a survey, asking around in forums before I let him touch here.

So here’s a thought, why not doing the same to learn about my products and level of support? Thinking as a customer…If will look around in relevant forums trying to learn about my service and support, do you think that it will educating and empowered then the old school methods?

Pest Control

I have seen this article written in Forbes website [here], and read it several times since it was published. It describes /explains some keys for achieving excellent customer service. Those “ten commandments” are true in those cases that the customer is a real “pain in the butt”...   

Thats okay, I can live with this list except the last one, the tenth in the list:

Pest: A customer the company may need to fire to be more profitable. Be quick to identify and replace them.

It is a wishful thinking for each supporter firing this annoying customer. Is it really that easy? I don’t think so.

Let’s assume that your customer is paying each year some $200,000 buying from you HW, SW and renewal of support contract. At what time exactly you can afford yourself to get rid of this customer, at the “startup phase” when this value is some 30% of your income or when the company is well firmed, and this value is 5% or less from your income?

In my point of view one cannot underestimate this income (or any other sum). When you reaching this point when you feel that you customer is becoming to be “pest”, it is the time to change tactics.

The first option, which is commonly used as the last resort, instead of pushing the customer away, embrace! You need to empower the customer by embedding it. See my post explaining what is embedded customer [here]

For the second options, some changes in support SLA needed to done. You need to ask the customer to be certified into certain level to get an SLA. Each certification level will have its own SLA.  You will benefit twice: 1 - The educated customer will not want to be considered to be lame (hey... I need to “kick the cat” [see #6 here] once in a while); 2 – you charge MORE for different SLAs, training and certifications.

Apology to the customer. Is it necessary?

I have read this blog post advising some essential beliefs [Kate Nassers (the author) point of view] to deliver a “Super Customer Service Experience” [here]. I can agree with most of the list, with some less.

There is this statement:

“A sincere apology is the quickest way to repave the road of customer trust”

I know that in most cases it works, but why one need to be there in the first place? Pay attention to the customer complaint. Listen! Don’t hear! , see my post “It is all about listening [here].

Empathic listening is the way the supporter needs to listen respond to the customer’s complaint for mutual understanding and trust. Once the problem was understood you can start handle the case.

When case is being escalated to the next level of support, there is no need to apology as well; you can use a statement that will soften the customer, i.e “your case was escalated to me for investigation. I have read the case and I can see that….”

Apology will be used as “doomsday weapon” when you don’t have any solution for the problem.

Embedded Customer

The phrase “customer experience” is used often when describing customer’s feedback. Studies show us that creating “wow” experiences and “please” customers doesn’t often improve the experience, especially if the was one time interaction. It didn’t increased customer loyalty once thought. Moreover, customer becomes more and more powerful.

Company’s focus (not just the support organization) started changing from a complete organizational view to a customer-centric view. An organization that foresees the future are in a process to be fully connected to "embedded" customer.

The "embedded customer" main principle is to to engage the customers in decisions taken by the company. One can see it as a seat in an advisory board of the company. However, companies must keep their balance as they face the challenge not to become too friendly with the “advising” customer. It should only be involved customers who have a genuine interest in the development of the company.

Zendesk CRM benchmark kickoff

As I have mentioned Confucius in one of the first posts [here], it was quite obvious that I will select “Zendesk” CRM [www.zendesk.com] as my first test case.

I have started googling the for “why using zendesk” and noticed that at the first 6(!) pages all results were linked to Zendesk’s web site. All accept two: a 3 years old “Hacker news” bad comment that “ZenDesk don't love their users“ [here] and “Planbox” advising why should one use this application [here].

With those two conflicting posts I have decided to test this cloud based service, think of it as SaaS.

So I have created myself a 30 days trial account to test it myself, hoping that this time period will be enough to asses it. 

Test results will be posted in the CRM benchmarking page [here]

Looking for the best CRM ever

CRM stands for "Customer Relationship Management" and among other things it is used to track customer's "Trouble Tickets" aka "cases".

Back at the 90s i was responsible for the network of some dozen remote branches sites, to follow the active cases  I have used the good old whiteboard with some markers, various colors to define severity. Later on I have digitized it into excel and MS Access.

Later on, when started to work for service provider, the impotency of having the support and sales info consolidated ion one platform was implanted into my own perspective. In my early days of supporter, for internal customers I was focused for finding the best "Trouble Tickets" management system, now after two decades and working with numerous solutions like Siebel  (ver 3.0 if I recall), Vantive  (in its original form), Oracle, Microsoft and SalesForce I can say that support and sales linkage is a must. 
For example, validating the existence of support contract, as no one want to work for nothing. Asking for renewal when required, advising for upgrade when needed. Like the supports, so do the salesperson, he/she can learn the customer's history when preparing for a meeting.

As benchmarking and reporting the big sharks in this market is not fun, so I plan to check out some of the small players in this market of CRM applications. My reports will be summarized in a separate page that I have named CRM benchmarking  

What is good customer service

There isn't any right answer, or a wrong one.  In my perspective it is not about how fast the case is closed, it is about the quality of the service. For example, I'm having hard time setting my brand new mobile to send MMS. Calling in to the helpdesk, in most cases they will advise to check the tutorial on the web, either in their web site or manufacturer's. Those are the ones that are just doing their job.

Those with good customer service are the ones that tell you, and guide through the process. "Select the settings tab, then select network..." Or, "Mike! This Guy on the phone have issue with settings, I'm not familiar with mobile. Can you advise? Thanks." That's good customer service! 

Based on the first contact the customer will have, their satisfaction and expectation for their next interactions will be set.

Here are some rules of thumb to improve your support and make it excellent customer service. It will keep people coming back to you (for the right reasons)… 

·         Make sure you represent a product or service you believe in!

·         Warm & sincere greeting on first contact.

·         Establish whether your business has what the customer needs (offer to help find it)-provide it or suggest better alternative, to their benefit.

·         Develop an easy and positive intimacy with the customer. Let them know they are respected and appreciated.

·         Go above and beyond. Then, provide an easy, efficient solution.

·         Sincerely and warmly thank the customer for their business and invite them to come back if ever they need your help again.

Image source My Australian Secretary  

Dear customer, I have bad news for you

An interesting article/ post that I have read through LinkedIn explaining the importance of communication between us as supporters to our customers [here].

Although the original article is describing the problem in the sales perspective, it is true also for support, especially if one promised that a new version will fix the problem:

Involve your customers: update the customer with plan changes & roadmap updates that are relevant to their case

1. Offer frequent updates: but pay attention to what you are righting, try not to "sound like a broken record".

2. Give customers choices: in case that the roadmap changes in the sort run detours their plans for the 'faulty product" but in long run will put back on track, let them to decide should they wait for permanent fix or take the work around.

The fine line between integrity and honesty

In previous post I have advised that "Professional Integrity" refers to code of conduct that one should maintain putting the organization in mind. That behavior is expected from TAC or Helpdesk representative. What about a supporter that acting as "Account Manager", shouldn't he be honest and frank with the customer? 

This is exactly the fine line that one needs to maintain, being loyal both to the company as well as the customer. Like a trapeze juggler in the circus.

Keeping this fine line and being diplomatic when providing RCA (Root Cause analyses) to the customer, do not exaggerate. Be specific as possible to the case, provide facts, and advise action items that were taken.

I have hared of a case where malfunction in certain device caused an outage in customer's network. As R&D didn't had any clue what was the reason. A senior support manager decided to take care of it and provide an RCA.

"Dear Customer,

We have found out that Mr X, one of our engineers was logged in to you network and caused this outage. Please be advise that Mr X is no longer working with us.

Sincerely, Sorry..etc'..."

Mr X. had left the company two weeks before that event. He was the supporter that logged the initial customer complaint.

Image source Zap! Entertainment

TAC & HelpDesk Professional Integrity

Confucius once said that "the strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home". As we are dealing here with the customer supporter role in an organization I'll fine tune this statement: The strength of a support organization drives from the integrity of its employees. 

When business is involved, the word integrity, in most cases will be accompanied with the word professional. The words professional integrity used in order to describe the manner that one (or many) should act in an organization. Asking around (actually googeling...), professional integrity is all about making the right choices in regards to the good of the company. It manes that one should act ethically and loyally to the place he works for.

Now, it doesn't say that one, in the name of inegrety should run and tell the customer that the developer mistakenly deleted important formula in the code that caused the damn box to reboot by itself. Don't mix integrity with honesty. Spencer Johnson explained it pretty well:

Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. 

Confused?

Professional integrity is about making decisions as to what is right to the company; instead of what will make me look better when facing the customer.

Using the developer mentioned as example, the one that mistakenly deleted part of the code, this is the truth, but what should I advise the customer? Should I be honest and tell the truth? 

In this case, I'll wear my rose-colored glasses and update the customer that a file was corrupted, perhaps when it was downloaded / uploaded /emailed etc'. 

Honesty is not always the best policy, In the organization perspective of course, so in this case I will advised the customer that the issue was found, and it was related to configuration file, that it's integrity was compromised, and that we have fixed it.

The above is the general behavior that is expected from supporter that is part of HelpDesk or TAC, one that response, or better to say react to tens of service call and cases per day.

If you are an account manager, or support representative dedicated to support particular customer, the expected code of conduct is different.

Image source C. Harris

It is all about listening

From day one we are learning to speak, starting top mumble sounds until there is some sense it, we even take debate skill classes to learn how to speak in public. But did we ever learn how to listen?

We hear one each other, but are we listening to what others are saying?

As stated in previous post when supporting customer we need to start listen first to their complaint.

Levels of listening

There are three basic levels of listening that we are using in any given moment. The default one known as “Hearing words” where in this level we hear the other party of the conversation but we are under a misconception that we are listening, causing us to misunderstand the message , or worse, jump into conclusion, in most cases, the wrong one. The second level, “Listening in Spurts”, hearing bursts, part of the contentment. We aware that our listening is degraded, tuning up ourselves from time to time. The third level, the one that we are most likely skill-less known as “Empathetic Listening”, where we need to learn to set aside distractions as well as provide the right feedback, during the conversation, so the other party will know they have our full attention.      

Empathetic Listening

Empathic listening, also known as active listening is the way that one party is listening and responding to the other which mutual understanding and trust.

Empathy is not sympathy. Whereas sympathy is "feeling for someone," empathy is "feeling as someone."

Here is an example: one that is running late for a meeting might say, "I spilled a mug of coffee on my pants this morning." An active listening response might be, "You spilled some coffee on you?" or "Did it hurt?" Another response might be, "So I understand that you needed to change suit”. Whatever the response, it is intended to clarify the facts or information being presented and to identify and respond to the emotions or feelings of the other person.

By improving your empathetic listening technique you will be able to manage and avoid disruptive and assaultive, allowing you better focus on the content of the conversation, which is a service request call you have just received.

The Chi­nese char­ac­ters which make up the verb “to lis­ten” tell us some­thing sig­nif­i­cant about this skill. In the Chinese language, the active verb “to listen” is created with three major characters: ears, eyes and heart.  If one of these elements is missing—you aren’t really listening. We hear with our ears. We listen with our hearts.

Five simple steps

Follow the advised five simple steps listed below, it will place you in a better situation for addressing all key issue.

Undivided attention: be focused and provide the speaker your full attention. Ding “multi-tasking” chores will cause to “Listening in Spurts” syndrome. It will get you in trouble.

Don’t be prejudice: be a non-judgemental and non-prejudice the speakers issue.

Feel the speaker: “Read between the lines”, try to observe the emotions behind the words. Is the speaker angry, frustrated or resentful? Respond to the emotion as well as the case itself.

Be Quiet: You don’t need to have an immediate reply. In some cases when you allow for some quiet after your party has vented, they themselves will break the silence and may offer a solution.

Assure your understanding: Ask your party clarifying questions. Restate what you perceive.

Customer first

Customer first is the motto at almost any support organization, regardless the service they provide. Moreover, there are organizations (official and none) worldwide that certify support groups for their “customer first” approach, that meets their standard.

What is the meaning of this approach? Well… very simple…

What the customer really wants

A solution, if possible prompt and simple. This is exactly what your customer wants. They didn’t called in just to hear Vivaldi when you put them on hold (there are times one can hear all the four seasons while waiting).

In my experience, there are cases that solution is not easily achieved, but still, you can gain some satisfaction and appreciations from the customer. Listen carefully to the complaint; Advise the customer with your steps; Solve the problem if possible; Thank the customer for cooperation.

Listen

Da Vinci once said that “Most people listen without hearing”, therefore when you listen to the customer, make sure that you hear what is the complaint. Double check that you have understood the exact problem that is being experienced. Ask guiding questions if needed.

Advise

Provide the customer initial information, high level description of your workflow, a general overview of what you are going to check/test  to find the root cause of the problem. Should the finding leads you in alternate path then described to the customer, advise that, as in some cases in may change the expected time to reach the resolution.

Solve

When root cause is known, fix it if possible, or escalate it to higher levels. Update the customer when issue is resolved. RCA – Root Cause Analysis is must. Provide it to the customer.

Thank

Thanks the customer for the assistance you have received. If applicable ask the customer to feedback with satisfaction survey.