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?
