H124 wrap-up
It seems like just six months ago I made this joke
Another six months down the hatch, another wrap-up post! We started the year by looking at phone-based support options, complained about the increasing prevalence of bots, and spent some time digging into ticket response standards.
Considering phone-based support • Buttondown
Timeless, or outdated?
Ticket response standards: initial ticket responses • Buttondown
Have some standards!
Ticket response standards: updating open tickets • Buttondown
Have more standards!
Don't outsource your support to a bot! • Buttondown
At least not if you want to provide good support
We next moved on to investigating your customer profile to better understand how to provide them support, looking at the difference between technical support and TAM (technical account management), and what’s most important for leading a technical support team.
What's your support customer profile? • Buttondown
Welcome to the new home of Andy’s Support Notes! I don’t want to spend much time on the why rather than the what, so suffice it to say: there were too many...
Support vs TAM • Buttondown
Fight! Again!
Leading a technical support team • Buttondown
Just don't be a jerk
Next on the docket was best practices for handling sensitive issues - security-related problems and frustrated customers.
Handling sensitive topics: security issues • Buttondown
Bug, beg, or just a bother?
Handling sensitive topics: customer frustration • Buttondown
To be fair, they usually have a point
And then we looked at what it means to prioritize supportability in the product, and the pros and cons of relying on macros in support correspondence.
Prioritizing product supportability • Buttondown
Taking a look under the hood
Macros: yes or no? [PLEASE CHOOSE ONE] • Buttondown
AGENT: DELETE THIS PART BEFORE SENDING
After that, we swung into an extended investigation into teaching the basics of the support role to non-support engineers, and the flip side: what do you do when someone on your team ‘graduates’ to another role?
Support onboarding for everyone • Buttondown
YOU get a shadowing session! And YOU get a shadowing session!
Support cross-training for some • Buttondown
"pc hondenschool Arthur Thiele" by janwillemsen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. Last week I talked about why I think every new hire in your company should...
Graduating from the support team • Buttondown
In which we discuss some sad realities
Preventing alumni brain drain • Buttondown
Taking things for granted rarely works out well
Next up: what distinguishes customer engineering from other types of customer support? I also looked at implementing multilingual support options, and shared a live troubleshooting checklist to ensure that support engineers can make the most of their time when live with customers.
Customer engineering: not (just) customer support! • Buttondown
The difference is more than just salary levels
A live troubleshooting checklist • Buttondown
You can never have too many checklists
Support technique multilingue • Buttondown
My hovercraft is full of eels
After that, we looked at a variety of support team best practices: ensuring your team is comfortable saying ‘I was wrong’, learning how to lead a support team when you don’t have the faintest idea what they actually do, and getting over the common early-days hurdle of getting customers to actually use the support function. After that, I put together a sample support skills matrix, an irreplaceable tool in my own arsenal, and did my best to convince you all that you need it too.
Recovering from being wrong • Buttondown
Controversial opinion: being wrong is no fun!
Recovering from being wrong: the expertise trap • Buttondown
We have met the enemy and he is us
Leading a team when you can't do the job • Buttondown
Where do you start?
Getting customers to actually contact Support • Buttondown
Do it now or regret it later
The Support skills matrix • Buttondown
"Hurdle Matrix" by Cayetano is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Troubleshooting any reasonably complex software product is going to require several related...
Finally, we tackled the great white whale (at least mine) of support, the seeming inevitability of a paid support model. How can you make it worthwhile for customers and not burn out your team in the process?
Introducing paid support: preparing the team • Buttondown
Cash rules everything around me
Introducing paid support: designing support tiers • Buttondown
Some tiers are tastier than others
Introducing paid support: messaging • Buttondown
"Frustrated Scribbles" by tristendomusic is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. We’ve been talking for the last few weeks about converting your company’s technical...
And that brings us to today. Once again, thank you all for coming with me through this extended exploration of startup technical support! See you back here next week.
Thanks for reading Andy's Support Notes 💻💥📝!