hedgehoglab

So you are a small company or ISV that develops software products. Your company is doing great and sales are increasing but you find that you are spending more and more time doing support and dealing with irate customers. You are developer(s) at heart and find it frustrating to deal with customer service and support. After all, why should you? It is not your core competency. You feel you should focus on what you are best at, coding.

In a moment of genius, it strikes you that if you can outsource accounting/book-keeping and your legal issues, why not outsource your sales and support to a company that specialises in sales & marketing. This would free up all your time to work on some beautiful code. Tip : Do not do it!

Outsourcing your sales and support is one of the worst ideas you can conceive of. Forget about cost-cutting, efficiency and all the apparent benefits you can see. Just don't do it!

Customer service is a competitive advantage

Whether you are a small business or large, customer service is one of your biggest competitive advantages. All the bells and whistles, features and innovation in your product combined are still worth less than delivering exceptional customer service.

Very few companies can get away with poor service and a great product (I would love to hear if you know any). On the other hand, a lot of companies do great with exceptional customer service and mundane products. Zappos sells shoes. But try convincing their customers they are the average shoestore and they will probably disagree.

Customer service is marketing

This is not rocket science. Great customer service generates word of mouth and creates fans. This directly leads to increased sales and recognition. Do you spend lots on PR and advertising? Try cutting that spend and investing in great customer service.

Customer service is employee retention

Great customer service is not just about selling and marketing. It also generates motivation in your team, helps your employees spread the word about how good you are and creates an environment where everybody wants to work.

Customer service is about knowledge

At hedgehog lab, we encourage and sometimes require that our developers deal with support and sales queries. This is because no amount of documentation/manuals/training can give anyone else the deep knowledge of a product that you as the developer have. Someone who is not involved with the company on an intrinsic and daily basis will just not have the knowledge and answers required, resulting in canned responses and delayed support.

Customer service is not rocket science

Despite customer service being a great skill to have, it is not a complicated science and comes naturally to most people. It is about being polite, responsive, giving the right answers, and being emphatic in dealing with problems. Yes, you might need some experience to become good, but there is absolutely no obstacle (other than attitude) to prevent delivering great support.

All of these principles apply whether you are a small or large company. Whether you have specialised support staff or do support yourself depends on your size and business, but for God's sake, do not outsource customer service and support.

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