Wow, there is an incredible amount of customer feedback that can be collected through a customer support number. I’ve learned some interesting stuff by listening on conversations the Pixily team has had with users of their service. This got me thinking – why don’t more internet-based businesses have phone numbers?
I guess it’s pretty simple to understand why Google doesn’t have a help desk. Think of the calls they would get: “Hey, I can’t find the address of the restaurant I’m going to on Google Maps,” or even more likely, “Why isn’t my company at the top of your search results?” (Or me a few weeks ago: “what the hell just happened to gmail?” This afternoon at TechStars I attended a talk by Nitzan Shaer, who was at Skype for a few years, and he mentioned that Skype consciously did not have a customer service number available because there was no way the service could handle the number of calls they would receive. I can buy that.
But what about smaller/startup internet companies? Can they have a help desk and actually not get overwhelmed helping customers? Should they? I’m starting to think that maybe… I’m pretty sure that for each customer who cares enough to contact a startup there are many, many other users who don’t bother. When you are trying to get something totally novel accepted by an as-of-yet undefined market, any customer feedback that you can get sounds pretty good, even if it is negative feedback. Early product decisions should probably be based on more than just the founders’/programmers’ gut instinct. Most startup internet companies have such a short runway to develop a product that will actually be accepted by the market that minor tweaks to the UI, content, etc. can have a huge impact on customer acquisition and retention.
I realize that actually talking to people is sometimes scary. And constantly picking up the phone can be very distracting. But you may be able to carefully expose a customer support phone number and not only help your business but also help some customers.
I’d imagine that the right way to have a customer service number starts with an easy way to REMOVE the customer service number. After all, if you end up having a Skype level of user adoption you just can’t support a support line very easily. So I’d go with one of those easy to throw away 800 services for the original number. I mean, you don’t want mooches like Mark MacLeod constantly bugging you… On the other hand, if you are an accounting software company and a well known startup CFO is constantly raving about how great your service is, maybe you do.
I’d also think that you will want your developers/product managers to answer a lot of these calls. I know this will slow them down, but on the other hand get the customer info into their hands asap. Also, if they build something that sucks shouldn’t they be the first to hear? 
The feedback you get should also be taken in the context of customer segmentation. Maybe the particular user group that you are targeting just can’t “get” your product. Or maybe you want a help line specifically for bigger or corporate customers, or as a way to differentiate your free vs. premium app.
I obviously don’t have most of the answers on this topic. I’d love to learn from others who have or have not had a successful experience with their customer support line.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:16 am
Great post, Healy. I'd like to generalize the title and make it into a statement as "All companies MUST ACTUALLY TALK to their customers". As they say, 90% of Product Management happens outside the company building. Short of going door to door, for a consumer / B2SMB startup, the phone line is the Product Manager's best friend. From my own experience, there is an instant connection that is forged in a phone call between an entrepreneur and a small business owner. Users tend to open up a lot more and share real insights once they know that they are being heard.
In customer support type situations, I recommend a three strike rule. If we have exchanged more than three emails and there is still a need for more information, it is time to pick up the phone. In this situation, a phone call actually saves time, as compared to several disconnected and out-of-context emails.
Startups could institute a "Follow Friday" whereby on Fridays, someone from the Dev team takes turn answering support calls, replying to support emails etc,. It would be a great chance for the developer to "follow the customer" and actually see if his/her pet project is used (or not
June 24th, 2009 at 2:19 am
Pretty cool post. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say
that I have really enjoyed reading your posts. Anyway
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you post again soon!
June 24th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Thanks for calling me a mooch!!!
I think, to your point, that startups should go out of their way to be accessible to users. Inspired support and love is one of the big reasons why users will stick with you. So, giving this support and access has measurable benefits in terms of reducing churn. And of course, should feed into every aspect of your business: product design, marketing messages, and just a universal culture of the customer or user.
But, I don't think it should be by phone. E-mail, forums, web forms are the way to go. Easier to search, archive, organize and incorporate it all into your dev planning if its already in written form
June 24th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Nice post. I completely agree that more startups should talk with their customers more regularly, especially the developers. We have really increased the amount of contact we have with our customers, and the time invested in supporting them is certainly outweighed by the time saved avoiding future usability problems, understanding true customer needs, not building extraneous features, writing long detailed email responses, etc.
I think longer term it also helps the entire team in the transition from early stage product focus to the mid stage customer focus
June 29th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
"Talk" to the customer, no. But the key is to allow a community to be your first line of support. Create a wiki with all the discovered problems (and solutions). They can search to see if their problem has already been reported and the state of any fix.
Most good bug tracking systems that allow people to vote on bugs or feature requests. Expose this to your customers. Allow them to express their preference. Allow them only 5 votes ( more if they are paying more ), so they have to prioritize.
Can you modify your service so that it is extensible? Think about all the requests Skype doesn't have to think about because others can extend Skype with plugins. Facebook has applications as does LinkedIn, etc. So niche requests/product needs can be answered with community effort not corporate effort.
Do you still need to have a long telephone conversation with the customer? Probably not.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Agree with the major theme of your comment, that community is important in making your service and product right for the market!