223: “In Support, I Believe…” with Craig Stoss

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode two hundred and twenty-three of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today we listen to some support beliefs.

Craig Stoss: 0:33

My name is Craig Stoss, and I am a senior program manager with Partner Hero and a customer experience enthusiast. And in support, I believe that the customer's experience is the most important consideration. At all times and with all projects, customer experience needs to be considered. This means across your entire organization, from marketing and sales to products and implementation through to customer support, support teams are uniquely able to drive success in CX through the conversations and data that they have access to just by doing their daily work. Combining well-implemented tools with CX-focused training, support agents can listen for the slightest hints of frustration and recognize the trends that most impact the customer. Support is a guide to the customer and needs to take ownership of every ticket, no matter how trivial it may seem or how much you feel the root cause is not your fault. The customer may not always be right, but they will always need guidance. And the best customer experience comes from delivering that guidance in a way that the customer understands using words, video, tone, and most of all, empathy, understanding, and listening. Customer experience is ever adjusting, and support teams need to be able to pivot to new demographics, industries, or use cases. Your company must understand through regular checkpoints and data analytics how customers are using your tools differently or what they want that you do not currently offer. Listening for that feedback and then actioning it to create a better CX is a game changer within your organization. If you teach your customers that you are listening to them and acting upon their words, you will receive more feedback that will help you create the best in-class products and ultimately sell more. Support should have a seat at the table to ensure the product has the appropriate guidance built in so the customers are not presented with unreadable errors or situations that stop them in their tracks. A healthy knowledge base that is constantly updated with new information can help customers self-service when you are not available or when they want to work at their own convenience. Support needs to have a direct hand in making sure the feature sets are fit for purpose and are supportable through easy-to-obtain error codes and diagnostics. All of these things ensure a low-effort experience for your customers, reducing frustration and speeding up the support process. It sounds like a lot to undertake, but when done correctly, with a forward-thinking, data-driven, growth mindset, customer experience will fundamentally alter how your organization does business. And this I believe.