5 minute read
Customer support is the most
Customer support is the most important feature
Great customer support is like having good insurance. Most of the time you may not need it. But when something happens, you are glad that you have it in place! Is human touch when choosing software important? And how do you treat customer support of your customers?
Yesterday I was setting up a
smart home camera. Guess what? There was some software glitch. I have spent 3 hours trying to figure out how to get it working. Customer support? I got an automated reply.
So let me tell you why at Datamolino we think that customer support is the most important feature of professional business software. We have seen this firsthand with our customers: great customer support makes all the difference when using technology.
Software rules the world
Today’s world is all about apps and technological gadgets. Everything is driven by software. There is an app for anything and everything now. And that is great. These apps can make our lives much easier and fun!
In our professional lives, software has a slightly different role. It can be fun to use, but it has a serious purpose. The apps that you use must enable your business to increase efficiency. And the software must work. Xero’s ecosystem of connected apps (formerly known as “add-ons”) is a treasure trove of apps that can do wonders for the financial life of your business. These apps are probably the best thing about using Xero. With the right setup, the work with accounting software is exciting once again!
With great choice comes a question: “Which app is the right for my firm and my clients?” How should I choose the right app when there is so much choice? What should I consider when choosing a solution for my practice or for my client? Is it just the features and price?
Why support matters when choosing software
When choosing software for your firm, what are you looking at? Features and the price of the solution are important. And that is what most people consider when choosing their software. But that should really be just the starting point. The price must fit the budget and the software must do what you expect from it. True.
@datamolino
Jan Korecky, co-founder of
Datamolino
One of Jan’s roles is to lead the customer support team. Datamolino is a data capture solution that integrates with Xero to automate repetitive bookkeeping tasks. Jan spends his day coaching his team on how to create a delightful customer support experience.
Jan is more Star Trek than Star Wars and when it comes to risks of technology he recommends the show Black Mirror. When it comes to relationships, Jan thinks that Harry Potter should have married Hermione.
He loves his newborn daughter and enjoys spending time with his wife.
just a tool and tools can break sometimes. For a business, it is absolutely crucial to get help if something does not work as expected. If something does not work, who is there to help you? And how fast?
The answer is Customer Support. That is one of the most overlooked features of today’s technology. Most companies choose to automate everything including their customer support. For consumer products this approach works. For professional software, good customer support can make all the difference.
Is there anybody out there?
So how do you get help when you need it? Sometimes you just have to google it or search the support articles available for your software. Sometimes you battle with a bot, when the customer support is automated a bit too much. This is OK for consumer software. As a professional firm, sometimes you just need the human touch. To make sure that your issue is addressed and solved. So what type of support is available? Email,
chat, or phone?
A good knowledge base full of there is not much difference to
helpful articles is a must! Many efficient as possible, automating
users like to be hands on and try to solve any issues by themselves first. A good knowledge base is a tool that can help them immensely.
Email support is just the standard way of doing things and it has never hurt anyone. The response it is a good idea to “test-drive” the customer support, just so you know what you can expect in the future.
Chat is great and many companies are providing a chat widget on their site or within their app. The response time for chat is again very
important. If the response lags, email.
My company, Datamolino, focuses on automating the bookkeeping process. We follow the latest tech trends to make our job as time matters though. Sometimes
where possible. But with customer support, we decided to substitute the bot for a human.
So when thinking of humans at Customer Support, we thought: “What about voice?” Hearing a human voice is just so much better Check out approvalmax.com than chat. Social interactions are what makes us human. At Datamolino we have experimented with calling customers pro-actively when they approach us through chat. We do this if their query is more complex than usual or if we think a phone call may be more beneficial for the customer.
This approach works wonders. The mantra now is not to reduce support tickets just to email, chat and a link to the knowledge base. Our team is encouraged to pick up the phone and call up the customer to resolve any issues as fast as possible.
How do you support your customers?
We have found that providing great support to customers makes a great difference. It creates trust and builds relationships. This is very important in business relationships.
I am amazed how many companies do not think too much about customer support. It is important to have customer support in place when something does not work for the customer. But that is just the basics.
Try to think about customer support in broader terms. This applies to all businesses, including bookkeeping firms. Are there scenarios where you can support your customer better than you do now? Where can you be more helpful and delight the customer?
Great customer support can be a great insurance policy. But it can also work to prevent the “accidents” in the first place. What do you think? Do you value Customer Support when you receive it? And how do you support
