Great Customer Support

Every product needs customer support.  Most companies want to provide great customer support.  But not all do.  I have recently had some great support experiences where I am the customer.  I thought I would share them.

The first is a company called SmartyStreets.  They provide address verification for us.  They are small team (I think 7 people) and a newer startup.  Whenever we call them, we get one of the team members immediately.  They are very knowledgeable and willing to get someone else on the call if needed, which they will do it right then.  Our company now has a relationship with them.  They know our product.  They remember us when we call.  We've come across some problems with our data in the past.  The SmartyStreets team has gone into our files and helped us troubleshoot.  We have even asked them for advice outside of the scope of their services.  They are very willing to work with us on whatever we need.

The second company is MixPanel.  They provide some innovative web analytics.  I didn't even call them for support; they contacted me!  They saw that we had implemented some of their code on our site.  They reached out to see how it was going and if I had any questions.  I did in fact have questions so we set up a time to talk on the phone.  They spent time educating me on how to implement MixPanel on our site.  They even offered to review our spec and provide feedback.  Later, I emailed them the spec I had come up with.  They responded with feedback within 5 minutes even though it was 8:30 at night.

In thinking about my support experiences with these two companies and other great support experiences I have had, here's the things they do they make them great.

• Most support is done over the phone.  
• They answer the phone quickly.
• The person on the phone is knowledgeable.
• There is no script.
• They are proactive.
• They call you back or respond to queries.
• They sincerely want to help you.
• They are willing to bring others into the conversation to solve the problem.
• They look to solve the root cause of the problem.
• They look to educate the customer.
• They treat it like a relationship.  You get a real person's direct contact info.