Ask HN: How would you improve customer support at a big tech company?

2 points by rpjt 3y ago ↗ HN

Some of the big tech companies are better than others when it comes to getting support for their products or services. In your opinion, what really works well and what absolutely does not? What would you like to see that you just don't see or don't see enough?

2 comments

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NickRandom 3y ago ↗

I would require that all employees from the CEO down spend at least one week per year working in a customer support role although I'm not sure how to prevent them from blowing their top and going balistic at a customer given the amount of shit that customer support agents have to take on a daily basis. Hmmm.. on second thought, maybe not such a good idea but a man can dream right?

Perhaps restricting them to just working on email replies/responses and vet those responses prior to allowing them to be sent might work while also getting them to listen in on some live calls may be a safer option in terms of customer retention.

spansoa 3y ago ↗

1.) Don't have automated telephone setups that require users to press a series of numbers to drill down to 'the right department'. Just have a person talk and have that be the only person a user talks to.

2.) Don't send emails with addresses like 'no-reply@company.com'. A user should be able to reply to any message they receive and spawn a new support ticket in the process.

3.) Don't use automated 'live assistant' chatbots. Personally I never had any luck with them and the support agents were woefully unprepared and not trained to deal with rare edge case scenarios.

4.) Have senior managers have a say in support situations where the issue is a rare edge case not typically in any FAQ and requires specialist preparation and training to solve. Not all issues are of the 'playbook' sort and can be solved by following a set of steps.