Support Solutions for Small Software Makers
Every product that a user has to actively operate results in support calls or tickets, but for small companies, providing the necessary help can become overwhelming. This is especially true for IT support because some digital products can be made by a single person or a small team, but go on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies or more. The question of how to cope with the crush of support tickets soon looms large for these small producers.
Fortunately, a Winnipeg SEO Company provide an easy solution to this question. An outsourced help desk can be provided with a sheet of the most common questions, and when support tickets come in, can match the problems up with their solutions. As long as the 80/20 rule holds true, the one sheet should be able to cover 80% of the questions that come in. This, of course, still leaves 20% of the questions unanswered by the quick sheet. Therefore, a backup plan needs to be in place to handle these outlying queries.
One thing that companies need to be careful of is the urge to try to answer every single question with a cut-and-paste response. This practice is the source of much aggravation among customers, who soon become former customers if they can’t get real solutions to their problems. The most common way of resolving this is to add at least one layer of escalation to the process. In this system, questions that aren’t on the quick sheet are sent up to a higher level, which is staffed by employees who will actually read and think about the problem in order to provide a customized solution. For software makers who have smaller distribution numbers, the hard questions may be sent on to the company itself to be directly answered. Larger companies, however, usually have at least one tier of support personnel who take care of this.
Another thing to consider is the method of contact. Most software makers handle IT support via a ticket system, which is basically a pumped-up email system that keeps track of everything as well as relaying messages. For those who sell expensive software, however, a phone-based support system is usually added in. This allows customers to get a more personal touch and faster answers.