CEO Blog: The Importance of Stellar Customer Support

I drive a Saab. This is because I really like my car, and because I really like the support I get from the Saab dealership. I am on my fourth in my family right now. My first was not so good. I swore it would be my last. But Dan, the service manager at the dealership, took the time to understand what was important to me, and to get my car fixed well and without overcharging. When it came time to get a new car, I went back there because of Dan, mainly as a courtesy, but to my surprise, ended up loving the 9-5 Turbo in 2001, so I stuck with them. And so the story goes. I would not have ever purchased the second, or third, or fourth had it not been for the great customer service I received. I have flown hundreds of flights on British Airways. Same thing exactly. Judy and Marcia on the ground in Chicago are the best I have ever seen. They are the face of BA, and they are good because they are very, very competent, and because they genuinely care.

Now caring without competence is not so great. The caring part may be nice, but everyone wants results. That's absolutely reasonable. But competence without caring is not so great either. Because you CAN do something does not necessarily equate to your willingness to ACT. It takes both. And again, you might be willing to take action, but incapable of taking the right action. When I am in a pinch I know Judy knows what to do, and cares enough about me to get it done. She has both. Same with Dan.

Technology vendors are seldom great at this. This is true for two reasons. First, depending on the technology itself and the size of the company, it may be difficult to keep a consistently trained and talented team in support. If the company is too small, a departure of a key support person can leave a dent in the organization. If the company is too large, the ability to keep a constantly high quality team engaged is challenging. And the more complex the technology is, the more difficult the challenge. Second, the support team for technology suppliers is often called on to go above and beyond. There is a specific patch that needs to be out tonight. Strap in, we are working late. There is a deadline a key customer has involving a high production rollout... so much for those weekend plans. Smaller companies often have an advantage here, as small teams can often be the ones who feel a greater sense of ownership. The people being supported are not "customers using our company's products" they are "our customers" or even "my customers".

Often, but not always, the challenge of the smaller but growing companies is to ensure that they CAN do what needs to be done, and seldom that they are WILLING to do it. The challenge with larger companies is often the reverse. At Infobright it is not uncommon at all to find teams working nights and weekends to help out a customer when the constraints of the agreement allow for far less. As we grow, we are incorporating new processes to allow us to scale and to ensure high quality support when we are three, five, ten times larger than we are today. We have to constantly evaluate our processes and infrastructure to be sure we accommodate our growth. But along the way, we have to very deliberately ensure that our culture will prevent us from evolving into an organization that CAN do many things, but lacks the passion, will, or political support to ACT. We have to stay passionate about our customers' success, and ensure we scale in that context specifically.

And in this light, we are never there, but always on the journey.

All the best,

Don