186: Support in the Business with Greg Skirving

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode one hundred and eighty-six of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we talk about support in the business. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Greg Skirving. Greg, it's been a while. It's lovely to have you back again.

Greg Skirving: 0:41

Thank you, Charlotte. Glad to be back.

Charlotte Ward: 0:43

Thanks so much. This time you're here to talk about support in the business, right? So so I think first of all, I'd kind of just like to uh explore with you how you see support's place in a wider organization. Where where exactly in your mind does it fit and and what's its purpose? Let's start there.

Greg Skirving: 1:08

Yeah, absolutely. Um let me before I get into that, let me start with um sort of a bit of a theory that I have. Um every every every company that provides a product or a service, um, it's incumbent upon them to provide information to their customers on uh how to how to use the product, how to set it up, how to do administration, um uh how support how to support it themselves, and and how to get support. Um and and that of course, every every company does that. You buy a car, you open the glove box, well, there's a there's the user manual, it's got everything you know, it's got the troubleshooting, it's got the uh the the maintenance log in the back. Um you buy a TV, you know, and when when you deal with a uh a technology or a SaaS company, um it there's no difference. There's no difference. So a company needs to provide uh all of those services uh to their customers. Now, now support, when you look at support traditionally, that uh uh that's uh uh an 800 number, and people phone in and uh and and they get support. I know in in previous uh uh podcasts we've talked about what what does uh uh one deliver via the support desk. And um there's no wrong answer to that, and I've I've dealt with uh with with companies where we did break fix only. Are there three lights on? Is that third light blinking? Good. Go talk to somebody else. Um and then I've dealt with other companies where you phone support and we do you know everything from uh what amounts to professional services. Hey, I just bought one of your units, the SE called me and said uh uh that you guys would help me uh uh um uh uh configure this, right? It's half a day, whatever. And uh and and then you're also taking calls whereby somebody says things down, like, well, did you did you try anything? So that effectively is what I call level zero troubleshooting. They haven't done anything. So I think I think when we talk now, let's bring it back to support as a as a a functioning department within the overall business. I think first, um, and this typically comes from um higher up in the vision uh how do you want to um uh provide overall service to your customer and which groups do that?

Charlotte Ward: 3:55

So and I think you know, everything you just said supports something that I've I've been saying for years now, which is that no-to support teams are the same, no two support organizations and customer bases are the same, right? So we have to we have to, even though this is a podcast aimed in some respects at as uh uh support as a business function and the people in there and the and the the functions of doing and being support. Actually, part of the joy of this podcast for me is just the variety of people that I get to talk to because I have my own very quite narrow experience in terms of you know the types of support I've I've worked in, the types of support I provided. And I suspect the same is true of a lot of leaders, but support still does mean all those things, doesn't it?

Greg Skirving: 4:46

Yeah, absolutely. And again, I'm glad you brought that up because there is no wrong answer. And and the last thing we want to do is just cookie cutter what support is for you know every type of organization, be that uh an on-prem solution, be that SaaS. Um, but but the underlying um components are still the same. I go back to the you pop the glove box on your uh on your new car, there's that book that that tells you how to use it, you know, how to maintain it, how to how to uh you know, fix it to some degree. And if you look at it from those concepts, support in every organization is going to fulfill certain activities. And the biggest challenge is not um does one support organization do too much and are they giving away professional services? The critical piece is that um support has uh uh an understood and harmonious uh uh relationship with customer success, with development, with professional services. It's one thing to say, you know, I mentioned uh um the example of the the customer phones and says the SE, you know, we just bought it and the SE said uh, you know, you guys would help me set it up and support. And you say, well, no, no, no, we don't do that. You're gonna have to go talk to our professional services team. And then the professional services team looks at it and says, Well, we don't do anything unless it's four hours. We got to have a four-hour minimum, right? And and that speaks of of not all uh departments being on the same page. What that leads to is uh uh obviously confusion uh and disenchantment from the customer, and a lot of well, they, you know, um, you know, that's the uh uh uh something that every time I go into a new organization, I make sure that that uh my folks don't refer to engineering and development as they. Yeah, to create that them and us.

Charlotte Ward: 6:57

Yeah, yeah. Oh, they is all we, yeah, like that. It's just just to like put the brakes on that them and us kind of um attitude that can develop right. You used a really interesting word a minute ago because I've had conversations with um leaders on this podcast about support's relationship to particular business functions. And I think that this uh more holistic discussion about support in the business is interesting because it doesn't overfocuses us on any one of those relationships. Because I think thinking about any one of those relationships, we can think about what that means in terms of information flow and process and you know the customer journey. But thinking about support in a wider sense in the business is interesting, and the word you used, which really caught my attention, was harmonious, because as you said that, I was thinking back to all those other conversations and how we'd settled on process and customer experience and customer journey and all those things, and how harmony was never part of any of those discussions. How what does a harmonious relationship with support look like, do you think? And what what what exactly does that mean?

Greg Skirving: 8:14

Yeah, that's critical. And um, I can say that um um no company I've ever worked for or been exposed with has been a hundred percent because there's so much so much change. But um I think I think the ideal situation you want to get into is if if a customer were to um um um you know contact um any of the customer-facing groups, be that their customer success manager, be that you know, professional services, their account manager, their their SE, um, that they would get the same answer. So um obviously on the back end, you want those um uh processes and the inputs and the outputs um to work seamlessly, but um uh there's always change. So there's uh there's always some glitches and things like that. But if if you can't pluck a customer uh uh uh randomly and and uh um just you know uh uh have them contact any part of the organization, and that part of the organization doesn't know what the other part of the organization uh is doing, again, customer facing, that runs into that'll that'll run into challenges because the customer A gets confused, B gets um um annoyed because what he or she hears is well you're not the person I go to or the group that I go to, but you didn't tell me where to go. So again, I look at support in the business as um uh uh a critical part of a you know a coordinated effort, um, both uh internally in terms of you know processes that kickoff and escalations and and and and uh you know escalating to this to the the back line that deals with engineering or what have you, but making sure that that we as a united front are are always giving a consistent message uh to our customers and not saying, not my job, you gotta go talk to somebody else.

Charlotte Ward: 10:28

Yeah, yeah, that sort of unified um kind of for want of a better word, customer aspect. That it it's uh uh it's a single for your customers, it's a single and consistent experience. I think that's the sort of harmony that you're that you're describing. Absolutely. Customer harmony, maybe that's the next customer experience. Who knows?

Greg Skirving: 10:53

Yeah, well, you know, um actually it's funny you should mention that too, because um it's incumbent upon us, especially. I mean, the the the SaaS world exposed the fact that we weren't really paying attention to our customers as well as we could, uh uh except nine minutes into nine months into the their contract. And uh and and SaaS exposed that and obviously gave birth to the cut the customer success manager. Um but um um yeah, you need a harmonious relationship with your your customers. I mean, the vendor-customer relationship is is not like it is a marriage, and no marriage is perfect, but one without communication is is destined to fail. So, you know, you need to you need to listen just as much as your customers as uh as you do to your uh your peer groups internally in in the support of your customers.

Charlotte Ward: 11:52

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one eight six for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.