Reflections on how to get great customer support

I’ve been at Ning for about 10 months now (can you believe it?) and in those 10 months, I’ve helped a lot of people with a lot or issues; from bugs, to feature requests, to missing data, and on and on.

I’ve also learned that there are some things you can do that will guarentee that you get great customer support. Since you can’t control who will be helping you, all you can control is the information you provide, and the tone you provide it in.

1. Explain what the issue is. “It doesn’t work” is not an explaination. If it’s an issue with your actual computer, say which lights go on, or which keys on the keyboard don’t work. The more information about your issue you can provide, the more likely the person helping you will be able to quickly diagnose what’s going on, and help you get it fixed.

2. Include screenshots. This follows up on suggestion number one. When the issue is complex, or you see an error message you shouldn’t be seeing, take a screenshot. This will help the person who is helping you see exactly what you see. At the minimum, if they don’t believe your issue, you’ve now proven to them that you aren’t crazy.

3. Follow their suggestions. If they tell you to do a hard restart, do a hard restart. If they suggest testing something out on a different computer or internet connection, go for it. What do you have to lose? The person on the other end of the phone, or email exchange, wants to help — following their suggestions will help them help you.

4. Be nice. This one is easy; you are more likely to get a courteous, helpful reply, if you aren’t writing in all caps, or an exasperated tone.

5. Provide timely feedback. If something works, tell the support person. If it doesn’t, let them that know that, too. But keep up the exchange; especially in tech, things can change pretty quickly. Replying to a month old question probably won’t help much.

And voila! Hopefully by keeping these guidelines in mind, the next time you want to kill Comcast or Apple, or some website has just frozen your browser, you’ll get faster and better support than you ever expected.