Why do so many companies start with their support site?
Your support site is supposed to be the fount of knowledge for your customers—and a way to prove your excellence to prospects engaged in the buying process. It’s there to solve your customer’s problems. Speed them the information they need. Show them how to use your product. Make all of the wrongs with your product right.
Since happy customers are the cornerstone of successful companies, it would make sense that support sites would be laser focused on sending all of the right messages – right? Wrong. Most are actually sending plenty of wrong messages – and what they are really saying is startling.
Message: Customers = walking wallets | When customers hit your support site, they are working in a single reality: your product is broken and they want you to fix it fast – and preferably for free. The last thing they want to see is a laundry list of expensive support services. And unless you are fixing their problem, they don’t want to see this information along the click stream either. In fact, front & center support services really tell customers what they don’t want to hear: that you expect them to open their wallets because the product you sold them doesn’t work. It’s also a great way to remind them that the next time they purchase your product they are likely to be nickeled & dimed them to death.
Message: You’re part of the “in crowd” — or maybe you’re not | Too many support sites think it’s cool to put the “top” answers for their “top” products front & center on the support home page. It’s a real boon for the ‘in crowd” who bought a really popular product that seems to be constantly broken in five or ten ways. All of the unpopular kids, on the other hand, will have to pay to play. Some will pay in time while they wade through mountains of unfiltered results. Others will pay in treasure when they have to slap down their credit card to buy support services they didn’t know they would need.
As it turns out, playing the “top ten” game fares best with prospects who are considering buying one of the cool products on your list, since it tells them they’ll have easy access to answers for their problems. Those looking to buy a not so popular product? They can hold out hope that their future problem will be a popular one. Of course, if it’s that popular, it’s probably a good reason not to buy.
Message: Don’t fix it, buy a new one | My favorite way to make a bad impression comes from companies that use a big chunk of support real estate to peddle their latest product release. Think of it as a form of “watch the birdie” where companies distract users from the fact that real support resources are in short supply, and finding support for previous versions is going to require a shovel. That is, of course, before some customers find out that their “old” product isn’t supported at all.
I can’t figure out why companies operating support sites keep sending these messages to current and future customers. They make current users feel like they have to pay premium prices for a one minute answer – which inevitably sends them into the arms of the (unvarnished) Internet to get results. Meanwhile prospects get a couple of messages that most companies don’t intend to send. It puts all of problems with the “cool” products front & center, which suggests that even more is broken in the wings. As important, it says that support will be readily available as long as another product doesn’t enter the limelight. After that they’ll get the same treatment as the customers who were foolish enough to buy a product last year.
Smart companies recognize that support isn’t just a break/fix moment. It is a key a part of the buying process. When support is done right, prospects will become customers, and customers will become repeat customers.
Which brings me to my question. What messages are you sending on your support site? Are they the messages you want your customers to hear?
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