Providing great customer support sounds hard and to some downright scary, but it's easier than you think. I'll cover the few key things necessary to provide support that your customers will love, increases sales and improves your product.

1. HowToSlaythe
CustomerSupportBeast
Illustration: Nathan Scheck

2. Ian Landsman

4. Bootstrapped.fm

5. discuss.Bootstrapped.fm

7. CustomerSupport
Theoriginal
growthhack

8. metricsallthethings

9. Churn
Avgrevenueperuser
lifetimevalue

13. support==sales

14. Userscape
2005to 2008

15. Noemployees

16. Nomarketing

17. Noadvertising

18. Noemaillist

19. NoA/Btesting

20. Notrackingatall!

21. alittleSEO

23. Revenue
2005 2006 2007 2008
$488K
$264K
$123K
$15K

24. Revenue/ads
2005 2006 2007 2008
$14k$1k$4k$0k
$488k
$264k
$123k
$15k

25. ourfirst100
customers

26. 1,700
tickets

27. $fromfirst100
Initiallicensepurchase2006 ThroughToday
$297K
$90K

28. $207,316

29. Support
125
250
375
500

30. FirstResponse
0
30min
1hr
1.5hr
2hr

31. SupportCategories
Account Bugs Features Pre-Sales Technical HowTo
641
2,008
2,827
250201
983

32. How?

33. SupportTools

34. SupportChannels
• HelpSite
• InApp
• Email

35. marketing!=support
• twitter*
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Blogging

36. HelpSite

37. HelpSiteContent
• Detailedinfooninitialsetup
• indepthonsettings
• advice/bestpractices

38. http://help.besnappy.com

39. http://help.besnappy.com

40. http://www.audiofile-engineering.com/support/helpdesk/

41. http://help.campaignmonitor.com/support

42. helpsitetips
• Don’trequireregistration
• Don’texposeinternalmetadata
• organizecontentforcustomers

43. Inapp

44. http://customer.io

45. http://besnappy.com

46. http://besnappy.com

47. email

48. A-Always
B-Be
C-Compassionate

50. apologize&
Ignorefrumpiness

51. Replying:intro
Hi Tina,

52. Replying:outro
If you have any other questions, just let
me know and I’ll be happy to help.
And have an awesome Monday!
-Chase
http://supportops.co

53. cannedresponsesRespond
5000%
faster!

54. Organizetickets
• Categorize
• assigntoindividualsnotgroups
• Prioritize

55. Schedule
• Firstthinginthemorning
• Afterlunch
• Endofday

56. scalesupport

57. Hireearlyfor
support

58. FirstResponse
0
30min
1hr
1.5hr
2hr

59. SupportCategories
Account Bugs Features Pre-Sales Technical HowTo
641
2,008
2,827
250201
983

60. eliminatelow
hangingfruit

61. thisiswhyticket
organizationis
important

62. everyonedoes
support

63. Feedback
mechanisms

64. Feedback
• yourteamkeepsyouintheloop
• problems*AND*SUCCESSES
• usechat,supporttools

65. SURVEYS?
• PERIODICAREEFFECTIVE
• SURVEY’SINEACHSUPPORTEMAIL?
• followupsurveyafewdayslater?
• Weallhatetheseright?

66. support==sales

67. SupportChannels
• HelpSite
• InApp
• Email

68. beorganized&scale
yoursupportearly

69. Thanks!

70. IanLandsman
ianlandsman.com/talks
@ianlandsman