Before I started working with Paste, my experiences with support had been frustrating. One particularly infuriating instance comes to mind…

Two years ago, my cell phone was having major malfunctions, and the actual store representative told me I’d have to call their main support line for help.

Seriously?

So I called support and listened to an automated woman talk for half an hour about all the other services available… none of which I cared about. Not even a little bit. I just wanted to know what was wrong with my phone and how to fix it. When I finally got to talk to a real person, she was such a low level customer service rep that she couldn’t help, either. She told me to send in my phone (seriously?!?!) and she’d have their technical engineers take a look at it.

Oh, and apparently they thought I would just live in social reclusion for a couple weeks because they didn’t offer a replacement while they tore mine apart. The worst part- nobody seemed to care. A major part of my life was being taken away from me because of their faulty programming, and I didn’t get so much as a simple apology. I didn’t even bother sending my phone in- I switched carriers instead. Easiest decision I ever made.

Because of that, and some other bad experiences, I generally held the impression that people who worked in support couldn’t really help you.

Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to do a little support of my own, and thank goodness for all my bad experiences.

I think you have to look at every support e-mail as a big deal. All of them, equally big deals. Because no matter how minor the issue, or how easy it is to fix or explain on your end, the person on the other end of the e-mail is still frustrated enough to let you know about it- and that’s what really matters. The importance of a simple thing like starting out the response with “I’m really sorry you’re having trouble!” and providing more explanation than the user asked for are not lost on me. Not to mention always offering a solution of some kind.

Not only is each e-mail a big deal, but you have to assume that the person using your app is using it as a somewhat major part of their daily lives- like my phone. Without it, they’re not as effective as they were before, and that’s your fault. I think you have to treat their problem like it’s the most important thing you’ll address that day.

So I love answering support questions. Each e-mail is a chance to make someone happy- and I’ll take that opportunity a hundred times a day.

“I’m kind of weird, I love negative feedback. Unsolicited complaint means somebody cared enough to write it down, and then when you fix their pet peeve they transform into a fan. Plus you got to fix a real problem for a real person, which is pretty rewarding.”

http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/09/21/chris_clark/ via DF

“The world is full of very average things made by people who don’t want to upset anyone, or too eager to please their peers. I believe you have to have an opinion – choose daddy or chips, I really don’t mind, just don’t say “I don’t really know”. And when you have opinions and strongly held beliefs you’ve got to be prepared to get some flack – in fact that’s part of the deal.You can’t have the nice feedback without accepting that some people are going to hate what you do.”

- Brendan Dawes

“If you have an idea for improving my apps please send it. I read all email and forum postings, and they effect what I’m working on, but I’m not likely to respond directly.”

Unlike some in the web app business, we love hearing new ideas for our apps. They’re like a gift in email format. But it is sometimes tough to convey our love, sympathy, empathy, regret, and joy in a new creative way for each idea sent.

Read more about Jesse’s support ideas

A few weeks ago Netflix emailed me and said if they were’t used by a certain date, they would be automatically applied to my account. Great. Simple. Easy.

Only one problem. Once this happened, I found out that you can only apply one gift subscription at a time to your account. So as of the last week, all 11 subscriptions began ticking down in value as if they were being used, but couldn’t be applied to my account.

I assumed that I could call customer service and get this taken care of, but of course the person answering the support line didn’t have the authority, (nor could they gain it, evidently) to retroactively apply my free months in a logical way. Frustration began to creep in, but then something magical happened. The hack.

The customer service guy (I want to say his name was Matt maybe?) suggested an alternative. First, he asked if I had any friends I could send them to. Sure, I have a couple. Second, he asked what I thought about taking the time to manage a couple extra queues.

Over the next couple minutes, he explained what he would do if he was my position. His advice wasn’t from the manual, and it wasn’t, I’m sure, taught to the support people by Netflix. But he solved the problem. It wasn’t slick, and it was kind of a pain in the butt for me, but the bigger point is that it worked.

The reminder is this: when people call support, they’re seeking solutions, not answers. There’s a big difference. Matt could’ve easily told me “There’s no way to apply those subscriptions to your account,” but giving me a solution to my problem allowed me to get what I really wanted.