Replying to customer support interactions to drive growth

The chief difference between Support Driven Growth and Support is well…the word growth. That may seem obvious, but the mindset for growth and the mindset for support are two slightly different states of mind, but ones that can be complementary as long as you put the customer’s interest first and foremost. 

Traditionally, support training biases towards answering questions thoroughly but quickly. Support professionals look at the story of the customer as they are and who they are to best solve their problem, but not what or who they could be. Growth is a little different. Sales and marketing professionals want to help people, yes, but also gear their efforts towards keeping the conversation going a little longer, encouraging more returns, and helping each customer realize their full potential. Why? Because relationships trigger someone to buy, to increase investment in the product or service, to grow. 

Here are some tricks and tactic used to reply to customer support interactions in a way that drives growth, a key tactic to executing a Support Driven Growth strategy. 

Yes, and…

In my life before SAAS I was an improviser, which has a mantra that’s paramount to the whole support driven growth initiative: Yes, and.

Here’s a little role play to illustrate.

Customer asks: Do you have a MailChimp Integration?

Replying with a growth mindset, we might respond with….

Yes (…here are the deets) AND I notice you just started a trial but you haven’t been to a webinar yet? You should sign up for one here.

Or….

Yes (…here are the deets) AND it looks like you haven’t [enter something to promote product adoption], did you know you can use [that feature do to something] with your newsletter responses?

Yes, and is the ultimate “upselling” tool. It’s a natural in to offer customers help they didn’t even know they were asking for. While it may not feel like upselling to offer free things, like going to a webinar, or features already on their plan, the more they engage with the team, support, and the product the more they are likely to buy and stick around as happy, healthy customers.

Equally important to note, however, is that the YES is first. While some more sales-y tactics start with the AND to try to string a conversation along as long as possible, a Support Driven Growth strategy puts support first. Lead with help, but offer more help where it’s applicable to further drive engagement and product adoption. That’s the AND bit of it. Protip - more help is almost always applicable. If you’re not sure what to AND, you’ll want to create a customer journey.

There are tools that make Yes, And easier, particularly using a help desk that pulls in rich information into the customer profile and some sort of functionality to track customer events or behavior in your app, website, or product that can be displayed in the sidebar. If you are able to track what steps a customer is taken, it’s easier to suggest what steps they should take next if that information is easily accessible to you and your team. 

Never start with “No” - question or educate.

Most times when a question comes up, there will have some sort of solution to your prospective customer’s problem, there will definitely be times you just can’t provide the help they are looking for. Instead of just saying No flat out (even if it’s like, the dumbest idea you’ve ever heard), your first course of action is to use this as an opportunity for one of two options: Question or Educate. Often times, your team will be questioning until getting to the point of educating, but both tactics are important to understand. 

When should you question?

When someone suggests a feature or makes an ask that you don’t understand, seems far reached, or you’ve just never heard of before, always ask what problem they are trying to solve. One of three things will happen: You may have another solution to the same problem, just solved in a different way than what they are asking for. There might be a better way to solve the problem we already have on the roadmap, or within reason to suggest to product or CANI.

When is it better to educate?

This is a feature you’ve heard before a million times and it’s just never going to happen. Maybe it won’t happen because it’s against your company’s brand values, focus, or the scope of the product. Educate why your team has made a conscious choice not to move in that direction with the product. It will be a lot more satisfying to the customer than an empty promise of roadmap consideration or a promise to “keep you posted!”

Another case of when it’s better to educate is if it’s revealed that the problem the feature they requested would solve has another solution that already exists, they just didn’t think to solve the problem that way. This is also good if it’s a weird one-off product request that you know your company might never accommodate, but you already have an answer on how to solve their problem without needing to ask.

Maybe you’re not the right tool or product, and that’s ok!

Regardless, the customer is heard and either walks away with a different tangible solution, or you walk away with inspiration for the product based on a perspective or use case you didn’t think of before, but could have implications for a ton of customers!

Lead with the solution

There will be times where we don't have a direct Yes to the customer's question, but we do have a similar or different solution that solves the same problem, or a viable a workaround. In these cases, the instinct may be to answer the question with an apology first:

"No...we don't have what you're looking for...but..."

No, But is the mortal enemy of Yes, And. What we're looking for is Yes, But. That's leading with the solution.

Why do it this way? It sounds like saying the exact same thing but flipping the order of when you say what, and that is exactly what it is. When customers (or anyone, really) see no, they shut down. They usually don't keep reading further.

I once heard a story from another enthusiastic support professional while doing a workshop in Serbia. They expressed a passionate interest in cross-cultural customer support, and relayed a story from one of their learnings in Japan. 

“In Japan,” he enlightens me “it’s actually considered a rude business practice to tell someone you can’t do something. You must always lead with what you can do, even if it’s something you technically can’t.”

That is the spirit of leading with the solution. It’s not to mislead your customer, or keep them off the scent, but to offer and present a solution to them first and foremost, above everything else, even if it’s not directly a solution from your product or app. 

Here's a real life example of leading with the solution. A customer is asking for a time tracking tool, which is a tool we did not have in Help Scout when we implemented this strategy there.

Instead of telling Charlie No, straight off the bat, we lead with what is possible, closing off with the caveat that we don't have the tool native to Help Scout to keep things nice and transparent.

And the customer's response:

Charlie later became a paying customer - the truest measure of a happy camper. 

When leading with the solution, companies I’ve worked with have seen two measurable results:

A downtick in what we consider “dealbreaker” features

A “dealbreaker” feature is a feature that customers or evaluators ask for, that when you follow that individual’s progression on their buying journey, they don’t buy or end up churning. When a customer asks for a feature, what they are really asking for is a solution to a problem. Leading with the solution satisfies their need early on, making it more likely to adopt the presented solution instead of moving along when they see what they need can’t be accommodated. 

An uptick in satisfaction ratings on “No” type answers

People love to be helped! Especially if they can be helped in a way that couldn’t think of and find themselves. Leading with the solution presents a much more positive interaction overall than No, but. 

Be a mini business consultant (or personal stylist, chef, or life coach…)

Support individuals are usually the most knowledgeable about your product, it’s pitfalls and wow moments, and your specific customers, pain and what fixes it. Sales and marketing folk are most knowledge about your customer persona (customer profile in broad strokes), the market, and how the product fits in that market. Why draw the line? 

When a customer contacts you about a product problem, their end goal is not just to fix the product problem. Their end goal is to look cool, be healthy, run a successful business [enter high level goal here]. Awareness of those goals increases empathy for the customer among the support team, and also leads to providing more contextual help. When you include training about the persona, the market, customer’s pain and desires, and the environment the customer exists in, it only makes you and your team better at supporting the customer. This works both for business to business companies like software, but also direct to consumer customers like retail. 

When someone contacts your company about a product that’s out of stock or a feature you don’t have, you can still help them achieve their goals. You have the choice to say “I’m sorry that shirt is sold out, you can join the waitlist” only acknowledging the specific problem, or help them achieve their larger goals by answering “based on the other items in your order, we thought you might like this shirt instead! If no other shirt will do, we get it. You can join the waitlist here.”