{"id":78087,"date":"2022-04-08T15:41:32","date_gmt":"2022-04-08T14:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=78087"},"modified":"2025-01-13T16:25:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:25:53","slug":"solving-customer-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/solving-customer-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Solving Customer Problems, Not Feature Requests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

So often, as product managers, it can feel as though customer complaints are thrown over the wall to us in the form of unvetted feature requests<\/a> and other prescriptive solutions. It\u2019s annoying. And it\u2019s also our job to help the customer support team understand how to pass on user feedback in a helpful way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this post, we\u2019ll cover why support and product should work together, how to train support to collect and evaluate user feedback, and finally how to set up a solid feedback process between the two teams.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Why support and product must work together to solve customer problems<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Customer support<\/a> people are problem solvers, no doubt about it. Their job is to field complaints or difficulties, user mistakes and software malfunctions. And they\u2019re incentivized to solve the problems as quickly as possible, usually under a certain time period: two hours, 24 hours, etc. Closing tickets and customer satisfaction are critical to customer support\u2019s performance metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the customer problems that can\u2019t be solved on the spot? Then product management gets involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, these problems might require a longer term (i.e. more comprehensive or more foundational) solution, perhaps something built by the development team. Once a solution is in place, the support team doesn\u2019t need to field complaints about it anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, reporting and\/or handing over such customer problems from support to product is clearly an important link. A strong feedback loop between these teams can better the product, improve user satisfaction, and increase support efficiency \u2013 impacting all the juicy company KPIs that are attached to those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The key is to get this hand-off right! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to train customer support to collect feedback for product<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To be fair, it\u2019s not the support team’s day job to collect and interpret feedback so much. And we\u2019re not trying to put more on their plate. Quite the opposite. We\u2019re trying to get to the root of issues, so their job is easier! (It just so happens this makes our job easier, too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can get there by reframing questions and using new techniques. The tenets of this training are to help the customer support team to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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