Keeping Support in Work - Part 3

It's been a while since I wrote my last article about QA and Project testing and how small changes at the start of a project can avoid pain later; now it's the turn of the Support organization - there are some common mistakes we make that, more than almost anything else, cause pain further down the line.

Over the last 20 or so years, I've spent a lot of time fire-fighting and I think it's safe to say there are two things that, done right, would have prevented many of those issues and, done wrong, have exacerbated most of them. They are:

Setting Expectations and Communicating Clearly

These may seem obvious (actually, I hope they do!) but time and again they are the cause or aggravating factors in escalations - far more than product issues or project delay by themselves.

Setting expectations is key; it's tempting to try to soften bad news - say the 3rd-line team thinks they can have a fix in 2-4 days, so you tell the customer 2 days. This feels like it's minimizing the immediate tension and you can always tell the customer it 'slipped' later, right?

Wrong. The whole approach is back-to-front. It's much better to set a low expectation at the start and then exceed later. In this example, I'd probably tell the customer to expect the update in 5 days so we're over-achieving when we deliver in 4. (Padding required here will be based on experience with your own team. You also have to be careful not to over do it, or your initial estimates lose credibility.)

Then, once you've set the expectation you need to stay engaged. Unless your team finds a solution sooner, you need to check in with them at least every couple of days to make sure they're still on-track and then update the customer. It's reassuring for the customer to know that things are on-track and helps them plan availability for calls or deployments that may be needed. It's also ensures that you never get a call saying "I haven't heard from you for a week - what's going on?"

This applies equally to all your updates, whether you're waiting for someone else or not; be clear about when you're going to deliver them and make sure you do so.

The other key to communication is to work out who needs to hear from you at the customer. If you're working with their admins, can you be sure they are updating their management and, if so, are they giving updates you'd agree with...?

It is more common than you'd like to find teams not communicating within the customer, or delivering mixed messages to deflect blame from themselves. Day to day you can probably cope with this, but when things get escalated, you must get a handle on it. When an escalation starts; ensure that the right level of management is engaged on both sides and work across both organizations to agree the message so that there are no surprises.

Following these principles will do more to avoid escalations, promote customer satisfaction and deliver success for you and your customers than almost any other change you can make in Support:

Don't promise what you can't deliver, be sure to deliver what you promise and always keep the customer informed of progress.