Support Interactions = Brand Experiences.

Every single customer support interaction is a brand experience. Whether you like it or not - the cumulative result of these experiences will be neutral, negative or positive.

Consistent positive experiences can contribute to positive word of mouth, LTV growth, and renewals.

After chatting with many people in support I've noticed that high performing teams have built tools, systems, and automations that enable them to spend more time creating positive brand experiences in every customer interaction.

They've eliminated as much manual work as possible. They've freed themselves to listen, understand, empathize with customers, make a human connection, and look for opportunities to add value - i.e. make a configuration suggestion, spot product improvement opportunities, let a customer try something they didn't know they could, share a helpful article, say something nice and personalized, etc.

Below is a graph representing the differences I've seen in how different support teams spend their time. The team on the right has invested in the tools, training, automations, content, and systems to let their people create more positive brand experiences. The one one the left - less so.

Companies in different industries will have different relative time breakdowns based on the complexity of interactions and issues - but all else being equal these are differences I've been seeing.

If you work in support:

What do you spend the most time doing in each interaction?

What positive experience have you created in a support interaction lately that the customer might tell others about?