This week we’re talking about help sites. Take a look at the Automattic help site, the Buffer site, the Wistia one, and the Basecamp one – you’ll see four completely different designs and four different approaches.

Help sites are something you can always tweak and adjust after you set one up for your product. But when you’re creating one for the first time and you’re staring at that blank slate, what do you start with?

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we’re talking about the different support channels you might use for supporting your customers. Email’s still the cornerstone but we’re going to look at other ones like Facebook, Twitter, customer forums, etc. There’s even a fun time with live chat towards the end!

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we’re talking about the pros/cons of offering customers premium/priority support. First, let’s narrow in on what we mean by premium support. This is where the customer pays for a higher plan or a separate package add-on to get them faster response times or special support channels. So a customer might pay for a business level plan and get phone support along with email support while other customers not on that plan just get email support.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

Programming note: There’s no live show this Monday, September 23.

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This week’s show centers around one question –  How do you train new customer support pros? Getting a new support pro up to speed can be a challenge. These are the people dealing with your customers every day so you want to make sure they’re trained right from the moment they start.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week’s show centers around one question – how involved should your support team be with new features. We’re going to look at the entire project for them – initial designs, QA, and finally shipping the new feature.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week – we’re talking about high touch customer support. When we think of customer support, it’s usually a team of support pros answering emails and such as they come in. With high touch, we’re looking at other support channels like one-on-one video chats with customers, specific accounts reps, and so-on.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we talk about a very hands-on approach to new customer signups and onboarding. Then it’s on to those zombie tickets, which left us scratching our heads a little. To wrap it up, we talk about new feature rollouts and how the product team and support team can work together on them.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we talk about one company’s high-touch customer that eventually brought them a $4 million contract. Can a single customer ever occupy too much of your team’s time? Then we dive into the old phrase “the customer is always right” and look at if it still holds up today. To wrap things up, we end with a great conversation on how to hire for your customer support positions.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we talk about Apple’s testing and training process for their remote customer support employees. Then we explore what an email inbox might look like with elements from the traditional personal inbox as well as a customer support email app. To wrap things up, we talk about SAAS plans for businesses where you might get a few more support perks over the typical pricing plans.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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This week we talk about Apple’s silence during their long Developer Website downtime. Then we move on to treating angry customers like toddlers and some ideas to get the customer to actually check out your help site first (aka RTFM). To wrap things up, it’s a fun look at the voice and tone customers hear from your company.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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