How to Create a Successful Support Team

Have you ever worked in a restaurant, call center, or retail store? If so, you may know customer service jobs are not always the easiest. Although not easy, these and similar positions have the opportunity for extreme reward. Helping the customer achieve success, while receiving the best possible experience, is the main goal that our Support Team strives to meet each and every day.

My name is Haley McKinney and I am the Support Manager here at Pragmatic Works. My resume consists of customer service positions across the hospitality industry. I have been with Pragmatic Works for about a year and a half now and there is not a single day that I walk through our doors without learning something new about working with people. I take a great deal of pride in our team of Support Engineers and I’d like to give you a glimpse into what practices have helped us be successful in the software customer service industry. Below are the 6 key practices that are helping us as we strive to assist our clients with successfully using our software.

1. Find Good Employees… And Keep Them!

Any manager responsible for hiring wants to find the right employees. They want them to be a good fit for the position and get along with other members of their team. Pragmatic Works’ Support Team is made up of a group of individuals who do all of this… And more! Our team is personable, knowledgeable and constantly showing a desire to learn and grow as our products continue to develop. We are very fortunate to have a group of folks who are not only passionate about our products but also passionate about assisting our clients with using them. Just keep in mind that teamwork makes the dream work!

2. Remember Time is Money (Our Customers Agree!)

The longer your customer waits for a response, the longer you are delaying them from getting their job done. Time is money and our clients know this. It is always our main goal to close a case quickly, but never prematurely. We never want a customer to feel like they are leaving with a question unanswered. We strive to always ask one last time if there is anything outstanding we can help with and ensure it is safe to mark a ticket as ‘solved.’ The quicker we can do this, the better.

3. Build a Tier System.

Implementing a Tier System has worked really well for our Support team. The idea is that we have 3 levels to our system- Tier One, Tier Two and Tier Three. Tier One handles the most basic cases- activations, questions that can be answered by our help file, etc. Tier Two cases require more troubleshooting and are beyond the level of Tier One (most cases sit with a Tier Two technician). The Tier Three team handles the most difficult issues and these technicians are our most experienced. Having a tier system helps us to escalate cases quickly and assign an expert who is the best fit for the issue at hand.

4. Document Everything

This one is a biggie. In Support, people come to us with software questions or issues. If it happens to one person, then it is very likely to happen to someone else. By keeping strong case documentation, we are able to go back and reference older cases. These older cases may just have the answer we need to solve the current problem at hand. In the beginning of 2016 we began using Zendesk, a ticketing platform for Support help desks. We are excited about the documentation it can provide to us internally and to our clients. This makes it even easier to search cases and notes to help solve a problem. Detailed documentation often results in a quicker closed case. Remember what we talked about in #2… time is money!

5. Be an Advocate for Your Client

Anyone on our Support Team has heard this one before. I say it frequently. You must remember to be an advocate for your client. How would you feel if you were in their shoes? Wouldn’t you want to get your issue fixed quicker? Would an update on the case status be helpful? These are the types of questions we must ask ourselves. Whether we are communicating with a member of our Sales Team or Development Team to move a case forward, we always try to look at things from the client’s perspective.

6. Have Fun

Some days we may have an influx of new cases and are moving as quick as we can to reach out to everyone. In these moments we find the most comfort in a good laugh or lighthearted moment. We enjoy company activities, such as our monthly potlucks, and are guilty of having the occasional NERF gun fight. (Yes, some of our employees stash NERF bullets in their desk.) Our team is outgoing and quirky and we definitely like to have fun. No matter your career, just know that it is more than acceptable to have fun at work!