Eliminate Customer Support Issues at the Source

Discover how to address the root causes of customer support queries by applying the Kaizen philosophy to eliminate waste and improve efficiency in your business processes.

Eliminate Customer Support Issues at the Source
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Nov 9, 2024 07:19 PM
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Nov 9, 2024
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Reflecting on Customer Support and Kaizen Philosophy

Benedict Evans said this quote at an Intercom event, and I can't stop thinking about it. It's a quote from the Kaizen philosophy, which is all about eliminating waste and redundancies in lean manufacturing. He was talking about customer support.
 
We come up with ways to deliver exceptional customer support, but rarely address the root cause of why customers are even contacting a business in the first place.
 
"If you're trying to reduce dust in a factory, do you come up with processes and solution to quickly clean the dust. Or do you find where the dust is coming from and fix it at the source."
This seems pretty obvious. But in life and business, most of us choose the first option. We fight the symptoms of something. Sometimes in very complex and intelligent ways. But we don't step back and think from first principles about why the problem we're solving even exists at all.
 

Addressing Customer Support Issues

  1. Identify the Root Cause
      • Why do so many customers email asking for an order update?
      • Why do customers message to ask how an integration works and why it isn't working?
  1. Implement Solutions
      • A text every day with their order status.
      • An in-app tutorial when setting up an integration with rich FAQs for edge cases.
 
Customer support can be eliminated at the source. But this takes time. And until then, you should at least automate 75% of it, and let customers get the answer they need in 10 seconds instead of 10 hours.
 
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Written by

Alex Rainey
Alex Rainey

Alex is an experienced CTO and founder who largely focuses on all the technical areas of My AskAI, from AI Engineering, Technical Product Management and overall Platform Development.