Back in my support role for higher end software, I flat out hit numbers comparable to sales and generated a ton of great leads.
Fact is, people do what they do and they have their reasons.
Judging them and acting on that judgement by marginalizing an important and necessary part of the process has a higher net cost to the world, and often the enterprise, than just doing those things reasonably does.
Net happiness goes up too. True for the enterprise and users, people at large.
And the fact is, enterprises seeing to make every support transaction a positive ROI are, in fact and in deed, penny wise and pound foolish.
They will see an opportunity cost due to missed sales opportunity.
They will see greater load due to people using an inferior process and poorly empowered people, repeatedly.
They will see a diminished overall market perception.
Their products will provide less value due to a greater misalignment with both exiating and potential users needs, which drive perception of value, which drives more dollars.
Personally, having been on all sides of this matter, I rank what we are discussing at the very top when considering who I will buy from and or work with.
Flat out, when I see enterprises putting seriously crazy amounts of money in the bank, I accept zero excuses in this regard.
It is not necessary. Lives are short, money hard to come by. Best get solid value for the dollar.
Right now, I am in the small business space and rock solid support is how we are killing it.
Been there, very large, small, medium, consumer, b2b...
Don't tell me it can't or should not be done when billions land in accounts free and clear.
It can. Should.
I spend with those who get that first and foremost.
And I don’t mean that cynically - since if it’s as easy and guaranteed profitable as you say, why wouldn’t you be able to convince numerous CEOs to unearth all of those extra billions?
Again, if the priority is to always have a positive ROI, and that metric is computed every quarter, without due and inclusive consideration for externalities?
All the things I discussed here are going to get watered down. And it is always the same priority on max dollars now, max recurring dollars now, and WGIF about the future, others.
Where that happens, so do the things I just said. Not my mess to clean up.
Some enterprises get it. They get my time, attention, dollars and referrals first.
Beyond that? Got better things to do.
Clearly you value things differently. That does not make anything I said wrong.
Take care. You get last word on this.
* people expecting to use a sophisticated tool (for doing complex business processes requiring special know-how) without paying for and spending time on adequate training)
* people unwilling to RTFM, google, youtube, etc.
* people whining when a general purpose tool doesn’t fit their exact workflow to a tee