Scaling Support by Educating Customers

Delivered on Mar 10, 2016 @ ScaleConf, Cape Town

Growing a business does not just imply selling more products and getting more customers; one of the biggest challenges is supporting that growing customer-base in handling their acquired products. With growth comes an increase in potential errors, bugs, and struggles. So how does a growing tech company scale support?

At WooCommerce we get about 10,000 ticket submissions per month, which stands in big contrast with the 500,000 visitors of our public support resources. This talk will focus on finding a good balance between providing a stable public or proactive resource and answering urgent ticket requests, and the mistakes and wins we've encountered along the way.

I start with identifying the customer's prior knowledge, to then go to the importance to educate customers in order to not make them dependent on your support. This can be done through improving the software, introducing onboarding, and providing training in support. It's important to consider the diversification, the zone of proximal development, and the ROI in doing this.

Transcript

1. Scaling Support
 by Educating Customers @jobtex | @WooCommerce | @Automattic
2. There seems to be a problem with the electrical circuit of your engine, because your battery is full and I’m still seeing a low voltage. What he (probably) said
3. There seems to be a problem with blah blah blah … blah blah blah … 
 blah … Bob Loblaw What I heard
5. 4 types of problems • Correct prior knowledge • No relevant prior knowledge • Some relevant prior knowledge • Conflicting prior knowledge
6. Correct prior knowledge
7. No relevant prior knowledge Existing knowledge/ skills Necessary knowledge/ skills
8. Necessary 
 knowledge/skills Some relevant prior knowledge Existing knowledge/ skills
9. Conflicting prior knowledge Existing knowledge/ skills Necessary knowledge/ skills
10. Conflicting prior knowledge
11. Educating Customers ? …
12. ! Educating Customers ? … ? ! ?
13. Educating Customers How? • Improving • Onboarding • Training
14. Educating Customers Considerations: • Diversification / pathways • Zone of proximal development • Return on investment
15. Diversification / pathways
16. Zone of proximal development Existing knowledge/ skills Existing knowledge/ skills
17. ROI • Solution = zone of proximal development? • Solution = relevant for multiple people?
18. WooCommerce Support • Bug and UX fixes • Documentation and video • Support forums • Tickets
19. Your software • How/what to educate? • Who to educate? - Prior knowledge? - Diversification - Zone of proximal development - ROI
20. Thanks for … blah blah blah
 blah … Bob Loblaw @jobtex | @WooCommerce | @Automattic