Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?

Product Support is something many of us probably don't think about on a daily basis. If our internet is acting up, we find a customer service number. Bad experience at a restaurant? Send a tweet to the company. Need help setting up a program? Live chat is a few clicks away. The fact that many of us only know the hassle of dealing with the support instead of finding it is key. Companies invest in services, instruction manuals, and website to help users remain satisfied when things go wrong (except for Pearson, they are the worst). So what is support?

I focus on customer service a lot (perhaps because examples are so readily available), but customer services is such a general term. Support is more than fixing an order at a restaurant or smiling when greeting a customer. Support is anything a company provides to help customers solve problems. Furniture from IKEA comes with an instruction manual. That is a form of support. If the furniture is broken, there is a number on the box or receipt to call a service desk to get it replaced. That is support.

Tech companies like Apple and Microsoft have good examples of what support can mean. Microsoft stopped mainstream development of their widely popular operating system Windows 7 in January of 2015. That means they stopped creating products and changes for it. However, they will continue to release security updates (if any breaches are found) until 2020. That is supporting a product. Even when switching from Windows 8 to Windows 10, they gave consumers about a year for a free upgrade to Windows 10. This gave users an incentive to upgrade, but also ample time to make the switch. They released the new OS with trouble shooting software and compatibility fixes. Again, that is support.

Obviously, no one in this class is a tech mogul (yet 😉) but we can look at these things as examples. How can your small business provide support for your product or service? Will you provide a phone number they can call if they have problems? Will you invest in highly detailed instructions? Will you offer warranties in case something breaks? These things can make or break a company's reputation with consumers. It is worth considering if you do not want to end up like Pearson; they are the worst.