Earlier this week, we had asked the same question to both customer support managers and agents, in a bid to see how their opinions differed. Much to our surprise, there was a visible difference!
About 57% of managers and administrators felt that, for ‘free’ customers, customer support is indeed a privilege. Amongst support agents, about 54% actually opined that customer support is a customer’s right.
Straightaway, it’s easy to see one possible reason for this difference. Support agents deal with customers on a daily basis. They deal with the emotional aspect of customer support. They see the ups and the downs in raw colours, everyday.
Managers often do not handle customers directly on a day-to-day basis. They see customers via support agents. The emotions are not as vivid when there’s an intermediary. In other words, what managers see is more of the analytical picture. Also, with experience comes a different perspective. Since managers commonly have more experience than support agents, their perspective is likely to have evolved as well.
On a related note, Kevin’s comment, that prospects could be using a ‘free’ plan to evaluate a business, is really valid. Businesses, in addition to offering a free trial of paid plans, have to handle such prospects carefully. In that sense, customer support definitely becomes a right.
If you have an opinion on this, you can share it with the community via our comments section below.
We’ll be back soon with another question. Have a great weekend!
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