How Can Service & Support Strategy Alignment Help Your Business Grow?

When should a business start thinking about their strategy and operational design related to their customer (client) support/service model?
Early in an organization’s life cycle, sales and marketing are KING. Growth is likely the #1, #2 and #3 priority. This is understandable because it is critical to sustaining early life of a business and is the catalyst for future investment and profitability.
However, in a company’s early stages their support and service model is important to consider. Do you have an operating plan and strategy to execute in these areas?
  • Profitability
  • Client Experience
  • Churn/Retention

Here are some key considerations:

  • In absence of a service and support strategy, sales tend to be the early servicer. Sales is often high touch. High Touch service and support models are difficult to scale and are expensive. Early in a company’s life cycle it is common to try to white glove service every client because you fear losing them. This will influence client’s go forward expectations.
  • Lack of an operating plan often means a lack of process and procedures. A lack of procedures can create inconsistencies in delivery of service, leading to poor client experiences. Poor client experiences lead to churn.
  • Onboarding processes are often key contributors to go forward service models. If you are planning on a low touch self-service model for example, the onboarding process is usually an important table setter for that. A good onboarding process ideally prepares the client for how their service and support will work.  If you don’t know how you are going to service clients in the long run, you cannot build an onboarding process to set service up for success.
  • No clearly defined process or strategy means you cannot put service and support requirements effectively on your technology roadmap. Because service and support are often an afterthought, their technology solutions get added later, impacting the end-to-end client experience. This generally leads to cobbled together solutions, throw away technology and re-work.

While I can provide more examples, you get the idea. Continuing to take the ‘I will figure it out later’ approach regarding service and support operations can become a hurdle to long term success for a growing business.

Need help in restructuring your organizational design to align service and support strategy? Talk with experts from Boardroom Bullpen for moral and strategic support while you transform your organization.