| Product support can really eat into your time and your | | | | customers have lost their download link, or it has |
| working day. If you're a developer, or are even selling a | | | | expired. The email you need to send to these |
| product such as an ebook, it's inevitable that you will | | | | customers is always very similar, so it's important to |
| receive support questions. These might range from | | | | not have to write a new one from scratch each and |
| simple ones, such as how to download, open or use | | | | every time. |
| the product, to more complex issues which required | | | | The last thing you should do is to seriously consider |
| investigation. You need to be thinking of strategies to | | | | outsourcing this support process. You could employ |
| help you to reduce product support and the time | | | | someone for an hour or two a day to deal with every |
| spend on it. I'm going to explore some of these in this | | | | common query and only pass the most difficult ones |
| article. | | | | on to you. That will free up an hour or two of your |
| First of all, try and get rid of any common questions | | | | time, if that is how long it takes you to deal with |
| before they even reach you by making changes to | | | | support issues. Now, it may take trialling a few |
| the product. If you've developed software, and there's | | | | different people to find who can best support your |
| a certain part of the interface that always causes | | | | product, but once this is done you will have a business |
| problems, the redesign that part of the interface to | | | | asset. Even consider offering this role to some of your |
| avoid it. Alternatively, create some context sensitive | | | | best customers, as they will probably have the best |
| help to assist your users. Even with an ebook, you | | | | understanding of how your product works. |
| might notice common issues. Perhaps you're in a niche | | | | Make sure that you are taking customer support |
| where readers aren't used to PDFs. Pre-empt that by | | | | seriously. This can be a big time drain for marketers if |
| providing a link for them to download the reader that is | | | | not. The ideas I've suggested in this article should give |
| needed. | | | | you some starting points. Make sure to address |
| Next, make sure to have canned answers prepared. | | | | common issues both in your product itself and in the |
| These are answers which you will want to reuse, with | | | | form of canned responses. Hire someone to help with |
| perhaps minor changes such as the product name or | | | | support once your business is big enough. Then |
| customer name. That way, you can just copy and | | | | concentrate on your making your next product from |
| paste these into a reply, make very small changes and | | | | your million dollar idea. |
| send these out. A good example of this is where | | | | |