Building A Technical Support Team: The Do's And Don'ts

When it comes to providing exceptional customer service, building an effective technical support team is essential. 58% of American consumers will switch companies because of poor customer service, which means if you're unable to solve customer issues quickly and efficiently, you might be losing out on potential business.

A reliable technical support team can make all the difference in ensuring customer satisfaction, as well as preventing and solving any issues that may arise.

If you're considering building a technical support team, you'll want to be strategizing about the size, structure, and overall goals of your team. In this article, we'll cover the different roles you should consider when creating a technical support team and the best way to create a technical support team.

What's the role of a technical support team?

A technical support team plays an important role in solving complex issues that might require troubleshooting and technical skills. They may also need to involve developers and engineers to solve problems.

Technical support teams are often responsible for level 3 support requests. This means they are responsible for solving more complex issues that cannot be solved by level 1 or 2 support. For example, if a customer is experiencing an issue with a specific feature of your product that requires debugging or coding, then the technical support team will be responsible for resolving that.

Technical support teams use their knowledge and skills to resolve issues quickly and efficiently. They also provide valuable feedback to the development team to help improve the product or service. Without a technical support team, many businesses would be unable to function properly.

When does your company need a separate technical support team? 

Providing timely and accurate technical support can be a challenge for any company, but it is often essential for maintaining customer satisfaction. There are a few key indicators that may suggest that it is time to create a separate technical support team, including:

• Your product is very complex or technical in nature.
• Your company is growing and becoming larger, so your customer service team needs to scale to meet the demand.
• If you find that you are regularly dealing with difficult or escalated issues, it may be beneficial to have a team of experts who can handle these cases.

By taking the time to evaluate your needs, you can ensure that you are providing the best possible service to your customers by establishing the right type of customer service team.

How to build a technical support team

Now that you know when your company may need a technical support team, let's look at how to build one.

Determine the type of service you want to provide to your customers

What is your team's primary purpose? Will you be providing technical support, customer service, or both?

Understanding what the typical standards for customer service look like in your specific industry will help you decide what type of service you want to provide.

For instance, if you are in the software industry, it may be beneficial to have a team that specializes in technical support and debugging because this is often the most complex issue for customers. On the other hand, if your company provides more customer-facing services like retail or hospitality, then you may want to focus more on level one or level two customer service.

Set the right KPIs for your support team

Next, you need to set the right KPIs for your support team. This will help you measure their performance and success in providing customer service. Common KPIs for technical support teams include:

• Response time – How quickly does the team respond to customer inquiries?

• First contact resolution rate – What percentage of customer issues are resolved on the first contact?

• Customer satisfaction score – How satisfied are customers with the technical support they have received?

It's important to remember that the numbers may look different from the rest of your support team, especially since it's likely that the request will be in lower volume but of higher complexity and possibly more crucial to the end-user experience.

Hire the right staff

Once you have established the type of service and KPIs you want your technical support team to provide, it's time to start hiring. When looking for candidates, there are a few qualities you'll want to look for in particular.

Look for individuals who have excellent problem-solving and analytical skills, as well as a good understanding of the technical aspects of your product or service.

It's also important to find people who are able to communicate clearly and effectively with customers, both when diagnosing issues and walking them through the steps to resolve the issue.

It's also a good idea to have team members who can provide customer service as well since technical support and customer service often overlap in many organizations.

Choose the best tools

The technical support team is the team who are responsible for keeping customers happy and ensuring that they are able to use the product or service without any issues. Therefore, it is essential that they have the right tools by their side to ensure a smooth customer experience.

Fullview is designed specifically for technical support and can help to demystify customer support issues and offer proactive support. When a customer support agent receives a request or notices an issue, they can quickly review a user's latest sessions in their app to see bugs and issues in context. Once they have done that, they can escalate to a cobrowsing call and control their user's screen to guide them and solve issues.

Create a knowledge base

Lastly, you need to create a knowledge base for your technical support team. This will provide them with all the information they need when troubleshooting customer issues and help them find answers more quickly.

Your knowledge base should include detailed instructions on how to solve common problems, as well as any resources and documents that the team may need access to in order to solve customer issues quickly.

For example, it could contain a FAQ section, help articles, user manuals, and even video tutorials. All of these resources should be updated regularly and made available to the technical support team so that they have all the information they need when it comes time to troubleshoot customer issues.

Conclusion 

By taking the time to set up a technical support team, you can ensure that customers receive the help they need and that their issues are resolved in a timely manner. With the right tools, staff, and KPIs in place, your team can provide an exceptional customer experience with every interaction.