Key points to identify how much technical support staff you need
technical support staff
Hiring for technical support is one of the most important and complex tasks for a customer support manager. Though there isn’t any rule of thumb that one can apply while staffing for this role, still, you can keep some important points in mind before and during the staffing process.
Things to keep in mind before and while staffing for technical support:
1. Product maturity
Let’s start by talking about your product. Deciding the number of technical support reps required highly depends on product maturity. Is your product new or mature? Well, mature products are generally more stable and better documented. They do not involve frequent confusion in their usage and hence, reduces the impact on your support team. Whereas the new products tend to need more ‘how-to’ support. Moreover, with new products having lesser documented solutions in the knowledge base, they naturally require more assistance, hence, increasing the impact on your team.
Another point to consider is whether your product is targeted towards customers (B2C) or businesses (B2B) and if businesses, are they small (SMB) or large enterprises. Consumer products come with loads of queries regarding usage, technical glitches, and more, while business software leans more toward ‘break-fix.’
2. Customer base
Now, let us consider your customer base. What is the size of your user community? Having a larger customer base gives you the advantage of leveraging an online user community where the customers help one another and share their knowledge within the community. Secondly, ask yourself whether your product is a ‘convenience’ or is it ‘mission-critical. If you have a plug-play application that is mainly used for entertainment purposes, then you might not expect a rush of support queries, as these types of products involve very generic problems. On the other hand, if you have a business application, then you might receive issues that require a hands-on deck within minutes and resolution ASAP.
3.Support timing and platform
Another thing to consider is where your customers and support teams are located. If you have global customers, in that case, you’ll need to determine whether and how to provide 24×7 (or 24×5 or 9×5) support. Do any of your customers have special, contractual, or legal requirements for how you provide support, such as rules around location or citizenship?
After considering all these points, you can finally get into deciding the size of your support team. In the search process, the rule is to start where you stand. Now it’s time to look into your support statistics, regardless of how you are currently handling customer issues. Some important data points that we can extract from here include:
- How many customers do you currently have?
- Is your current support team able to handle the workload, or are they falling further behind daily?
- How much time does it take to resolve an issue?
- How much elapsed time is there from call opening until case closure?
- How many people are providing support?
Next, let’s discuss the goals you want to achieve in the coming years. Some important data points include:
- Sales projection, including expansion into new customer geographies and industries.
- Product plan, new features, markets, acquisitions, etc.
- Requirements for hours of coverage, response, and resolution time.
- Business’s financial requirements like margins, budget, and more.
- Requirements for tools and automation include care tracking (CRM), knowledge base (KM), and user community portals.
- How long does it take to train a new support rep?
Now we can finally get down to the math. Suppose you are a start-up currently having a total of 5 representatives handling support queries over the year. If your business projections are to double in size over the next 12 months, then the gut reaction says that you will need the double of existing support staff, i.e., ten representatives, by the following year.
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With there being 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world, mobile becomes one of the key elements of an omnichannel strategy. With the addition of hundreds of millions of users in a month, it makes sense for a customer to seek support on their mobile devices too.
According to a study conducted by SuperOffice, 90% of customers stated their customer service experience on mobile was negative and 52% of customers said that a poor mobile experience makes them less inclined to the brand. To improve on this factor, make it easier for your customer to navigate and get support. The top complaint of customers for customer service on a mobile site was “difficult to navigate”.
With there being 3.5 billion smartphone users in the world, mobile becomes one of the key elements of an omnichannel strategy. With the addition of hundreds of millions of users in a month, it makes sense for a customer to seek support on their mobile devices too.
According to a study conducted by SuperOffice, 90% of customers stated their customer service experience on mobile was negative and 52% of customers said that a poor mobile experience makes them less inclined to the brand. To improve on this factor, make it easier for your customer to navigate and get support. The top complaint of customers for customer service on a mobile site was “difficult to navigate”.