11 Top Tips for New Age Tech Product Companies

 So, this is how a story unfolded: 

We use a cloud-based tech product for a specific part of our work. 

Of late, we have not been using them much. 

We started getting automated CRM messages like, "You have not visited us for a while" etc. But it really wasn't their fault. Our work had changed and our need for their product was less than it used to be. 

But last week, I needed to use the platform once again. Logged in and tried to do something I'd done hundreds of times earlier. 

There was an error message - "<field name> should be at least 30 minutes in the future." I looked for the field. It wasn't there. Which means this was a backend field that was somehow populated by some script running on the page. But I had no idea how to debug for this! 

Looked for a support channel. The only option was to initiate a callback if the knowledge base has no answer to your query. 

I did. 

The callback came. To their credit, in 15-20 minutes. 

I explained the problem. 

Support Desk: Why don't you make a new page and enter the whole information again? 

Me: I don't want to make a new page. I want to reuse this page. Why am I not able to do that? 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot or a screen recording? 

Me: I have given you the text of the error and the point at which this error is getting triggered. You have my cust id. Why do you need a screenshot to replicate the error? Take the record to your test server and do the transaction there, then debug! 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot? 

Me: No. 

But that's not all. After that, I got 2 emails a day with the following text: 

"Dear Customer: 

This is wrt the ticket that you raised. We hope that it was closed to your satisfaction. Please close the ticket if your issue is resolved" 

- with NO link to close the ticket. No email id on which to confirm whether or not the issue was resolved. Nothing. Just a plain text message from an automated sender. There is also no ticketin dashboard for me as a customer after logging in. 

With this, I got to thinking of the other reasons one has left Tech products behind. And here are some pointers 

Zero Defect Product is not an achievement. It is a MVP. 

If you want to run the marathon, make zero defect your DNA. 

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Dear Tech Product Firms: 

• It is not the customer's job to help you debug your product. It is your job to ensure that a zero-bug product reaches the market. Zero tolerance for production bugs needs to be in your DNA if you are a tech product. Those tech bugs come back with big bites. Ask the graveyard of tech firms. 
• Minimise the customer's experience with the error. Have SoPs in place that tell the support person what exactly they need from the user and then get them cracking. 
• Have an accessible support. It goes a long way in increasing NPS, even from attriting customers. 
• Have a brilliant L1 support team. Half the user's issues can be solved by a well-informed L1 Helpdesk. Don't scrooge on them. 
• There are two quotes related to customers: 

                Steve Jobs: The customer doesn't know what it wants, until you show it to him. 

                David Ogilvy: The customer is not an idiot. She is your wife. 

                Trust Ogilvy. 

• Don't give the customer stupid workarounds. The customer is more ingenious than you when it comes to workarounds. You are being called to solve the problem. 
• "I am trying" means nothing to a retail customer. It means less than nothing to an enterprise customer. The correct response format is, "This will be done by <time>. If we are not able to resolve this by then, we will do <Plan B> to get your business in place." 
• Have product managers spend at least one day a month on L1 support desk. Have L1 support desks attend your sprint planning voting on stories on rotational basis. 
• If you have a wishlist, don't make it a Treasure hunt for the user. Have a simple link that takes a signed in user to the feature wishlist. That feature wishlist is your goldmine. 
• If you do have a wishlist, also add the small feature of "+1" in it, so customers who have similar needs can just upvote a story/feature ask instead of typing out the same thing over and over again. 
• Security is not an afterthought.