I did a very small, informal, and extremely unscientific survey of our sales team to see what the main issue was for people were shopping for customer support software.

The Number 1 reason given was "a disorganized ticket tracking process."

Most of the time this was a result of the kind of problem every business wants: they grew faster than expected. Or they expected the growth but didn't allow for the increase in customer interaction.

In any case, the customer would call with a request or complaint which was written on a post it note or entered onto a spreadsheet or put into a solution that was adequate when the business was smaller but is now overwhelmed.

The results?

• Slow problem resolution
• lost or misrouted tickets
• too much administrative work filling out various forms or interacting with a large number of unintegrated systems
• Some very unhappy customers

When you run a small business you fervently want to keep your customers. It's hard enough to stay afloat without having to spend all your time and money looking for new ones. Not to mention that you will be swimming upstream against a negative public opinion if any of your former customers take the social media route to customer revenge.....er..satisfaction.

If you have considered getting a customer service and support solution, what was your tipping point for action? What caused you to finally decide that you needed to start researching these solutions with intent to buy?

Let us know. I'm sure others are interested in learning about their peers' reasons for investing in customer support software.

Please leave us a comment:

Why do you need customer support software?