
Show HN: A collection of support replies to make your support stand out - sivaram636
http://supportexamples.com/
======
nkrisc
I know this is generally effective, which is why it's done, but personally I
hate it: reflecting what I said back to me and telling me how frustrating it
must be. No shit, I know that. Don't make me read that, just tell me how the
problem can be solved. I don't even need you to tell me you're sorry. I'm not
looking for empathy or a shoulder to cry on, I'm looking for a solution and to
waste as little time as possible. The worst is when you're _calling_ support
and have to listen to them talk through this BS in real time, at least in an
email I can skim over it.

For the cynical among us, these responses are probably aggravating.

For the majority of people though, they're probably effective.

~~~
lbotos
You are highlighting something that we are trying to quantify on my team right
now. Customers come to you either scared or savvy, or somewhere on that
spectrum.

You are often a savvy customer, that is being treated like you are scared.
That disconnect is where your animosity comes from.

Good Support will be able to quickly identify where you are on the scale, and
tailor the response appropriately.

Problem number two: It's hard to keep good people in support because it's
difficult and often underpaid because its a cost of good sold.

~~~
wpietri
> It's hard to keep good people in support because it's difficult and often
> underpaid because its a cost of good sold.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that it's marketing and brand-
building. Yet another is that it's user research. And vital data for process
improvement, product improvement, and waste reduction.

In reading about Lean Manufacturing, one of the most interesting things I
learned is that companies that successfully transition to it don't just change
their manufacturing. They change their accounting. That's because traditional
accounting has viewpoints baked into it that conflict with long-term
improvement.

~~~
sdoering
I am very interested in this. especially the change in accounting and the
reasoning behind this. could you point me in the right direction regarding
where you read it?

thanks in advance.

~~~
wpietri
It has been some years, but I think the book that most opened my eyes on this
was this one:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IED92S/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IED92S/)

I know less about them, but I also was really impressed by a talk from Bjarte
Bogsnes about Beyond Budgeting. [https://bbrt.org/](https://bbrt.org/)

~~~
sdoering
Thank you so very much! Appreciated...

~~~
wpietri
Oh, and one way I've heard to express it is that most businesses are focused
on costs and profits. But the right approach is to focus on value creation and
waste.

So if I'm making hamburgers, the way to sustained profit isn't identifying my
biggest cost (say, beef) and then cutting it. It's by identifying the biggest
wastes and reducing them. So the first thing I do is to reduce beef inventory,
so I'm not throwing out unused meat (or serving old meat, which also reduces
customer value). I minimize overproduction, so I'm not tossing (or serving)
staled cooked burgers. Maybe I change how the patty is made, because all
things equal people like the look and flavor of a thinner but wider burger
that peeps past the edge of he bun.

Similarly, I'd look at customer service as a way to maximize value delivered.
Even if we make and sell a product that's in theory great, no value is
delivered if a person can't figure out how to work it. So obviously, we need
to help every person who buys it. But then we _also_ look upstream in the
process, to see how we can redesign the product and its experience so that
customer support is less necessary. That in turn lets existing CS staff
discover and mitigate less obvious problems.

Is that helpful?

------
gigama
Hi [customer rep's name]

Thanks for taking time to cut and paste your response into your company's
email support system. Unfortunately, I will not give you any future business
because instead of quickly resolving the issue you are wasting my valuable
time with patronizing platitudes and endless ineffectiveness.

However, I realize you are just a cog in a wheel doing your job to get a
paycheck so I will play a few rounds of cut-and-paste with you just for fun
before I call in and play the punch-a-zero-until-reaching-a-person game to
actually get the issue resolved.

I hope this feedback helps. Let my spam filter know if you have any more
questions or comments!

Sincerely,

[your name]

~~~
herodotus
Thanks for this! And I never respond to customer satisfaction surveys.

------
mjmasn
Might be a British/American difference but I found all of these incredibly
patronising and insincere. You need empathy and sincerity to be good at
customer service. At the very least just think of the reply you'd expect if
you had the same problem with a different company.

~~~
inetknght
> _I found all of these incredibly patronising and insincere_

I'm American. I find close to 70% of my interactions with support staff is
insincere on the part of the support staff.

~~~
hnarn
I don't mean for this to sound patronizing but that's because your compatriots
(Americans) expect and want this kind of support. I know this from working in
support for a long time and handling customers from all over the globe.
Nowhere is the entitlement and expectation for "beyond friendly" service as
problematic as it is for US customers.

And it's not just B2C, this type of behavior is creeping into B2B interactions
as well, to the degree that technical consultants and specially trained staff
are expected to act in a vapid and thoroughly "insincere" manner as well,
anything else is seen as unprofessional.

In most parts of Europe, it's another story entirely. If you know what you're
doing and you're doing it well, most people understand you're just doing your
job, and they will not expect faked enthusiasm or insincere empathy. In fact,
in many markets a dash of cynicism will actually get you closer to the
customer.

Of course, this is generalizing and there are Americans who "act European" and
vice versa, but the minefield of attempting to be sincere to a US customer is
like nothing I've experienced anywhere else. It's almost like an
_angebergesellschaft_ where some people are just waiting to pounce on you for
your unprofessional behavior, knowing that they will be backed up by
management because noone wants people to be unprofessional, right.

~~~
totololo
> angebergesellschaft

Google didn't help with translating this one, can you shed Teutonic light on
this word?

~~~
mjmasn
I got angeber = "show off" and gesellschaft = "society", which I think makes
sense in the context of hnarn's comment. I'm not German though so not 100%
sure.

~~~
hnarn
"Angeber" is a somewhat archaic word for an informant (but apparently means
"show-off" today), so it's someone who reports you to the authorities,
essentially a "snitch" but with a much more authoritarian connotation. So it's
a society of informants, where everybody's afraid to be genuine due to the
possible repercussions.

------
ddingus
I pretty much hate these.

When I do support, I treat my users as a peer to the highest degree possible.
They are on my team, and I am on theirs and this is how we feed the kids. Or
build for our futures... whatever.

I do find some need the handling described here. And they get it. No worries.
Most do not. They want help first and foremost. I make sure they get it asap.

But this stuff as a first response?

No way. I much prefer to respond in a way that shows I understand what they
are telling me, and either give them options to resolve, or start asking
questions so that I can do that.

And when I do not know, I say that, asking for their help getting after fixing
whatever has happened to them.

------
throwanem
They stand out as overly verbose and insincere, but I'm not sure that's
something worth emulating.

------
brianmcc
If "standing out" is your goal, sorry but generic boilerplate platitudes is
not the way to go.

I reckon the problem is this vague notion that exists about what
"professional" looks like - slick, smooth, bland, and relentlessly positive
seems to be an easy bar.

Honestly if you want to promote replies that stand out, then you need to do
just that: make them _stand out_ , not just blend in.

------
eganist
Hey sivaram636, can I request that you redirect port 80 to 443? You've already
got TLS and HSTS enabled, but people can still use your site via HTTP, which
is what you linked. Optionally, you can follow these instructions to preload
your domain to the HSTS preload list:
[https://hstspreload.org/?domain=supportexamples.com](https://hstspreload.org/?domain=supportexamples.com)

~~~
sivaram636
Thanks for letting me know. I have added a force redirect to https :)

~~~
nkrisc
This is what a customer service response should look like.

------
vinaypai
Seems like a collection of generic corporate speak. Most of them are some
variation on "I'm so [sorry/happy] that you had a [frustrating/great]
experience with our product".

------
hnarn
As someone who have worked in support for a long time, these may do the trick
for a non-technical customer base that isn't interested in anything but 75%
therapy and 25% problem resolution, but I state with conviction that most
customers that come to you with a problem of a technical nature, and have the
technical competence to understand the crux of the issue, will expect a
technical and competent response. That's how you "stand out" in terms of
support, because it's pathetically and amazingly rare.

------
thepete2
I honestly believe that auto-generated messages of any kind should be marked
as such. It's incredibly annoying to read through these kinds of messages
knowing they're not really written for you. The issue here for me is
respecting your customer's time/attention.

~~~
ddingus
That is what I do with templates.

"Hey Bob, we have seen that one happen and we have nothing special noted on
your case so far.

Let me send you our internal tech note. Give it a go and let me know where you
end up. If anything does not make sense get back with me and we can do it
together.

They know it is a cut n paste, but one that is qualified, warranted and
indicated. Easy peasy.

------
perlgeek
You know what makes support stand out, in a positive way?

Actually reading my question.

Giving me a competent answer that doesn't include telling me to try thing that
I've already tried, and which I've also documented in my original
email/support ticket (see my first point).

If I hit a bug in the system, acknowledge that it's a bug, and tell me
something about its state (has it been triaged yet?). If possible, point me to
it in a public bug tracker.

------
geocrasher
I'm all in favor of reusing my own replies to customers as long as I customize
them. I'm just saving myself some typing. I teach others to do this as a way
to optimize their workflow and save the typing, but not the _thinking_.

What most people intend to do is to optimize themselves, but what they end up
doing is automating themselves. Overusing predefined replies, no matter well
written, turns one into an automaton.

~~~
josephwegner
This.

I lead a technical support team - we have very well written macro responses
for a variety of topics, some technical and some not, but almost always we
modify the boilerplate with ticket-specific context. There's no reason why I
should type the description of a Request Timeout error 15 times per day, but
it's certainly worth the effort to include that pre-written information with
some relevant context.

------
dimitar
I've worked for years in various forms of Support, both end users and business
clients (basically the bosses of the users).

These replies are the most useful when Support is B2C and absolutely crucial
for some cultures like the US.

When supporting a business I've found that there are other useful skills:

* Understanding different stakeholders and how their needs differ. Just because someone's email is person@clientdomain.com doesn't mean they can increase scope and give you more work just because.

* Building trust is crucial, and being seen as genuine is extremely important - better err on the side of being truthful, even if it means you might be rude.

* If you correct the person you are talking to might be just what the his organization wants and expects from you.

* Generally the people you talk to the other side must be treated as peers, because at the end of the day you and they are both hired by someone to achieve a particular goal. They might even turn out to be contractors, but often this information is hidden.

* Above all else your job is to make money for your company. It is up to you, not marketing, upper management or sales.

~~~
anitil
> absolutely crucial for some cultures like the US

I'm interested to hear what you mean by this. What does non-US support look
like? I'm from Australia but it seems most companies here adopt US-centric
support system which seem to sliiightly hit the mark, but I can't quite put my
finger on the difference.

~~~
dimitar
For example you have to tell customers "I will fix this for you" otherwise
seem to get uncomfortable and might call your manager to complain that you are
not helpful enough. I've seen it happen enough they train support reps yo use
that specific phrase.

------
twic
Question for sivaram636: if you contacted a supplier about a problem and
received a reply like one of these, how would it make you feel?

------
denster
Hey sivaram636, it'd be fun to collaborate on maintaining this list of
responses & how it evolves over time.

We've built a quick UI that shows the same dataset & would be interested to
see which other features the community would like to see: [https://support-
samples.mintdata.com/](https://support-samples.mintdata.com/)

Thoughts?

~~~
NewsAware
On a mobile phone the original is noticeably faster to load, way more visually
appealing, and not broken. Mintdata doesn't seem to care for mobile phone
display width (in this case?)

------
admax88q
Honestly its things like this which remind me of the "telemarketer
singularity."

[https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/rinesi20150806](https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/rinesi20150806)

"The future isn’t a robot boot stamping on a human face forever. It’s a world
where everything you see has a little telemarketer inside them, one that knows
everything about you and never, ever, stops selling things to you."

Template conversations intended to convince the mark they are heard and
understood. Scripts designed to simulate a real human interaction and
conversation.

Sure this is int he context of "support" rather than "telemarketing" but the
feel is the same. Substitute real human interaction with scripted simulated
interaction, designed and optimized to evoke the desired emotional reaction to
the target.

------
agopaul
Thank you! As a non-native English speaker this is actually pretty useful.

Of course I don't think this should be used as a copy/paste solution but more
for finding inspiration on how to _politely_ reply to customers when hard
questions arise (eg. request for discounting)

------
rkagerer
These canned responses totally miss the point. Good support comes from putting
knowledgeable people who truly care on the front lines, and giving them the
tools and authority to get things done directly.

I'm sure everyone here's experienced the difference between a support
superstar vs. apathetic call centre zombie. High-caliber reps don't need to
fake it with cosmetic literary lipstick. On the other hand if you're using
these templates to script the interactions of your underperformers, their tone
and empathy will lose authenticity as soon as your customer figures out they
were cut and pasted by someone who couldn't be bothered to personalize a
response.

------
musiccog
'Customer Support' is treated as a cost-center in far too many businesses.
Good customer support can be used as a marketing tool - a differentiator to
competitors.

But in the case of bugs and feature enhancements, this requires a more (..and
I hate to say the words..) a more 'agile' approach.

In my experience, there is often a big gap between Support and Engineering.

If I were given a choice between delivering new features and fixing existing
ones, I would always choose the latter.

Make an existing customer happier, and make future sales more viable.

------
kuu
So the plan for standing out is by copying someone else's answers...

~~~
sivaram636
The plan is to create a place for customer support heroes to share and learn
from each other.

~~~
geocrasher
I am sorry to say this, but this is the opposite of what you have
accomplished. You've just given lazy support reps templates so that they don't
have to think, they can just copy/paste. I've been doing support for 20+ years
in various roles, and I have seen what happens when people have templates:
They stop thinking for themselves. It's not good. I wish you the best all the
same.

------
deeblering4
Yeah, no. The patronizing wall-of-text approach is terrible.

Actual useful support replies can't really be scripted, because they are
specific to the context of the request.

------
telecuda
One way we make our support replies stand out that wasn't obvious when we
started:

If you provide phone support, email your customer a summary of what their
problem was and how you solved it on the call along with links to user guide
articles where applicable.

The customer can now easily send follow-up questions via that thread, while
your team has better documentation of their support history.

------
Animats
None of the answers shown have anything to do with fixing the problem. If I
contact support, I want either a fix or a refund.

See "Bedbug letter".[1]

[1] [https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-
letter/](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-bedbug-letter/)

~~~
bedosh
Right now, the second example is an actual example of this === I know that
having to go through multiple troubleshooting steps and not having any of them
work can be a real pain, especially when you have more important things to be
doing.” Lastly, let them know that you have been looking into the issue and
that you think it should be resolved: “That being said, I think we might have
gotten to the bottom of this." ===

They forgot to remove the instruction text before replying, I guess this is
the modern equivalent of the forgotten Post It note in the bedbug letter.

------
Jommi
The entitlement here in the comments is astounding.

I would bet that if you had two competing services, with 1) being expensive
but providing you with individual support, while 2) Being cheaper and giving
you automatic responses, 99% would go for the 2) option.

People are not willing to pay for the level of customer support that they
assume.

~~~
ddingus
Sure they are, but those expectations need to be set early on too.

Plenty of people will pay for value added. The whole trick is to actually add
that value and ask money for it.

The ones that buy in will use the support and appreciate its role in their
success.

~~~
Jommi
I've yet to see an example of this that actually works. I guess Google is one
of the heaviest proponents of "get support only if you pay for it". Any
others?

~~~
ddingus
There is a big world of business out there.

Look at all the top PLM, ERP, CAD...

And capital equipment.

Many others.

------
johnthuss
Aw, I was hoping the summary was sarcasm and this would have humorous examples
of things NOT to do.

~~~
defulmere
"Cribbing support replies from a website" is a pretty good example of what not
to do.

------
erikbye
Give me one of these responses and I will leave your service.

------
meristem
This reminds me of how support and related teams are underfunded and
undertrained both in their product line and in psychology.

------
fudged71
Does a site like this exist for sales script?

~~~
sivaram636
Found this [https://marketingexamples.com/](https://marketingexamples.com/) :)

