More than Support

March 25, 2016

When people ask me what I do I tell them “I’m in the support department at…”. This doesn’t capture what I do or what I want to do in the future. Hearing “Support” invokes the experiences they’ve had with cable companies, airlines, etc.

Support is rarely associated with the idea of better customer experiences. Nor does it sound like the person providing support cares about how successful a customer is. Support is a function under a large umbrella of activities.

To that, we need a name/title for it that describes those who want to create a better customer experience do. Possible titles:

None of these are bad, but they don’t quite capture what I’m looking for. But there is a word that comes to mind:

Centric adjective having (something) as a central interest, influence, subject, etc.

Why do I like this?

Customer Support is reactive work; someone is emailing/calling/live chatting you seeking help. Customer Success is proactive work; creating guides, how-to videos, etc. (Success has the bonus of being 24/7/365). There’s a touch of Project Management here; if customers report the same issues or questions you can make product recommendations to solve the issue or create content that answers a question. The Customer Experience is what the customer thought of their experience; it could be the response from someone replying to an inquiry or following a guide on how to set something up.

An individual, an organization, or even a department can identify themselves as customer-centric. For a company looking to grow their business, optimizing customer-centric thinking is one the best decisions they can make.

So, if that describes you, then the next time someone asks what you do, please join me in saying: “I’m customer-centric”.

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