Yes it sucks getting those mails where customers are telling you something is wrong, or there’s something they don’t like, but as the saying goes…What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

There really isn’t a better feeling than turning around an unhappy customer. Last year we had a customer on the brink of leaving us to go back to one of our competitors. All it took was to listen to what they really wanted, what they really struggled with, and without doing much, we were able to use what we heard to turn it around. I strongly believe if I wasn’t on support we would have lost that customer, not because support can’t handle it, but because there are certain things a CEO or founder can pick up on that nobody else can.

I was thinking about the “the role of a CEO is to do whatever is the most high-ROI task for the business at any given time” comment and actually think this should be expanded to “the role of EVERY EMPLOYEE is to do whatever is the most high-ROI task for the business at any given time”. Why wouldn’t you want everyone to add the most value they can each day?

Of course, there needs to be a framework in place to make sure that the perception of biggest ROI and actual ROI match. Also people need to be transparent and explicit about what they are currently doing and why it’s the right thing. In particular the balance between short-term ROI with long-term ROI. We’re currently experimenting with a lot of the concepts in this approach: http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/ and finding it really useful in transitioning to a better way to run an organisation. I think you’d find some of the ideas interesting too.

I can’t even stress how much important for us were to involve lead developers into customer support process. It was absolutely game changing in many aspects (mainly product dev).

Product guys including CEO were serving customers to find out their everyday obstacles. I really appreciate your blog post Alex as it provides complete view of this topic. Maybe our case will be helpful for the folks down here, too. Hope you do not mind if I left this presentation here. It provides our view on customer service in the SaaS startup http://www.slideshare.net/presspad/saa-s-support-experiment-at-presspad-a-digital-publishing-startup

I still play a considerable role in support here at Fitzii and can’t imagine being able to make the right product and prioritization decisions without that deep connection to the software we sell and the customers we serve. As you and others have pointed out, it also ensures the focus is not just on new features, but also removing small bugs and nuisance behaviour.

Not everyone’s on the same page though – In the past, I’ve been told on several occasions to spend less time on customer support and more time on “high-value” activities – Aaarghhh! Your perspective that the role of CEO is to do whatever is the most high-ROI task for the business at any given time is spot on.

And as a product manager, you will always impress your users by fixing annoying things far more than when you introduce totally new features.

I remember the standing ovation I got at a user conference 15 years ago when I showed off a change that finally allowed a frequently used modal dialog to be minimized and resized. Changing one line of code brought down the house. 🙂

There’s way too much focus on developing, marketing and sales but not nearly enough on making a product that works for customers you already have.

Glad to hear you’re getting back to your roots.