“I’m sorry, you have our Professional subscription, but you must have the Premium subscription to receive live phone support.” To which I say…”when did support become a premium?”
We live in a world of up-charges and in-app purchases, where companies can hook you at a lower cost and find ways to charge you more later. Flying across the country? I hope you don’t need to bring any luggage.
We live in a world becoming robot-driven, where we can scan and pay for groceries without ever interacting with a human. Until you accidentally scan something twice.
It seems we live in a world where customer support is dead. It’s no longer valued by many retailers. In order to compete with robots, retailers are closing shop or scaling back humans. You know, humans are the ones who can help you find what you’re looking for... Or you can ask questions about which faucet fits your sink.
SchoolStatus support is different, purposefully. Don’t get me wrong, we offer self-service tools, and we try to build our software to be intuitive enough so users don’t require support. But when users do need support? We bring it. And, we welcome it.
1) Everyone receives the same level of support
At SchoolStatus, our mission is to ensure everyone receives the same level of support. Whether you’re a superintendent of a multi-million dollar school district, or an assistant third grade teacher, our phone number is the same. 855-9-STATUS. That’s right, we publish our phone number. Again that’s 855-9-STATUS. And you can call it, day or night, and someone will help you.
A human will physically talk to you. You won’t have to enter or speak an account number and 17 phone trees later, talk to a human who then asks for your account number.
2) Support requests make us better
Newsflash: software engineers and support staff don’t always know everything.
We look to our users, often teachers and administrators in the daily trenches of educating kids, to help us understand how SchoolStatus contributes to their lives, making them better at their jobs. Understanding when and how users want to use our product helps us grow to meet the ever-changing K12 EdTech market.
3) Engaged users ask for help
You know who doesn’t call or email support? Someone who doesn’t use the product.
Engaged users actually use the product and have questions, experience issues, or have feature requests.
We look at increases in support requests as a positive indicator that folks are actively using our products. We can’t know what users don’t tell us, so we welcome questions, even if they are from unhappy users. We see that as an opportunity to go above and beyond user expectations.
4) We want you to get the most from our product
And if you aren’t, we want to hear about it. Companies grow by customer demand. They have since the beginning of time. Products and services offer things people want.
The moment people no longer want, need, or like your product or its differentiation from the competition, you’re as good as dead.
5) We feel your pain and take ownership of it
At the end of the day, customers, users, people just want to be heard. They want to feel like someone is listening and actually cares about the outcome.
When SchoolStatus hires Customer Support Specialists, this is one of the most important personality traits...empathy. We’ve all been on the other side of a customer support scenario. And we’ve learned from all those bad experiences how to be different, purposefully.
So, whether you have a gripe or a good idea, we want to hear from you. Call us at 1-855-9-STATUS, email help@schoolstatus.com or chat with us while logged in. It’s not just lip service….it’s customer service.
