Providers of physical products face unique challenges. Unlike digital services, where issues are often similar and predictable, support queries for physical products are more varied. This means there are many different types of questions, each making up a smaller percentage of the total support requests.

Complexity demands structure.

Complex products lead to high variance in support questions, resulting in major complexity in training and providing great service to customers. Complexity demands structure - In support, this means establishing different support tiers, setting up clear escalation points, and creating communication channels between product teams, R&D, and customer support. This is always tough, but it's even tougher for physical product providers.

Most manufacturers end up providing mediocre service, giving wrong answers, and taking too long to do it. Knowledge doesn’t flow internally, and hardworking agents don’t even know what they don’t know. If the agents are off track, they only realize it when the customer gets the wrong answer, and even then, the odds of them telling their team about the new info are slim. This needs to, and can be, changed.

The solution is knowledge.

The solution is knowledge. More specifically, generating, maintaining, and sharing the right information with the right people at the right time. To do this, all companies, especially physical goods manufacturers, need to set up a knowledge core. This might sound like an empty buzzword, so let’s break it down. Businesses need to map out the questions their customers are actually asking, understand what’s driving these complaints, and craft trusted, accurate, and consistent answers for each statistically significant question.

This. Is. Not. Easy. But – it’s worth it.

It may be counter intuitive, but the biggest sign of how valuable setting up this knowledge will be is how hard it was to set up in the first place. Why? Because if setting up the knowledge was hard, that means your team didn’t have the right answers when you started, which means your customers have been getting the wrong answers for a long time.

The best move is to lean on your historical data, analyze your past conversations with clients, see what they’re asking, which answers led to resolutions, and which led to, well, churn. Create a knowledge base your agents can rely on, which new employees can use, and eventually, one that customers can access. Do this right, and the results will blow your expectations out of the water – this is a guarantee. We’ve seen it happen with companies handling 5,000 annual tickets and those with 5 million monthly tickets. Knowledge is the foundation of everything, especially in customer support.