11/17/2008

Someone asked me why I don't hire cheaper help for our support staff. You see, we only hire experienced IT administrators or excellent software developers in our customer support. So I did a little bit of math on the subject of Customer Support. Having majored in Chemistry, I like equations and formulas. These equations are beautiful, in that they are simple and precise. Today, I attempt to translate some business principles related to customer support into mathematical equations to explain the three laws of customer support.

First Law of Customer Support
We know that (Time to Completion) is proportional to (Problem Difficulty) and inversely proportional to (Skill Level) of the problem solver.

(Time to Completion) = (Problem Difficulty) ÷ (Skill Level)

So, the greater the skill level, the faster the problem will be resolved. The denominator, as it increases, reduces the Time to Completion element. Which brings me back to cost. Our top notch support people cost a lot more per person but they perform most jobs in a fraction of the time, so they actually cost less than mediocre talent.


Here is an area everyone likes to discuss, customer satisfaction.

Second Law of Customer Support

We know that (Customer Satisfaction ) is proportional to (Skill Level) and inversely proportional to (Time to Completion). If the time to completion approaches infinity, the (Customer Satisfaction) approaches 0. As (Time to Completion) approaches 0, then (Customer Satisfaction) approaches ∞ , meaning the customer is infinitely happy.

(Customer Satisfaction) = (Skill Level) ÷ (Time to Completion)

The greater the skill level, the greater the customer satisfaction. Otherwise stated:
Faster service (done well) = Happier Customers



Now for some advanced mathematics, with substitutions. We already saw in Law #2 that:

(Customer Satisfaction) = ( Skill Level ) ÷ (Time to Completion)

and we know from Law #1 that

(Time to Completion) = (Problem Difficulty) ÷ (Skill Level)

So, substituting (Time to Completion) with (Problem Difficulty) ÷ (Skill Level) gives us:

(Customer Satisfaction) = (Skill Level) ÷ (Problem Difficulty) ÷ (Skill Level)

Simplifying terms gives us our third law:

Third Law of Customer Support





So, Customer Satisfaction is improved with the square of the Skill Level !!! This means that a person who is twice as good will deliver 4 times the Customer Satisfaction!

This Third Law amplifies the importance of (Skill Level) as the single most critical factor in (Customer Satisfaction).

These Three Laws are quite simple and are the reason why all of the people who handle customer support are experienced IT administrators or excellent software developers.


I know these items cannot be measured in units like weight or volume, but the Three Laws are still true, and they help explain results that many of us know empirically, and helps me justify paying a lot more for talented people to talk to our customers, who, by the way, ultimately pay all of the bills!



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Customer Support