I’ve been the support manager at Gecko for a few years now, and I can tell you, no two days have ever been the same.
At least once a week, I’ll be faced with an issue with a site that I’ve never had to deal with before or a request from a client I couldn’t anticipate. It’s an extremely varied role and it’s the reason I enjoy it so much. I can never tell what’s coming my way next!
A website requires a fair bit of maintenance, and I’m not just referring to fixing bugs. We all know that in order to keep your audience engaged, you need to be posting enthralling and interesting content, updating your images and adding new products, etc. All of this really goes beyond a level of just ‘using’ your website, you need to be confident in opening up the bonnet and working on it, which requires some in-depth knowledge and, on occasion, a little bit of support.
Tailored Website Training for Every Client
Before we unleash our clients on their websites, we provide a tailored training session. We start by going over the fundamentals of how their site works and how they can get the most out of it. These sessions contain a fair amount of information and instruction, but we try to keep it focused on the needs of the client, covering the site's main uses and functionality. This will be a first-time experience for some people, and others will already know their stuff, but all will have an array of questions to ask during the session, which we do our best to answer. Since these sessions are conducted online, they are recorded and can be used for reference later on for you and other staff members.
The Support Doesn’t Stop After Handover
A day or so later (sometimes longer), we hand over the reins, and this is where the support begins.
We don’t expect clients to remember everything we cover in a training session or for it to be definitive in what it covers (there's always something else) and I would doubt that the everyday running of a website is a client's only job, so we need to be on hand to give help and guidance when needed.
Real-Life Support Requests We See Every Day
Here are some quick examples of the kind of support requests I might get on a daily basis:
- Hi there. The banner image on my homepage looks pixelated when I add it. Can you please help?
- I’ve been making changes to a page and saving it, but when I check the front-end, I don’t see my changes. This seems to be happening to me a lot. Can you please advise?
- My page is showing a 404 error and I don’t know why, it’s urgent I get this up before lunch, please help!
All good quality genuine issues which are well within my skill set to resolve, and as it happens, well within a client's too... if the time is taken to show them how to identify and eliminate the possible causes.
Why DIY Fixes Are Sometimes Faster
I would guess it takes around five to ten minutes to open a support ticket with us. That’s the time it takes to log in to the dashboard, create the ticket, explain the issues, provide screenshots, supply links to affected pages and send it on its way. Once the ticket reaches us, we will generally reply within the hour to acknowledge it and usually by the end of the working day with a fix. That’s a possible timescale of at least 8 hours to resolve an issue on any given day.
There are two important elements to consider here: the time factor and the fix. Many of the support issues I receive could easily be resolved within the time it takes to raise a ticket, let alone within the time it takes to await a reply and a remedy. This is, of course, easy for me to say with the level of experience I have, but I don’t think that this level of knowledge is necessarily required in most cases; a solid understanding of the basics should be enough.
Teaching Clients to Fish: The Value of Self-Service
When a ticket comes in that I feel is within a client’s capability to address, I always try to make a point of instructing them how to fix it for themselves rather than doing it for them… ‘give a man a fish’ and all that.
In my opinion, this approach makes for a richer, more inclusive and satisfying support experience. We use the information provided by a client in their bug report to provide them with a set of instructions to remedy the fault; essentially, we're working as a team.
Giving a client time to interpret instructions and apply the fix helps to build confidence and an understanding of how a site works, and in turn, the ability to identify and fix future issues themselves. That then becomes a support issue I’ll no longer need to deal with, leaving me to focus on the bugs that clients can’t fix and that really need my attention.
Support Is More Than Just Fixing - It’s Empowering
Rather than leave a client wondering (or not caring) how you fixed a problem, and for them to contact you again the next time that problem occurs, we have the opportunity to supply a set of instructions a client can refer to in the future. Support in my view, is not just about fixing issues for your clients; it’s also about educating them so that they can support themselves. This saves time and effort in raising tickets and means that not only do clients get a sense of understanding by fixing their own site, they can also get on with their day knowing that they have that problem sorted for good.
If you’re ever stuck, unsure, or just want to double-check something before diving in, drop us a line. I’m always happy to help, even if it’s just pointing you in the right direction.
Get in touch and we’ll figure it out together.