Keeping Customers Happy

When we started Lob, we had 3 things we thought that – if we did correctly – would keep customers coming back and using Lob:

1. Affordability
2. Customer Experience
3. Customer Support

On a continuous basis we are always trying to figure out how to make our API more affordable, our customer experience more intuitive, and have the best customer support available.

I want to touch on how we do customer support at Lob as I think this is one of the biggest things that young startups have a hard time doing.

For us we narrowed customer support to 3 key areas:

1. Communication Channels - How can I get in touch with someone at Lob?
2. Speed - How fast can they help me?
3. Helpfulness - Were they able to answer/solve my question/problem?

While we are still trying to make our customer support better, here is a breakdown of how we think about each aspect.

Communication Channels

We currently have 4 open communication channels to reach out to support.

1. Live Chat (Olark)
2. Contact us form (lob.com/feedback)
3. Support email (support@lob.com)
4. Direct emails (We publicize our emails on our about page)

The goal here is to be accessible. We want our users to feel that if they have a problem or question that they have multiple avenues they can use in order to get in touch with someone at Lob who can help them.

Speed

Response time is by far the most important factor that is undervalued by our community of startups. At Lob we have found that there is a high correlation between speed of response and customer satisfaction. Therefore, we try to respond freaky fast. Think Jimmy Johns fast but for customer support.

What that means is that sometimes you will get a response within 2 minutes. Ultimately our goal is to get back to you so we can figure out the problem. Nothing is more important to us than helping our customer and making sure that the issues they are having are solved fast.

The worst thing that we have personally experienced before we started Lob was when you are using someone else’s software TODAY but have a minor issue that doesn’t get resolved for a week or longer. This leaves a bad taste and we wanted to make sure this doesn’t happen at Lob.

Helpfulness

Once we get a hold of our customer, the next biggest challenge is making sure that we are answering the question and or figuring out the problem.

What this means in some cases is staying up at night to make sure that bug fixes get tested and pushed out with 24 hours or jumping on the phone with a customer to understand the problem better. And even more – sometimes it means making the trip to meet your customer in person to help them get setup.

At this stage our sole goal is to make sure our customers are beyond happy. Happy would be the status quo and we want to make their engagement with us memorable.

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