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Why Startups should support their users before they acquire them

 A few years ago, I took a Customer Support course with Side Hustle Internship. The instructor asked us who the “owner” of a company is, and we all gave responses. Some said the CEO, some said the largest shareholder, among other things.

The instructor then told us the customer is the owner of any establishment because anything we do is geared towards making sure that the end users are always happy with the product. The instructor further explained that regardless of whether our services improve the lives of our users or not, they need to be always happy with our services because without them, there is no business.
As a startup, its very easy to get carried away trying to build the perfect product, and when you have that product, you carry that confidence into the market only to be met with users that ask the most random questions that even your team didn’t even think of.
Customer support can make and destroy your product and that is why you need to start supporting your users before you acquire them. Do thorough user research, test your prototypes and be sure that your product passes all usability tests.
No one can use a product as easily as the people building the said product and this creates a warped sense of usability, you will assume that people will find your product easy to use because you find it easy to use as well.
Start by testing your products with users that have varying technological exposures, address all their pain points carefully and send the products back for testing till every group of testers are satisfied.
Upon launching your product to the public, make sure you guide your first few hundred users by the hand. Don’t assume they know how to use it, update your support knowledge base with articles that can help users help themselves, invest in a good support tool, and let your users get the sense that you are by their side every step of the way.
Most importantly, gather feedback and act on them. No one wants to go through the stress of contacting your support team, so when they do, solve the problems and stand by them till they can use your product to their satisfaction.
Customer Support doesn’t start when your product launches, it starts from the predevelopment stages, and it never ends. Build a support team that your users will boast of this can even help with marketing.

Quick questions:
1. In your opinion, which startup today has the best Support team? 
2. What are some of the best support tools you've used?

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