From Fix-it Felix to Firefighters: The Crucial Role of Digital Support in Tech

Ertoy, Birkan, Support Services Team Manager, Flatiron Software

Without a doubt, development teams are at the core of a tech company. Obviously, with no developer, there is no one to create a digital product. On the flip side of the coin, product managers are the ones who shepherd the development process to hit market demand in the desired format. This may seem like a shallow explanation of what a tech company does, but this is how a tech company operates at its simplest.

On the digital side of tech companies, there is another team that is often neglected or ignored: the digital support team. From a hierarchical perspective, this may not seem like a problem. Because support essentially maintains a previously developed feature or product, while there are lots of entries on the web about why a support team is important, there are only a few discussions on how a digital support team can help your company build resilience against the ever-changing nature of the digital world.

As it is widely known today, there is no single type of support team. Your company may need a customer support team, which usually ties customer needs to your digital team. Or you may need a digital support team where the members are skilled enough to "get their hands dirty" to troubleshoot or help internal teams in the digital division. This type of support plays the role of "Fix-it Felix." They are on the side of end-users in need and have a toolkit to help customers with problems. From this perspective, they are skilled in both communications and troubleshooting.

Despite this, many tech companies neglect a skilled digital support team and do not invest in this division. The easiest solution to fill this team’s gap is to task product managers with support-related tasks. The reason behind this approach is the fact that product managers are traditionally the first point of contact for customers. But they shouldn’t be positioned as the first go-to person in today's changing world.

As an example, one of your biggest clients may experience a blocker in your product due to a bug. In this case, your product managers need to cancel all important business-related meetings, deprioritize revenue-impacting feature planning, etc. to make some room to investigate and troubleshoot the issue or spend time on finding a workaround. They will also need to report the issue to your development team and then jump on a call to advocate the issue to the business so that it can be prioritized in your current or next sprint. This does not mean that the product team should not be tech-savvy. Put simply, giving two jobs to the same person or to a single group that requires two different skill sets will eventually backfire and result in half-done tasks. It should be noted that they will also need to maintain communication with your client.

Such an approach to building a digital team could cause issues with trust-building among customers, which will eventually damage retention. A further instance in which the product team is dealing with multiple different tasks at the same time is when clients escalate issues to the business level. In a scenario, however, where there is dedicated digital support that helps to maintain communications with the customers while also handling the troubleshooting or narrowing down the issues, your product team can focus on growing business and adding revenue to the company. This will also help the development team, as they will likely spend less time isolating the issue.

Having a digital support team, in brief, will help your business delegate important tasks to a dedicated team. This involves initial investigations, troubleshooting issues, maintaining communications with clients and customers, and documenting previous issues to shed light on possible future issues.

Once the company notices that the escalation to the product team or higher management decreased, it will be obvious that the digital team maintains the system and shields internal teams from the fire on the front lines. After all, you will not notice the presence of a good digital support team as they work to put out the fire on the front lines, but it will definitely backfire if digital support is not there. As a result of neglecting support, you may see an increase in burnout among your product team members and delays in feature deliveries. A lack of dedicated support will also damage your trust among your customers, as people prefer a dedicated person that they can reach out to when needed. But it is definitely harder to be there for customers without a dedicated team, especially in an ever changing and agile world where tech companies are also affected. If you decide to form a digital support team that will eventually serve as the first line of defense when maintaining the system or a product, you will notice that they build trust while the business grows stably with fewer interruptions on the business side of operations.