I have a service challenge for CEOs should the opportunity arise. (Actually, the odds are in my favor.) The next time a friend confronts you with a support problem about your company, take our questionnaire. All that is required is to sit down with your friend, call your support department, and follow the spreadsheet. If they decline, it could be the issue isn't as important as they thought. If they agree, it gives you a great opportunity to see how your company fares against our support checklist. Added bonus, you don't have to say a single word and you can reuse the spreadsheet with your competitors.

One thing this job affords me is the opportunity to deal with support people since I review many products. In a previous life, I ran a tech support department. I think these jobs have given me a good feel for both sides of the support equation. I know how tough support jobs can be and I know the frustrations users encounter. I also know that financials or call statistics aren't the only measure of support, which is why executives need to shadow customers.

The attached Excel spreadsheet is a high-level look at support and not all the questions may apply to your company. At first glance, you may think some of the questions are ridiculous and yet each question represents a problem area I encountered this week with phone support. I've also added comments to some questions.

My intent is that you will go through the spreadsheet and see how you performed. I can't tell you what the right answers should be as I'm too far removed from your company and customers. Each company is different and what works well for one company may not work in another. Think of the spreadsheet as a starting point that you can add, edit and delete questions. You might also want to create a worksheet tab for your competitors. Are they doing as good a job as you are? What do they do differently?

The question you're probably asking is why we're doing this checklist and what does it have to do with productivity? Easywe wasted 9 hours this week on support lines that could've been better used. (And yes, that means I spent considerably more than 9 hours on the phone with support personnel.) This also means your employees could be going through similar frustrations when trying to get their issues resolved. Perhaps, if we all look at our support systems we might find areas of improvement. Instead of complaining about the bad service, I'm offering some points to consider for improvement.

Finally, please remember we all have bad days customers and support reps alike. As empathetic as I am towards support reps, my anger and frustration has occasionally flared. Yes, I have my own improvement checklist and it's longer than the one I'm offering you.

Excel Support Questionnaire