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Do You Have More Customer Support Than Software Staff?

Does your company have a high ratio of Customer Support team members to Software Engineers? If so, do you know why that is?

If that is the case in your company, you may or may not have a problem, but it may be worth investigating if you don’t know the reason.

Having an enormous Customer Support team, for your company size may be an indication of some underlying issues such as: poor product quality, a poorly designed product, or a poorly documented product. If any of those are true, over time it will end up costing your company money, time, and customer satisfaction. Ultimately those costs will become a disadvantage for your business.

Common Reasons for Large Support Teams

While the reasons can vary why a software company has a large Customer Support team, here are some common reasons:

  • A very large user base – If the software has a large user base, it often requires a proportionate Customer Support team to handle the volume of inquiries, troubleshooting, and support requests effectively.
  • A complex product – If the software is complex or offers a wide range of features, users may require more assistance in understanding how to use it effectively. A larger support team can provide the necessary guidance and assistance for users navigating the intricacies of the software.
  • Poor product and release documentation – When the product lacks sufficient documentation the users will have a harder time understanding how to use it. This will only compound if the system itself happens to be a complex one. Additionally, lack of adequate documentation when new features are released will make it difficult for the users, resulting in the need for a larger Support team.
  • Poor product quality – When the product has many quality issues, users will regularly report those and that will increase the need for a larger Support team.

Understanding the WHY

You may have one or more of the scenarios listed above. In either case, it is healthy to know why your company needs the Support team size that it does.

A good place to start is to take inventory of the types of support calls/cases your team receives and the percentages of each category.

Let’s take a look at some hypothetical examples:

Example 1

  • Distribution of calls/cases
    • 80% – questions about how to use the system
    • 20% – related to bugs in the system
  • Potential Indications
    • Very complex product
    • Poor release documentation
    • Both of the above
    • Some quality issues – Note: Quality support cases are worth investigating further because not everything reported as a bug turns out to be a true bug. Sometimes a confused customer may submit a case as a bug which ends up being a scenario where they were using the system in the wrong way. If that is the case, this might be an indication of a complex product or poor documentation.


Example 2

  • Distribution of calls/cases
    • 50% – related to bugs in the system
    • 20% – questions about how to use the system
    • 30% – customization and integration needs
  • Potential Indications
    • Potentially a serious quality problem – again, per the note above it is important to understand how many of the bug related cases are true bugs as opposed to something else.
    • Some indication of a complex product and/or poor release documentation
    • Some indication that the customers have needs for more use cases that the product currently covers

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Are you using quick fixes or fixing the real issue?

If you have a high ratio of Support vs Software staff it may be an indication that you have room for improvement.

In this case it is important to address the real issue/s, rather than applying quick fix solutions.

Adding more Support Team staff members would be quick and easy. However, it will cost extra money and will not address the real issues.

Addressing the real issues will require understanding the causes of high-volume support cases in the various categories.

Common categories include:

  • Bug-related type support cases
  • “How to use the system?” questions
  • Customization questions
  • Integration questions


The chart below gives you a reference for what can be done to address the real issues:

Click image to enlarge

Conclusion

Have you ever stopped to notice and ponder how your software development and customer support team sizes compare to each other? Do those numbers surprise you? Are you satisfied with how things are today?

If you have a high ratio of support staff to software developers it may be worth diving deeper, understanding why, and taking some action.

It is important to note that there is no magic number for a healthy ratio of Customer Support to Software team members. Every company is different and has different needs. Therefore, if your ratio is high, don’t be immediately alarmed.

Take the time to understand what is happening, why, and then decide on the right action for your company. What you want to avoid are hidden issues slowly creeping in without being properly addressed, later bringing great disadvantages for the business.