We have been getting some really good feedback for our support function. So congratulations to Sarah Bush who has been doing most of our support email recently. We learn a lot from support so its good that our customers feel that they are getting reliable and helpful feedback. Here are a few typical messages:

Thanks Sarah, wish all customer services functions were this good! (Selvedge)

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You are an ace! Many thanks – got straight in to the app. Didn’t even want a password for once!

Now about to enjoy a good read-  My husband hogs the paper copy! (Spectator)

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Thank you so much for telling me what to do.  This is great, and now I can access the wonderful and fascinating archive.  Just what I need for my college and personal research…..the only trouble is now nothing else will get done!!

I am sure all this info was perfectly obvious if only I had looked properly in the first place so thank you for your kind and prompt explanation. (Selvedge)

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Thank you so much. Now that I did it and everything works it seems obvious.

Great app! (A to B)

Support is still a crucial function for us and we really do learn from it. The company’s directors see all the support messages (though there is now too much of it for us to be all reading all of it). Exact Editions is still a new enough company and the space in which we are operating is fast-changing that we can expect to carry on learning much from our support messages and feedback.

But the pattern is changing. The majority of our support messages are now for apps, specifically on the iPad. We still get inquiries related to web access – but the proportion is falling. Another interesting change is that an increasing proportion of our support messages are really for Apple. Especially this is true for inquiries as to how to switch off ‘auto-renewal’ in iTunes; but we also get a good number of support queries from customers who do not know much about ‘syncing’ (WiFi is necessary), about taking screen shots, or who are puzzled about other aspects of the iTunes/iOS system. Apple has done a brilliant job in educating most of its customers in the way that apps work and the ways in which they should be paid for, but I suspect that there will be quite a lot more educating to be done in the years ahead. Apple has shown little sign of lowering its innovative pace. A device platform that advances as quickly as iOS is going to do a lot of educating along the way.

Two other encouraging features of our support record in the last few months. We have more support messages now than we had 6 months ago, but the ratio of support messages to sales is dropping fast. This is an impressionistic ‘statistic’ so you cannot put too much weight on it: but I estimate that we are now getting about one support message for every 50/60 accounts we open. Six months ago we were getting more like one support message for every 20 customers acquired. We would like to see that ratio increase further, ideally by seeing sales continue to double every quarter! But its good to see very positive feedback from the support we give. Thank you team! Thank you contented customers.