Customer Support - how to develop a good system

Most large organisations and government agencies have a convoluted way of dealing with customer inquiries, involving some or all of the following hassles:

• They make it difficult for the customer to locate their contact center or even to send in an e-mail inquiry.
•  Their feedback form ask for many unnecessary information which failed to pass their through validation checks (aka roadblocks). 
• When they reply (and it can take days), they send you a webpage of irrelevant information for the customer to search through their maze. Often, the customer has to go through a few mazes to get the answer (and don't be suprised that they get the wrong answer). 
• The customers are often confused and need to get to the call center for guidance
• If the customer manage to get to their call center (which is clearly discouraged), the customer has to go through a maze of irrelevant messages (press 1 for this and 2 for that).

Recently, I experienced the customer support provided by Dropbox (www.dropbox.com). They are excellent. They are an example of what customer service should be. They managed to handle a complicated issue with less time (for their support staff and the customer). It was a pleasant experience.

I recommend all large organisations and government agencies in Singapore to study the customer support system adopted by Dropbox. Read here.

Tan Kin Lian