Should startup founders answer support messages?
A few months ago, I was invited to an online panel discussion along with 2 other startup founders to share our startup journey.
At the end of the panel, we were asked to share a single piece of advice with the new entrepreneurs. And one of the panelists said: "Never answer support messages. You're the founder and must do more important and more high-level jobs".
For me, who has always believed in the power of answering the support messages, it was very shocking, so when it was my turn to give advice, I said, "Do answer support messages very regularly, especially before your product-market-fit. It gives you insights no other task would!".
I've always learned A LOT about my product and customers by answering the support messages myself.
I even believe that sometimes you should engage other team members too to answer the support messages! It not only creates empathy, but also gives you very deep knowledge about your product, market, and customers individually.
I think any business advice that starts off with "always" or "never" is usually wrong. The answer is almost always "it depends."
In this case, it depends on the stage of the company. I think it's great for the founders to do support at the beginning to learn about the customer as you say, and probably less important after the company has reached product-market fit and is in scaling-mode.
I tend to be as responsive as I can when it comes to BotMeNot, especially when it comes to user feedback. It's currently the most important thing to me, to see how I can solve user's problem better. And I think talking with my beta users is one of the best ways to do so.
I fail to see what that panelist believes to be more important than helping their users when they need to most.
Even in scaling mode, you can always set away some time to answer at least one ticket per week.
Definitely agree, I don't think support is 'below' anyone. Delighting customers is tbh the best part of the job.
You should definitely answer support messages, especially early on.
On top of all of the benefits you listed, it also makes customers feel special.
"I got my email answered by the CEO of the company? No way!"
Of course
Cool note: The Stripe founders actually had an alert system that would ping them at any time of the day in case someone needed support.
I guess it's good if you have not enough stuff, or if you know the response very well. I have seen CEO answering on twitter for some support.