Many companies outsource customer support overseas or they use a casual workforce, who can often feel disengaged from the product or service.
Not at Basecamp. For the past 5 years, they have implemented "Everyone on Support". Everyone on Support means exactly what it the name suggests: every person in the company, whether a designer, developer or podcast producer, spends at least one day every 8 weeks responding to customer emails.
There's a lot of benefits to this, but, in my opinion, the biggest impact is that it actually helps improve their product. You get a developer to answer customer emails where they keep coming into contact with a bug or a less-than-perfect customer experience, and soon enough you'll find they go in and fix the issue themselves.
Basecamp's Everyone on Support policy highlights that customer service isn't just about putting on a friendly face; it's about seeing the product through the customer's eyes and working to make their experience delightful in every possible way.
Mark Eggers
Mark heads up the Sales team at Yarno. He loves to chat, which is fortunate because he’s very good at it. He's our digital Swiss Army Knife, always armed with a solution to any problem.