Help! I’m growing too fast!

It’s really hard to scale support when the customer base is growing fast. (It is a wonderful problem to have, but it’s still a problem!) Here are 7 strategic and tactical ideas to survive and thrive in a high-growth environment.

Strategize. A steep growth curve allows and require process tuning, not just hiring more people to do more of the same.

Grow support leadership. Current leaders may not have the experience and skills to take the team to the next level. Re-evaluate if you need to hire more experienced managers and executives.

Segment customers. If you are starting from a small base, chances are that you are treating all customers the same way. With a larger base, review opportunities to provide differentiated levels of service,

Invest in self-service. It’s very difficult to hire and train enough support engineers if growth exceeds 100% per year. Self-service, on the other hand, can be scaled to any level. Write good articles and provide a great website. (We can help.)

Tool up. You will likely need new tools, better tools, and more integrated tools to handle a larger and more complex set of issues. Invest in tooling.

Scale hiring and onboarding. You need to build a machine to reliably recruit and train. Nail your hiring profile, sourcing methods, recruiting process, and of course onboarding.

Use pods and mentors. Inexperienced team members require additional help as they start to work with customers. By creating pods with one mentor and 6-10 new hires, you can quickly ramp up without risking customer issues.

Are you facing steep growth? What are you doing to cope and thrive?