![\"\"](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/giphy-3.gif\")
<\/p>\nProduct and support are often portrayed as the two parts of a business that just \u201ccan\u2019t get along\u201d. Improving communication between these teams is a topic that many of us don’t want to deal with.<\/p>\n
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These professions stand on two opposite sides of the moon. One is the maker, and one is the messenger. The issue is both sides not seeing the other one.<\/p>\n
Support people are (usually) not technical. They don\u2019t fully understand how much work goes into building a product.<\/p>\n
Product people (usually) don\u2019t have as much contact with users. They don\u2019t fully understand how much work goes into communicating with (potential) customers.<\/p>\n
These departments don\u2019t have enough touchpoints to facilitate effective cooperation.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the issue of \u201cdemands and denials\u201d. Product teams can feel like all support teams do is \u201cdemand\u201d things. Support people can feel like product teams always \u201cpush back\u201d on their requests.<\/p>\n Neither of them understand why<\/em>.<\/p>\n The good news is there is no \u201cnatural\u201d feud between product and support people. It all comes down to encouraging communication and, more importantly, understanding<\/em>.<\/p>\n Here are some tips on how to reduce friction between product and support.<\/p>\n Like we said before, product and support are drastically different professions. This makes the main issue in their co-existence simply not knowing about the challenges the \u201cother side\u201d faces.<\/p>\n Even if they know (or think<\/em> they know), they don\u2019t experience it first hand. If they don\u2019t know about it and don\u2019t experience it, they can\u2019t appreciate the effort.<\/p>\n Empathy is a crucial pillar of any kind of healthy communication between very different people (and in this case, professions).<\/p>\n Empathy only shows up along with really understanding<\/em>. Truly understanding only comes with experience<\/em>.<\/p>\n Improving communication starts with giving each team the experience they don’t have.<\/p>\n This allows both parties to witness, first-hand, the truly challenging parts of each other\u2019s jobs.<\/p>\n “Jeez, Greg really has eighteen pissed off people asking for the same feature every day. That really took a toll on me. He really has a lot of patience.”<\/em><\/p>\n “Wow, Jenny spends four hours every week going through and assigning all these roadmap items. That\u2019s some sh*t. She\u2019s really great at analytical thinking.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n And, most importantly\u2014after giving both sides a taste of the \u201cdark side of the moon\u201d, encourage discussion about it:<\/p>\n As humans, we tend to focus on our own struggles first and foremost. The more different than us the person we\u2019re dealing with is, the harder it is to appreciate their effort.<\/p>\n Dipping a finger into the work the other side does on a daily basis is a great start for establishing mutual respect.<\/p>\n One of the main issues that causes friction between product and support is the \u201cdemands and denials\u201d aspect.<\/p>\n Product feels like something is constantly being \u201cdemanded\u201d by support teams (a feature, a fix, whatever). Support feels like product is constantly pushing back on their \u201cdemands\u201d.<\/p>\n Both being \u201cdemanded\u201d something from and constantly being \u201cdenied\u201d are negative feelings. This often reaches a personal level of resentment.<\/p>\n Drastically improving communication can be accomplished by establishing the \u201cwhy?\u201d rule. Basically\u2014both sides are allowed to ask \u201cwhy?\u201d on both occasions\u2014no judgement involved.<\/p>\n Digging into the real, objective reasons behind any ask is a crucial part of a well-oiled product development process:<\/p>\n Product needs context behind a request to understand why<\/em> it should be done.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lot of prioritization involved in the product team\u2019s work. If they don\u2019t have a good \u201cwhy?\u201d (\u201cwhy does this customer want this<\/a>\u201d), it comes across as just an \u201cunreasonable\u201d demand.<\/p>\n They would have to go to their team and ask them to build something \u201cjust because\u201d. This makes their job harder. Result = product is pissed.<\/p>\n Same with support\u2014if product pushes back on something, they can ask \u201cwhy?\u201d for context.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s no reasonable \u201cwhy?\u201d (\u201cwhy we can\u2019t do this right now\u201d), it comes across as if product just doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n They would have to go back to a customer and tell them they can\u2019t have something \u201cjust because\u201d. This makes their job harder. Result = support is pissed.<\/p>\n If there is neutral \u201cwhy?\u201d included in both sides of the communication, both teams will have rational context. It will provide a smooth reasoning behind their tasks, and it will be easier to not take it personally.<\/p>\n Whether you track your feature requests and other issues in Trello, Canny, or somewhere else, it\u2019s important to think through the structure of the process.<\/p>\n Feature request\/bug report\/other feedback boards can easily become a \u201cdumping ground\u201d.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not only one team\u2019s responsibility to deal with organizing this mess.<\/p>\n It should be a collaborative effort:<\/p>\n This consolidated source of action items should be gone over regularly by both teams together.<\/p>\n Again\u2014the main issue with friction between support and product lies in lack of context<\/em>.<\/p>\n Encourage communication on the same things, while both support and product provide relevant context. The level of understanding will be much higher on both sides.<\/p>\n PS: if you don\u2019t track issues, requests, or fixes in one specific place at all, it\u2019s time to start. Lost issues, questions, and requests getting lost or being forgotten about creates even more tension.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/NicoleWojno_TheGreatDivide-1024x624.png\")
<\/a>Create respect for the other\u2019s challenges<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/howyoufeel.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEncourage opposite days<\/h4>\n
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Establish a \u201cwhy?\u201d culture on both sides<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/understand-problems-1024x625-1024x625.jpg\")
<\/p>\nThink through your feature request process<\/h2>\n
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![\"Improving](\"https:\/\/canny.io\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Screen-Shot-2019-10-22-at-2.36.59-PM-1024x594.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Canny](\"https:\/\/no-cache.hubspot.com\/cta\/default\/5705808\/e1d55d08-a2cf-44a3-a9a0-f3ca5ff21dfa.png\")
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