Interesting article in yesterday’s NY Times on how Netflix is using its live customer support to differentiate itself from competitors like Blockbuster. (As a Netflix customer, I can testify that they do a great job. No waiting on hold!)

It’s a smart move. One of the things that smaller, specialized companies typically do well (compared to their larger and more bureaucratic rivals) is to focus fanatically on customer support and on meeting their customer’s needs.

We’re a technology company supporting technical users in IT, so it’s particularly important that our customer support engineers be exactly that: engineers. If the customer on the other end of the phone knows more about the product than the support team, you’ve got a problem. It’s also critical that the customer support engineers have regular contact with the developers building the product — so they can get fast and accurate answers and can provide direct input to the developers on what’s working and what’s not [At AirWave this is easy — the customer support engineers have to walk right through the software development area when they arrive at work, when they leave, and whenever they want coffee].

For IT customers evaluating technology products, I’d recommend making testing customer support teams and processes a critical part (if not the most critical part) of the vendor selection process: call the support line, talk to the people, assess their knowledge, see how quickly they respond to your requests for assistance. You’re not just buying a product, you’re buying a team.