A response is the first step in addressing either a complaint, a question, or an issue a customer has with your company. How and when you initially respond can set the tone for the entire relationship you have with a customer. Respond slow and the customer feels insignificant and unimportant.

Respond rudely and the customer will feel disrespected and offended. Respond without knowledge or real ability to help and the customer feels inconvenienced and frustrated. The first response you have with your customers is a representation of your company and what the customer can expect from here on out.

There are tons of classes and libraries of books on how to provide proper customer support so I am not going to try and reinvent the wheel.  The part we try to control here is the speed and quality of our responses.  There is nothing more satisfying to a customer when they know their complaint has not been dropped into an abyss of support.

Responding quickly to a customers request by just saying '"got this and we are on it" helps decrease their frustration level immensely.

I am not talking about just implementing a canned reply from an auto response like:

However, these are good as they at least let the customer know that their complaint was recorded.  However, taking support up just a smidge and actually addressing their problem personally helps create a relationship with your customers moving forward.  For example:

A lot of times organizations feel they don't have the bandwidth to implement fast and personalized responses.  I'm not a 100% sure this is entirely correct.  They probably just have a few dedicated staff that handles most of the support issues.  This shouldn't be the case and customer support should be a company wide mantra allowing everyone to be able to be involved to at least respond.