I have a unique product so how can I do a competitive analysis for support?

Good for you! A unique product is a wonderful thing!

Now about the support portfolio: the fact that your product is unique doesn’t mean that the support for said product will be incredibly different from the support offerings for other products. You may need to get a little creative when it comes to finding appropriate “competitors” to benchmark against, but you should be able to find plenty of relevant inspiration, for instance:

• Vendors of products in the same general space, even if their product offer is different from yours (I know you’re unique). Analyzing their support portfolios will tell you something about the way customers expect support to be packaged (free or not, limits on contacts or incidents, support hours, etc.)
• Vendors of products that your target audience will use in conjunction with your product. Look at their support pricing for inspiration, in particular the structure of the pricing: is it per user? per system? per incident?
• Vendors of products that are similar to yours, but that use a different distribution model than you, so packaged if you’re SaaS, or open source if you are not. From the customer’s perspective it’s the total solution that matters so it’s useful to look at different models.

I like to consider 5-7 “competitors” in the analysis to get a good picture of where you stand. Good luck!

How important is competitive analysis for support?

Knowing your strengths and weaknesses vis a vis the competition is critical for success if you want to successfully sell a product or a service, but does it matter for support since, after all, customers can rarely purchase it from another vendor?

Yes because

1. Presenting a reasonable (as measured against the competition) support portfolio underscores that your company is a reputable vendor that can be trusted.

2. Removing the obstacle of having to defend unusual support offerings makes life considerably easier for the sales team.

3. Offering defensible pricing schemes makes negotiations easier and faster (and deters uncontrolled discounts.)

4. A competitive portfolio makes it easier to renew support contracts.

5. A comprehensive portfolio allows you to redirect customers’ requests for extras towards purchasing a higher level of support.

So indeed, a competitive analysis of support offerings is a great idea!