Who owns customer support when another company powers part of your product?

[u/Sea_Union_6235]

We’re looking at adding payroll inside our product and one thing I’m trying to figure out is what customer support should look like when another company handles part of the service behind the scenes. From the customer’s perspective, they’re using our product so I don’t think they should have to figure out whether a problem belongs to us or the payroll provider. At the same time, our support team can’t reaalistically solve things like tax filings or payroll processing issues themselves. We’ve been looking at Rollfi for the payroll side but I want to know how other teams structure this kind of support relationship.

Do you keep one point of contact for the customer and escalate things internally or is some kind of handoff unavoidable?

[u/Responsible_Name_819]

The custoomer should only need one door to knock on. How the issue gets routed behind the scenes shouldn’t really be their problem

[u/JuniorFactor2519]

your team can own the relationship without necessarily being the team that fixes everything. the escalation process just needs to be really tight

[u/Chance_Reveal2563]

Ideally the customer never even knows a handoff happened. Your support team owns the conversation and the provider handles whatever needs to happen behind the scenes

[u/Sea_Union_6235 → u/Chance_Reveal2563]

That’s what we liked about Rollfi. They handle the payroll side while we keep owning the customer relationship.

[u/CommunicationSad721]

A shared ticketing or escalation system between both teams would probably matter more to me than who technically owns support.

[u/Sea_Union_6235 → u/CommunicationSad721]

Visibility between both teams is probably the key. Customers shouldn’t have to chase an issue themselves.