The biggest pitfall of handling support yourself is believing that you can help your customers better than the 2LRN4 support team can. You have just signed your first customer. Within a week, the first questions start coming in: "How do I assign modules per team?" "What does this report mean?" "Why can't we see this data?"
Your first instinct is understandable. You want full control over the relationship, you want to give quick answers, and you want your customers to be happy. Yet this is precisely the moment when many partners make a costly mistake. Although it feels as though you should do everything yourself, that is not the wise choice at this stage.
This article builds on "How to become a security awareness reseller" and "How to organise your support as a partner". Read it as preparation before you take support fully into your own hands.
Risk 1: You raise hopes about capabilities you do not know enough about
Your first customer calls: "Can we arrange modules differently per department?" It sounds simple. You do not know the platform well enough to answer straight away, so you say: "I will look into that."
Three weeks later, after reading manuals, asking around and studying screenshots, you finally have an answer. Your customer is disappointed by the wait. Worse still, your customer now thinks you are slow, while the 2LRN4 support team would have answered this in thirty seconds without having to look anything up.
This pattern repeats itself. Your team keeps giving inconsistent answers, and answers that arrive late. As a result, you lose your customers' trust. This is exactly the risk highlighted in "How to avoid the pitfalls of white-label": anyone who does not have a firm grasp of the platform cannot answer questions directly and loses credibility.
Risk 2: You get stuck without having answers
Your customer asks: "Can the platform do this?" You are not sure of the answer, so you say: "No problem, I will discuss that with 2LRN4." Then days or weeks go by. Maybe it can be done, maybe not. Maybe it works differently from what your customer expects.
In the meantime, you are caught in the middle. You have promised something, your customer is waiting, and you have no answer. Worse still, you have to justify yourself to your customer about matters you are not sure of. "I will have to check that" is not the answer you want to give to someone who pays you every month.
The 2LRN4 support team would know straight away what is possible, how it works, and whether it meets the requirement. That knowledge is built into their daily work.
You feel powerless. And that feeling grows stronger every time this happens.
Risk 3: Your team burns out on questions you cannot answer
The 2LRN4 platform is intuitive and flexible, with a wide range of capabilities. But to master all of those capabilities and help customers well, your team has to know them. Without that knowledge, they get stranded on questions they cannot answer.
Your best employee puts hours into learning the platform: which features exist, how they work together, what you can and cannot do. Even so, questions keep coming that they cannot answer. They grow frustrated because they have to respond to questions they do not know the answer to. They wear themselves out on something that is not their core work.
Six months on, you have lost that employee. You have had far less time for real growth. You are back to square one, training the next person. The 2LRN4 support team already masters the platform, and that is their core work.
Dividing the work: who does what?
You build this division step by step as you grow. For every support question, ask yourself: is this about how the platform works, or is this about how it fits into my customer's operations?
You take on the second type of question. For example: "How do we use this for our awareness programme?" or "How do we fit this into our compliance routines?" or "What do these figures say about our company culture?"
The 2LRN4 support team answers the first type. For example: "How do I arrange modules?" "What does this field mean?" "Can the platform do this?" They know the answer right away, without looking it up.
In practice, these boundaries blur quickly. An escalation procedure helps: you draw up a list of questions you answer yourself (the ones you received most often last quarter), and everything outside that list goes to 2LRN4.
How you grow: demonstrate, do together, do independently
This is the path along which you grow:
Demonstrate (the first few months): The 2LRN4 support team handles almost all technical support. You observe how they tackle questions, what answers they give, and how they help customers. You get to know the platform step by step, without being tied to it.
Do together (after 5 to 10 customers): You start answering simple questions yourself (password resets, adding a user, explaining basic reporting). The 2LRN4 team still helps with more complex questions. Your knowledge grows, and your team becomes more comfortable with the platform.
Do independently (once you have 20+ customers): Your team can answer many questions on its own, without involving 2LRN4. You know the platform well enough to provide support on your own terms. 2LRN4 remains the escalation route for edge cases and complex integrations.
This is better than the 80/20 rule, because it recognises that your growth is a natural process. The more you sell, the better your knowledge becomes. You learn by doing the work, not by having to be "ready" first.
Checklist: Are you ready to handle support yourself?
Check yourself before you decide to set up your own support:
- Do you have at least 5 to 10 customers, and do you recognise patterns in their questions?
- Do you know the platform well enough to answer 80% of questions directly, without looking anything up?
- Have you put together a guide with answers to common questions?
- Is your team trained and enthusiastic about support, or does it feel like a side job?
- Do you have a clear escalation procedure to 2LRN4 for platform questions?
- Do you understand that support is a service, not your core task?
Not everything ticked off? Then you are not there yet. That is fine, you are simply not ready for that stage.
Later: when you can provide support yourself
Do you want to take on more support yourself later on? That is fine. But wait until you can answer all of the questions above with "yes".
Read also: "How to organise your support as a partner". That article looks at the right moment to take support into your own hands without exhausting yourself and your team.
For how to master the platform yourself, see our manuals on 2lrn4.com/en/support.
Start small
Put the 2LRN4 support team to work on what they do best: operating the platform. You take care of your customers, ask the strategic questions, and build the relationship. The team answers platform questions directly, without looking anything up and without delay.
At first, this feels less controllable. And that is true: you do not have full command of the platform side. But you do not need to. You have command of what you do best: the relationship, your advisory value, and the growth of your business. That is where your margin sits, not in answering technical questions.
See also: "Why white-label security awareness pays off more than you think". Margin grows out of value, not out of work.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take before I can provide support myself? That depends on your experience and how fast you grow. Set your pace by your growth in customers, not by gut feeling. After 5 to 10 customers, you usually start to recognise patterns.
What if my customer asks a question I do not know the answer to? That is fine. You say: "I will ask the 2LRN4 team and get back to you tomorrow." This gives you more authority than saying "I do not know" and then disappearing for three weeks.
Does it cost me a lot of time to involve 2LRN4 every time? No, quite the opposite. You send an email, they answer quickly, and you pass it on to your customer. It takes less time than going to search for it yourself. And your customers get better answers.
How do I set up my escalation procedure? Very simply: list the questions you answer yourself (password reset, adding a user), and everything outside that goes to 2LRN4. Adjust the list each quarter based on what you have learned.
If I have more than 20 customers, can I do more myself? Absolutely. By then you also have a better view of what you can and cannot handle. Read more about escalation procedures and SLAs in the related articles.