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Archives for November 2013

Hangout #24 – Weekend and Holiday Support Scheduling

November 27, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

Today we’re talking about those unique areas of support team scheduling – holidays and weekends. Scheduling a growing team can be tough in even the normal parts of a year.

With the holidays are rapidly approaching, we want you to start thinking about how to handle them if you’re not already. While there is some overlap between the two, we’ll take them one at a time with weekend support first and then holiday support for the latter part of our show today.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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Episode #27 – Keeping the Complex Simple with Micah Bennett

November 26, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

This week I interview Micah Bennett from Zapier. We talk about how they keep a complex idea like Zapier super easy to use for customers. We also touch on how he does support as the sole support pro along with what his team thought of live chat.

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Big Promises and Better Experiences

November 25, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

From Seth Godin:

A $75 bottle of wine tastes better than a $14 bottle of wine. Even if you switch the wines. The promise implied in the price actually changes the way we experience the product.

Once you make a big promise, you have to work harder to keep it. Easier, it seems, to merely make tiny promises instead.

But the fact remains: Human beings have better experiences when they expect to have a better experience. To hold back on your promise is to deprive your customer of something valuable.

It’s a two-edged sword for sure. Take for instance the posting of wait times on your help page. When they’re at six hours, ten hours, or even the dreaded “within 24 hours”, customers are left with pure anxiety. Imagine having a problem and knowing you won’t get an answer for ten hours. The wait time tool sets a terrible expectation.

But when they see they’ll get an answer within five minutes, it reduces their anxiety and replaces it with a better overall support experience. Customers love seeing those low wait times for email and phone support.

Look at some of these companies that make big promises with support and keep them:

  • Squarespace – 24/7 support. They’re always there when you need them.
  • Buffer – Open and transparent support. When something bad happens like their recent compromise, they let you know immediately.
  •  Olark – live chat for instant answers. Yeah, they’re selling a live chat tool but they back that up by using it themselves.
  • 37signals – fast answers via email. You know I’d have to put our team on there since we make a big promise too. We promise fast answers during business hours and deliver. The average response time right now is two minutes.

With each of those big promises on better experiences, you’ve got to deliver. It’s worth the energy and resources you put in to pull it off. Like Godin said, “Human beings have better experiences when they expect to have a better experience.”

The One Question for Community Managers

November 21, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

From David Spinks at The Community Manager:

The rest of the questions can be boiled down to this one very important question:

Can they earn the respect of the community?

That’s it.

If they can earn the respect of the community most of the other things just start to fall into place.

If you’re thinking about that community manager role like Buffer is, David’s site is a fantastic resource for you and for the CM you hire.

Handling a Company Crisis

November 19, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

From Gregory Ciotti at Help Scout:

In other words, blaming external situations (even if true) often created a sense that the company was unable to fix their own problems or were simply looking for an “out.”

Conversely, owning up to poor performance or a specific shortcoming instilled the sense that the company had a tight grip on the reins and were more likely to rebound from the situation since they had already identified the problem and accepted responsibility.

Gregory lays out the right and wrong way to handle a company crisis. Go read it and then start putting together notes for your team on how to handle one when (not if) it happens to you.

Hangout #23 – The Community Manager Role

November 19, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

This week we’re talking about what role a community champion/manager should play with your team. Carolyn and the Buffer team are looking for their first person in this role, which is why I wanted to put it on the docket to talk about. We’ll cover who the community actually is, what this role looks like, and what separates it from the customer support role.

All that and more from the best team in customer support on this episode of the live Support Hangout!

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Write a Note

November 15, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

I’m a huge college football fan. I love Auburn football (war eagle!) and watch every SEC game that I can. When I came across this today, I just knew I had to share it.

This is SO awesome. Everyone, every single member, got a personally-adressed note today from @CoachOUSC. THANK YOU! pic.twitter.com/qWDQETwLkG

— The Spirit of Troy (@USCTMB) November 14, 2013

In anticipation of the Trojan’s game this Saturday, USC interim head coach Ed Orgeron sent a personally-address noted to every single member of the USC marching band. What an impression from someone who may or may not be the permanent head coach.

Little things add up

There’s power in little touches of humanity like this. If I got a note from the head coach like that when I was in marching band, I’d have been ecstatic.

Imagine if a teammate received a note like this from you. Nothing fancy – just a card with your handwritten message in it. It’d be a powerful statement of your support of them as a member of your team.

What ways do you show support for others on your team?

Not My Responsibility

November 15, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

From Geoffrey James:

There are five words that every customer hates with a passion: “That is not my responsibility.”

From inside your company, you know which person and group has responsibility for various aspects of your business. Therefore, if a coworker comes to you with a problem that’s not in your bailiwick, you can send that coworker elsewhere.

The customer does NOT see your company that way.  The customer doesn’t care a rat’s rear-end how your company is organized.  All the customer sees is a person–you–who represents your entire company.

“Not my responsibility” is a phrase guaranteed to put you at odds with the customer. It instantly moves the conversation from you and the customer versus the problem to you versus the customer.

Even if it’s not your department, your area, your whatever… help the customer. If you don’t, they won’t be your customer for long.

The “Pending” Option on Support Tickets

November 12, 2013 By Chase Clemons 3 Comments

From Evan at ZOZI:

Although I wouldn’t call this entirely scientific, it’s my conclusion that the “pending” status and process doesn’t actually benefit our users. Customers who don’t respond, won’t respond. Instead, it wastes agent time and may annoy the customer.

Awesome to see Evan putting this practice through a test. Personally, I’ve never been a fan setting a “pending” status for cases where I’m waiting on a customer to respond. I use it for cases where I need to contact the customer in the next few days. But if I’m waiting to hear back from a customer, I go ahead and use the “closed” or “resolved” option for them.

Nice informal testing Evan!

Hangout #22 – Effective Remote Working

November 12, 2013 By Chase Clemons Leave a Comment

This show we’re talking about remote teams. This is part two of the topic so make sure to check out part one here. We’ll talk about how remote working plays into working effectively. Our panel’s also going to touch on keeping the company culture both with a remote team and a local team.

The best part of this is that we’ve got both sides here. Carolyn and the Buffer team along with Chase and the Automattic team are remote. Jeff and the Wistia team all work from the Wistia office. It makes for a great show!

[Read more…]

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