Summer is here! Or at least if feels like it around my farm. Hot days, cool nights, and the grill going every chance we get.

The next two weeks in the Clemons household are a tad bit crazy. We’re in the process of buying our first house. We’ve also got a vacation planned for next week.

The rest of our hangout team also has a few things planned and trips scheduled. So long story short, we’re going to take a break and be back in a few weeks. Until then, you can catch up on any hangouts you might have missed here.

Now go out and enjoy the last bit of spring and the start of summer!

Sometimes I get questions from other support pros that are perfect for our hangouts but not meaty enough to devote an entire show to. A ten minute show would be quick but that’s not much fun, right?

Enter the rapid fire episode.

We’ll take those questions and answer them in a rapid style format on our March 24th show. If all goes well, it might make a regular appearance in the future.

Send us your questions!

I’ve got a few questions already on our list to answer. But I know you’ve got some more! It’s super easy to get your question to us for the show.

Just head over to this page and send us a message.

Then tune in live Monday March 24th to see our awesome support panel answer it on the show!

It’s so great to see more and more podcasts pick up the topic of customer support and service. Make sure to queue these up in your podcast app as soon as you can.

Support Driven with Scott Tran

What Are You Even Learning with Lee Mallon

Thank You For Calling! with Moisés Chiullan

I’m sure you’ve seen lots of people saying all sorts of motivational things about 2014 already. I’ll spare you yet another article on that subject. I’m more interested in helping you be a customer support pro.

That’s why we’re kicking off the first Support Ops Hangout of 2014 with a look at the big themes and trends that’ll happen this year. You’ll see Carolyn, Jeff, and the other Chase give their thoughts on the support channels you need to focus on, what ideas you need to test out, and how to keep scaling your support as you grow this year.

If you’re set on creating a better support experience for your customers this year, make sure to tune in to the show this Monday at 5:30pm Central / 6:30pm Eastern. Double check and convert that to your local time if you’re in a different time zone.

You’ll be able to watch the show here as soon as we go live.

I’ll see you Monday and until then, enjoy the start of the new year!

For the next two weeks, I’ll be pretty much offline spending time with the family and such. You should do the same as much as you can!

At the very least, go watch some Muppet Christmas Carol – the best Christmas movie ever.

Enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you on the flip side!

Swift collaborative email support.

From our friends at UserScape comes a great new customer support app. Most customer support apps have some kind of learning curve as you try to figure it out. With Snappy, their new interface is drop dead easy to use and lets you focus on what matters most – your customers.

Plus, they’ve got two great new tools.  The “Team Wall” is the perfect place to share news, wins, and other important info all without ever leaving your app. Then there’s a really powerful tool called “Triggers”. It’ll let you automate your workflow a bit to make sure you don’t miss an email. 

I love having Snappy as a partner and I think you’ll love having them as your support tool. They’ve got a great 30 day entirely free trial so go check them out here.

Customer support is as much a feature of your product as that last new feature you added. When done right, it can set you apart from your competition. An app can be recreated easily. A rocking support experience is much harder to copy. When customers know they’re going to get great support, they’ll choose you over the competitor.

Support Kit is my guide to help you create that awesome customer experience.

Get your copy here

From my upcoming guide – Support Kit:

When customers love you, they’re going to tell others about you. There’s a reason I rave about Media Temple when people ask me about web hosting. Every single time I contact Media Temple, their support rocks my socks off. In return, I make sure to send every person I can their way.

At the end of the day, everything you do as a company is marketing, customer support included. Say you’re looking at two identical products. Same cost, same functions, same in every way. You email one and receive an auto-responder promising a reply in 48 business hours. You email the other and you get a reply back from a human within a single hour. Which one wins your business? You’ll pick the one better at support every time just like your potential customers will.

You’ve got to be better at customer support than the other teams behind products competing against yours.

Check out more about Support Kit here.

Just a quick note.

I’ll be spending some time next week with the family so we won’t be having our live Support Hangout for two Mondays. Consider it an excuse to go spend some time outdoors with this beautiful summer weather! Well, hopefully you’re seeing beautiful summer weather.

The posts will continue like normal thanks to the power of automatic scheduling. I’ve got some great ones lined up for next week.

Other than that, I’ll see you on the other side of this summer break!