By Support Driven
The community dedicated to support as a career
Our final episode of the season delves into the world of support engineering. What the heck is it, exactly? How can you make your first steps into support engineering? How can you sharpen your troubleshooting skills? All this and more,...
This episode answers the question, “How the heck does support work with product?” You’ll get insight from our guest, Andrea Saez from ProdPad. As always, we start with some highlights from the Support Driven Slack, and then end with a...
Our hosts are joined by Ethan Walfish from Salsify to talk the ins-and-outs of customer onboarding: where to begin, some major pit-falls and lessons learned. You’ll also hear some great highlights from the Support Driven Slack, as well as passionate...
Listener Feedback Survey: https://supportdriven.typeform.com/to/nsoXqO Our hosts are joined by Kelly O’Brien and Stephen Zappia to talk about knowledge management and documentation. You’ll learn some best practices for building user documentation as well as maintaining internal documentation for your own team. Hosts:...
Listener Feedback Survey: https://supportdriven.typeform.com/to/nsoXqO Our hosts are joined by Diego Ventura to discuss machine learning and automation. You’ll learn if robots will take your job, if you’re ready to dive into machine learning and some practical steps for getting started. Hosts:...
Listener Feedback Survey: https://supportdriven.typeform.com/to/nsoXqO After covering some highlights from the last week on the Support Driven Slack, our hosts are joined by James Baldwin from Change.org and Shervin Talieh from PartnerHero to discuss outsourcing: why and when should you consider it?...
Listener Feedback Survey: https://supportdriven.typeform.com/to/nsoXqO After covering some highlights from the last week on the Support Driven Slack, our hosts are joined by Cathy Childs from Rinse to discuss Ticket QA. They give some practical advice on how to begin a process...
After covering some highlights from the last week on the Support Driven Slack, our hosts are joined by Alison Groves and Sarah Betts to talk about self-care. They give some practical advice on how to avoid overworking and also some...
In this episode we’re discussing metrics and data with Nicholas Tang from MongoDB. And, of course, food. Links: https://www.kayako.com/blog/hiring-customer-service-representatives/ Hosts: Abby Armada (Slack: @abby) Diana Potter (Slack: @dpotter) Guests: Nicholas Tang (@Nicholas Tang) For more information on Support Driven and...
In this episode, we discuss providing B2C (business to consumer) support and how that can differ from B2B (business to business) support contexts. Also, we have a lively discussion on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and how to make one...
In this episode, we discuss hiring, culture fit, personality tests, and of course, food. Links: https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/the-science-of-chicken-soup/ Hosts: Abby Armada (Slack: @abby) Diana Potter (Slack: @dpotter) Guest: Chris McCraw (Slack: @fool) For more information on Support Driven and our Slack community,...
In this episode, we discuss transitions as they relate to your career in customer support. Hosts: Abby Armada (Slack: @abby) Diana Potter (Slack: @dpotter) Andrew Spittle (Slack: @andrewspittle) Guests: Denise Twum (Slack: @awurama) Keisha Washington (Slack: @Keisha) For more information...
With 30 years in customer service, Mikael Blaisdell shares his insights into the past and on the future of the industry. Highlights: The forces driving the evolution of customer service The future of customer service Why SaaS changes everything The...
Ben shares how he got started conducting user interviews and sharing those insights with his team. Highlights: Getting started with user interviews Learning insights from talking with users Sharing results with the team Learning to do user research Show Notes:...
It’s not often we get to hear about how an online community gets started. Mercer Smith-Looper, Customer Champion and Community Moderator at Wistia, gives us the inside scoop on how the Wistia Community came to be and what it’s like...
Mat Patterson, Head of Customer Support at Campaign Monitor, talks about the challenges that come with growing his team around the world and in the office. Highlights: Deciding to go remote Recruiting, interview and hiring remotely Working with remote peers...
Mike Grafham, head of Customer Success at Yammer, shares his experiences growing his team and talking about the evolving nature of Customer Success. Highlights include: The origin of Customer Success at Yammer Deciding which customers to talk to Measuring Customer...
Christa Collins, VP of Customer Care at Squarespace, shares her experiences with the challenges of growing the team from 1 to over 180 people. Highlights include: Going from Christa’s kitchen to New York City Is this a job or a...
Shervin Talieh, CEO of PartnerHero and formerly CEO of Drumbi, explains the problem with using post service surveys and what to do about it. Highlights include: What post service surveys are What’s the problem with them What could be done...
Heidi Craun shares how her small team supports millions of users on the mobile Expedia apps through usability testing. Highlights include: How the support team got started with usability testing Learning usability testing The different types of usability they conduct...
Kathleen Rouse shares how she uses stories to help her customers reach success at Yammer and Findly. We cover how to use stories and how to get better at it. We talk about training a team on the Anecdote Storytelling...
“What if you could use customer support proactively to create wow experiences.” Nick Francis shares stories from the early days of Help Scout. Stories about doing support, talking with early customers to guide the product and bending over backwards to...
“I don’t think that you can call yourself a thoughtful, design focused company if there are huge chunks of the experience that you don’t put thought into.” As the designer for Q Branch, Dave talks about the product experience being...
Evan shares how he sees community and how to find it. We talk about his tips for engaging the community, getting support from your bosses and hiring a community manager. We explore the overlap between community and customer support and...
Getting hacked is bad news. Making all of your users reconnect to Twitter when you’re a social media company is the stuff nightmares are made of. Carolyn Kopprasch tells the story behind how Buffer learned about the hack and how...
With a fully distributed support team at Automattic, Andrew Spittle shares how they deliver happiness to users by focusing on personal happiness. We talk about the culture of trying lots of things, small failures and how it all works for...
Roland shares the origin story behind Olark and why they started doing all hands support and why they keep doing it today with more than 20 people. We talk about how all hands support contributes to the product at Olark...
Chase shares stories about how he got started doing support at Basecamp, the company formerly known as 37signals, how he got better at writing and empathizing with people and what happens when all of the apps go down. We also...
From the Wastes of Apathy to the Mountains of Chat Skeptics, Aaron Wheeler of Moz shares the stories behind his quests in building empathy within the company for the customer to quantifying the value of live chat and more. Using...
Micah shares his story about changing careers and joining Zapier as the first support person. We talk about working remotely and putting a personal touch on a very technical product. Show Notes: Zapier @micahbennett
Jeff shares how Wistia scaled support. We talk about how they used help sites, webinars, in app help and screencasts and what worked and didn’t work for them.. Show Notes: Lifting The Heavy Ass Weights of Support Wistia @jeffvincent
Joe talks about why Bombing Brain Interactive, an independent app developer, cares about customer support, what they did to improve the support experience and he offers tips on how to start improving support in your apps. Show Notes: Transcribed and...
