This week we're joined by one of our past (and future!) Elevate Summit speakers, Ben MacAskill of SmugMug. Ben tells his story of going from researching cancer cures in a bio lab to handling support for a growing, bootstrapped startup. We also talk a lot about hiring, and how company culture influences team dynamics, and the pros and cons of running an entirely remote support team. We were so excited to catch up with Ben that you'll hear four voices this episode (Ben, Mike from Trello, Colin from Pingboard, and Sarah from CoSupport), and high fives to our editor Jonathan for splicing out all the overtalk!

PS, the episodes of Reply All 5 that Ben references are Episodes 71 & 77! (https://gimletmedia.com/reply-all/)

Episode 8: Too Many Cooks Make Benception

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We're back with Val Liberty from Balsamic, talking about having interactions with hard customers. You know...those people you can never please. One way to combat the burnout of dealing with terrible customers over and over, Balsamiq has created a culture of trust and boundaries in their employees to empower them even in the worst of circumstances. It's worth a listen just to hear how they de-escalate and diffuse and send people off with a smile.

Val Liberty Will Heal Your Soul, Part 2

Sarah has a great conversation with Stephanie Lundberg from Abstract about the opportunities in the customer experience world. There are helpful insights about growth from support to product. Stephanie shares her own experience exploring the two paths of support, the leadership, and technical side, and speaks of the importance of all teams working together in a company.

Stephanie Lundberg Took A New Path

Sarah sits down with Carter Gibson, an internal community manager at Google. They discuss what a community manager does, the importance of a strong community in a company, and fostering a strong culture. The two have a wonderful conversation about cultivating a strong community with consistency and transparency at the largest tech company in the world.

Carter Gibson Believes in Community at Google

Sarah speaks with Mike from Trello about having difficult conversations with customers. The two chat about the fine line between customer advocacy and company loyalty. Mike provides insight on dealing with pushback, building up trust with customers and your team, and understanding the importance of team policies, especially with larger teams.

How to Be Bad with Mike from Trello

Sarah sits down to talk with Lance Conzett from Uber. The two discuss customer support as a great resource to learn how the customers interact with a company’s product and services and how that translates to working in all departments. Lance shares excellent stories from going through a massive merger that Uber went through in 2020.

Episode 8: Too Many Cooks Make Benception

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