The Quest For Epic Customer Support: Recent Episodes
TestBox
The Quest for Epic Customer Support is a podcast for everyone who understands that customer support should prioritize effectiveness over efficiency, empathy over automation, and a transformational relationship over a transactional one. Each episode will explore the darkest hours in a customer’s journey through conversations with the customer support superstars who live to illuminate the path forward. If you understand that customer support isn’t just a cost center, it’s a loyalty center, then you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to The Quest for Epic Customer Support!
It is essential for support organizations to understand the context of their business, how value is perceived in their business, and how they can continue to build the value proposition for customer support.
Declan Ivory is the Vice President of Customer Support at Intercom, where he is passionate about building and developing high-performing teams. He has had the opportunity to do this at companies such as Google, Tableau, and AWS. In this episode, Declan talks about how we can digitally transform customer support and enable humans to do their best work.
Join us as we discuss:
- How customer support professionals can walk into a stressful work environment and still maintain their sense of humor and evenness
- How Intercom simplifies its features to have the proper engagement with its customers at whatever point they are at in their customer journey
- Success metrics that you should use to run your organization, and some that you would shy away from?
- Positioning support as a value driver, as opposed to a cost center.
Whether in customer support or success, giving people memorable experiences will always keep them coming back.
Ben Winn is the Head of Brand & Community at Catalyst Software, where he leads his team to build a known and loved industry-wide brand. In this episode, Ben talks about connecting the dots between customer support, success, and marketing.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why confidence is such an important factor when being a customer support or success professional
- A commonly held belief in customer support that companies may be getting wrong
- Ben’s advice for those wanting to begin a career in customer support
Additional links: Ben’s meme website csmemes.io
For too long, customer service interactions have been impersonal and transactional by nature. To counteract this, customer support teams need to build friendships with customers and create long-lasting relationships that benefit both the customer and the agent.
Mor Cohen is a Customer Success Manager at SQEPtech (previously Director of Global of Global Customer Support at Dixa). Mor has led and managed a global tech support team to achieve great relationships between customers and agents. In this episode, Mor talks about how Dixa built its success by focusing on the agent experience.
Join us as we discuss:
- What is a “customer friendship platform.”
- What is Dixa’s customer profile, and why do their customers love the support and experience Dixa provides?
- What are some of the channels that customers are contacting Dixa clients through that we might not expect?
- How Dixa has built its success on focusing on agent experience
Although technology can answer nearly all of our problems, the future of customer support and experience lies within the human-to-human connection.
Charlotte Ward is the Head of Support at Snowplow Analytics, a behavioral data platform built to empower data teams and solve today's most complex data challenges. Charlotte is also the host of the Customer Support Leaders Chat, where she talks about customer support, leadership, and all related things.
Join us as we discuss:
- How Charlotte views the different lanes of technical support
- Why easy access is an integral part of having good customer support
- The value of having a single point of contact for each case
- Charlotte's advice for choosing the right tool for customer support
- Where Charlotte sees the future of customer support going
As CX professionals, we have to consider the future of who customers are, how they will relationally integrate with companies, and what we can do to align ourselves with this shift.
Sara Hatter is the Founder of ElevateCX, the premier event for customer support and customer experience professionals. Sara created ElevateCX to be the school for customer support, where CX professionals can learn from industry peers about trends in CX, hear thoughtful advice on growing and scaling teams, and get insight into how legacy brands are evolving their customer support solutions. In this episode, Sara talks about how customer experience and support start with relationships.
Join us as we discuss:
- How the rise of technology has affected customer experience professionals
- Why leaders view customer support as a cost center and what needs to change
- What individual customer support professionals do to build their skills up
The relationship between customers and customer support professionals may go unnoticed, but its impact can make or break a business.
Erika Favorito is the VP of Customer Success & Support at Privy, an e-commerce marketing platform geared towards helping online brands grow. At Privy, Erika’s focus is to set the overall vision and strategic plan for both the Customer Success and Support organizations by creating positive customer experiences, driving product adoption, and creating growth opportunities for both their customers and Privy.
Join us as we discuss:
- Erika’s customer support philosophy
- Why organizations don’t value CS staff as much as they value the customer
- How can CS professionals initiate feedback loops between different teams
- How do you decide what tools to use
- The future of customer success and customer support
How do you build businesses that can stand the test of time? By getting your customers to come back again and again.
Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience speaker and a leading international authority on customer service, customer experience, and loyalty in business. Shep works with companies and organizations that want to create extraordinary customer service experiences for their customers and employees. A New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author, Shep has written and published several books, his most recent being, I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again and Again. In this episode, Shep discusses moments of magic in customer service.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why being consistently a little above average can go a long way with customers.
- What is a moment of magic, and why is it essential in customer service?
- How to create a culture of service awareness.
In customer support, it's not about how fast we get a customer off the phone but about digging deeper and finding the resolution to the problem they have to prevent it in the future. Our guest today is an expert in solving problems for customers.
Megan Bowen is the Chief Operating Officer at Refine Labs, a demand accelerator for B2B Saas companies, where she specializes in creating conditions for people, customers, and companies to be successful. Megan embraces a human-first leadership approach where she focuses on empowering individuals through empathy, kindness, and vulnerability. Megan is also the host of the Talent, where she discusses the art of building a company your team will love.
Join us as we discuss:
- Ways in which people in customer support can practice regulating their thoughts.
- Why having emotional intelligence in customer support is so critical?
- Using the LAAAR (Listen, Acknowledge, Align, Ask, Respond) to balance dealing with the customer as an individual vs. the problem.
- Why your team is your first customer, and the customer is your second?
Often people only display the highlight reels of their lives, but never the struggles. However, it’s the struggles and experiences that make us who we are. When working in human industries like customer experience and support, bringing empathy to your experiences in the workplace allows you to connect with customers in ways that keep them returning.
Diana De Jesus is a top 25 customer success influencer and the Customer Marketing Manager at Catalyst Software, the leading customer success platform on the market. Diana brings a wealth of knowledge to us today through her background, personal experiences, and many years in the customer support industry. Diana is also the founder of the customer success project, which helps people land Customer Success jobs regardless of their previous experience.
Join us as we discuss:
- Diana’s background and childhood upbringing.
- How to break the cycle of becoming a “yes person” vs. “Customer success manager.”
- Commonly held beliefs about the customer support field that Diana disagrees with.
- How Diana deals with the anxiety and stress that comes from working in CS tech and being an advocate for black and brown people trying to get into customer support.
Often companies forget about customer centricity, thinking that just having good customer support is enough. But, customer centricity is all about being proactive with customers and preventing problems before they happen.
Craig Stross is the Senior Operations Manager at PartnerHero, a BPO that's mission is to extend the impact of innovative companies to economically underserved communities in the US and abroad. Craig is also the host of the Customer Experience Leaders Chat podcast, where he talks to customer experience leaders globally to see what's behind their team's success.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why is perspective so critical in customer experience?
- How can we prevent customer support issues before they happen?
- Why the customer is at the center of the experience, not the company.
There is no framework or model for customer experience. Great customer experiences come from people doing great work.
Adrian Swinscoe is an unapologetic punk. Adrian has been helping organizations do great things for their customers for over 25 years through consulting. He is the author of PunkCX, which he describes as a visual slap in the face to the customer experience industry. Adrian brings us a great discussion about many topics in the customer experience space.
Join us as we discuss:
- Why C-Level executives should participate in their customer experience.
- How to create organizations that are better for both customers and their employees.
- How leaders should think about help desk technology.
Customer support is more than about support, but the entire customer experience.
Matt Dale is the VP Customer Support at Illuminate Education and brings 15 years of experience in customer support and success. Matt brings dynamic insights to the world of customer support through building high functioning support and data service teams in b2b SaaS environments.
Join us as we discuss:
- What we are looking at wrong in customer support
- Why customer support is a part of the entire customer experience
- The future of customer support
In the past, customer support was simple. As technology has exploded, customer support has become more complicated and for some emphasizes efficiency and automation over effectiveness and empathy. Companies are on The Quest for Epic Customer Support more than ever before.
In this introductory episode, we discuss our goals for the show and who it is for.
Hear our conversation with Sam Senior, CEO of TestBox, about :
- What the Quest for Epic Customer Support is about.
- What is TestBox, and who is it for?
- How do we achieve epic customer support?