February 4, 2025 • 39 mins
Support teams juggle way too many manual tasks—from sending training invites to formatting reports and tracking progress. But what if you could automate it all with the tools you already have?
In this episode, Rob Dwyer from Happitu shares how he used VBA inside Microsoft tools to eliminate repetitive work, saving hours every week on training, onboarding, and QA.
You’ll learn:
✅ How to identify automation-ready tasks
✅ The exact tools Rob used to streamline workflows
✅ How non-coders can start automating with AI-generated scripts
✅ Why automation isn’t about replacing people—it’s about freeing them up for higher-value work
🚀 Listen now and start automating!
📩 Get weekly tactical CX & support ops tips → https://live-chat-with-jen.beehiiv.com/
🔗 More episodes of Live Chat with Jen Weaver → https://www.buzzsprout.com/2433498
📑 Download Rob's automation template and playbook here → https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1o9cPleC3alW3AV4rZc83V-M5F8ajsum0?usp=sharing
Sponsored by Supportman.io
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Automation is often just about taking something that
you repeat over and over.
You're doing the same thingover and over and just making
the machine do that repetitionfor you.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Live Chat with Jen Weaver.
If you're drowning in manualtasks, this episode is for you.
Rob Dwyer from Happy2 figuredout how to automate onboarding,
training and QA using tools mostof us already have but barely
use.
He has saved hours with simpleVBA automations and today he's
(00:41):
sharing exactly how he did it.
If you're looking for quickwins to make your support ops
more efficient, hang around,let's get into it.
As you know, we're here withRob Dwyer of Happi2.
Am I saying Happi2 correctly?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's Happi2.
Happi2.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm happy to be here with you, jen Fantastic, we
start every episode with a joke.
I have one for you if you're upfor it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I am up for it.
Lay it on me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Really don't want to offend anybody, but this is one
of my favorite jokes.
I'm going to shorten it becausemy dad tells it we would be
here all day.
So a guy is walking along by afarm and he sees a pig kind of
snuffling for truffles orwhatever under a tree and it
only has three legs.
One leg is wooden and it's kindof hobbling around on this
(01:32):
wooden peg leg.
And so the guy walks up to thefarmer and says, hey, what's the
deal with your pig's wooden leg?
And the farmer tells him thestory about how they were in the
barn and the barn was set onfire and the pig came and warned
them and dragged their kid outto safety.
And the pig was a hero.
And so he said, okay, but Idon't understand why the pig has
(01:52):
three legs, has a wooden leg.
And so the farmer tells thisother story about how the pig
does some other heroic thing.
And my dad is going to hatethis telling of this story, but
the pig is just an absolute heroand everybody loves the pig,
and so that.
And the guy's like, okay, butwhy does the pig have a wooden
leg?
And the farmer says, well, apig like that you don't eat all
(02:14):
at once.
Welcome to the podcast.
Today we're offending people.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Bacon.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and so would you just tell me a little bit
about who you are, what yourperspective on support and
services is, and a little bitabout Happy2.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, absolutely Great to be here, Jen.
Thanks for having me.
My name is Rob Dwyer.
I work actually for twocompanies Happy2, which is a
sister company, and a technologyspinoff of a company called
Customer Direct.
Customer Direct is a BPO, acontact center based in St Louis
, Missouri, and then a few yearsago we spun off our technology
(02:57):
division, Happy2, and weautomate quality and do call
analysis for all kinds ofcontact centers of all different
sizes.
My background is actually intraining and quality, so I've
been involved in contact centersfor 15 years, but I came up as
(03:17):
a trainer, did training allacross the globe and then when I
came to Customer Direct,leading their training
organization was what I came into do and quality came along
with that eventually.
So that's it's really mybackground.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I love it and I I know you have a process to share
with us today, because ourpodcast is all about tactical
support helping support peopleto to do things.
Nobody got a manual when westarted this, and so somebody
like you who has a lot to share,is a real asset.
What is the process that youbrought with you today?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I firmly believe in usingwhatever tools you have
available, particularly basedoff of your size.
If you're a giant organization,you can buy all the things, but
if you're a smallerorganization, you have a limited
tool set, but you can reallyuse tools in a way that maybe
you didn't expect.
(04:15):
When I came into theorganization, we were a
Microsoft shop.
We had Outlook, we had Excel,we had PowerPoint all of these
things and when it came toonboarding new people in
training, there are all thesedifferent systems that they need
access to.
There are different things thatyou need to set up.
(04:37):
Eventually we migrated to fullyvirtual training.
So there were invites thatneeded to be sent out, needed to
get email credentials, systemaccess to various things, and we
did post-training surveys whichneed to go out.
And then I need to do datacollection and I want to get
graduation certificates out topeople, like all of these
(04:57):
different things that involve alot of data entry or manual
processes.
So what I did was I utilizedVBA, which is Visual Basic for
Applications.
It's a way to extend theusability of Microsoft
applications to automate justabout everything, so I could do
(05:18):
a lot of these things in oneclick Once I had data I could.
For instance we'll just startwith kind of the process I get
all of the agents in what I calla playbook, and so it's trainer
facing, but also as a leader inthe organization, I would use
(05:38):
it and the first thing that Iwould do is I would have this
series of tasks, things to do asfar as getting access, granting
access, doing things.
I would do is I would have thisseries of tasks, things to do
as far as getting access,granting access, doing things.
I would click a button and itwould create dated tasks in my
Outlook.
Because I am a task-focusedperson.
(05:59):
Sometimes I don't want to haveto come back, I just want
Outlook to tell me like hey,today you need to make sure that
you send out the graduationcertificates because the class
is graduating, Okay, great.
So that was the first thinggetting the tasks.
But then every little step ofthe way I tried to automate
whatever it was.
(06:19):
So if I need to get themcredentials to a particular
system, if there's a CSV that Ican just upload in bulk, then I
just have a button that I click.
That button executes creating aCSV worksheet that has all of
the data necessary formattedproperly for that system so I
(06:41):
can just upload it and go.
When it comes to sending outinvites, I have all of the new
people and the email addresses,so I just click a button.
It creates an invite in Outlook.
That goes out, has the link.
Everything's already set inthere and you can even set it
for variables.
(07:01):
So when we first started withthis, we were using Adobe
Connect for our virtual trainingplatform.
Adobe Connect had differentclassrooms.
Those different classrooms haddifferent links, so, depending
on what you were being trainedin, it already knew what link to
put in the body of that invite.
So it's just saved me so muchtime so that I could focus on
(07:26):
really high value activities andI think ultimately that's the
piece of anyone in support.
You want what you're doing tobe high value, but there are all
these kind of tasks that youstill have to get completed, so
any little bit that you canautomate.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So how did you start that?
Did you just, at the very basiclevel, create a list of all
these things you didn't reallywant to be putting a lot of
effort into?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Well, it grew over time.
The first piece of it was reallyjust identifying what people
were being trained, what theywere being trained in, tracking
basic things like attendance andmaybe so the trainer could
communicate with me what theywere struggling with or who was
a strong performer, making surethat we tracked assessments.
(08:17):
And then over time, it juststarted to grow and so I would
decide, okay, we're doing thisnew thing now started to grow
and so I would decide, okay,we're doing this new thing now.
So let's just take supervisoronboarding checklist.
We created a supervisoronboarding checklist so that
when agents came out of trainingand moved to the supervisor,
that we made sure certain thingswere happening communication
(08:40):
between the supervisor and theagent.
We created a list in aSharePoint list and then what I
could do was just with the clickof a button it would create a
notification that goes to thesupervisor, create that
checklist for the agent.
They need to start goingthrough and doing these things
(09:02):
with the agent, and sointeracting with things like
SharePoint, with things likePowerPoint, is actually
relatively easy if you know howto do it, and it just kept
growing to the point where Ididn't have to spend very much
time when we had a new hireclass.
(09:25):
It would be maybe 30 minutes ofdoing things that before would
probably take a whole day.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Wow, that's impactful .
So you are using kind ofsnippets of code to do that.
Am I getting that right?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So VBA is a really simple,straightforward type of coding.
It is coding but it's notobject oriented.
You don't have to.
You need to know the verybasics.
You need to understand thingslike variables, but I think the
(10:01):
average person can do it and,quite honestly, the way that Gen
AI has made coding accessibleto people who aren't coders, you
could get a lot of that codejust by having one of these new
Gen AI systems help you developthat code, just by saying this
(10:25):
is what I want to do.
Obviously, you need to test thecode and I will tell everyone
test, test, test as you're goingthrough this.
But I am not a coder.
I know enough.
But this was easy enough thatall I really needed to do was
(10:46):
get some help on the internet.
When I wanted to do something,a quick search often led me to
what I needed.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You are using this for streamlining communication
with the leads who are doing thetraining.
What are some other?
And you mentioned initiatingyour tasks.
This is actually something I'vebeen trying to do.
I'm using linear, somethingI've been trying to do.
I'm using linear and what I'dlove to do.
I could do this in Asana, whereI would populate a task
template and it would dateeverything based on the due date
(11:14):
Sounds like, that's what you'veachieved here?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's simple formulas based onhow long you anticipate
something is supposed to last,right?
I mean, a training class hasestablished timelines and so
it's just a matter of umautomating things based off of
those timelines.
But there are things like it'snot so much that it's a task,
(11:40):
but I want to do this and I'lltalk about the graduation
certificates.
It's a good example, when agentsare not in-house, being able to
celebrate their accomplishmentvirtually is a really cool thing
to do, right, and yes, you canhave certificates.
(12:04):
That may be in a learningmanagement system, because we do
have a learning managementsystem and it has certificates
but that tangible I get a PDF ofsomething that maybe I can
print out at home is really niceto have.
And I could, with PowerPoint,create a template and then in
(12:27):
that template, for instance, Ihad signatures in it.
We had the president of thecompany and myself.
Both had our digital signatureson this.
It would be customized ascustomer direct, as a BPO, so we
had lots of different clients.
So it would be customized withthe logo of the client that you
(12:48):
were supporting.
It would have your name on it,it would have the date.
But literally all I had to dowas store this PowerPoint on a
SharePoint and, with a click ofa button, this Excel-based
playbook would reach out to thatPowerPoint, create a copy of it
, populate the data and exporteach slide to a PDF and then
(13:15):
embed that PDF into an emailwith Outlook addressed to the
agent.
So it was literally like all ofthese different steps that you
would normally have to do.
I did with a click of a buttonand then it was just hit send.
And so if I had 20 people Iwould click one button and then
I would click send on those 20emails.
(13:37):
That popped up on my screenthat before we went through that
process it might take me fourhours to go through and create
all of those different things.
Automation is an amazing thingto do and you can use a lot of
existing tools to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You have me thinking about all the things that I'd
like to automate.
In fact, I think I'll sit downtomorrow and look back at my
week and just think through whatdid I do.
That really took me too muchtime.
I use Zapier I can use that,you know but also I often feel
kind of stuck.
So I love your idea of askingAI I want to do this thing,
(14:19):
what's the best tool for that?
Or like, how do I use Zapierfor that?
Or how do I work with Microsoftecosystem?
Um, and so you, you said youused PowerPoint and you were
able to to get it to uh, plug inlike, did you have?
I'm thinking of when I used todo kind of um, bulk, bulk
(14:40):
mailing and it would plug in theperson's address and like their
name.
And so is there a special fieldin PowerPoint that you use?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No, there's not a particular field for that.
You're using text boxes forthat it's really all about.
For those that are not coders,there's this thing called an
array.
An array is a way of containinga string of data, various data
elements that are the same thing, and really all you're doing is
(15:12):
you're taking that list ofnames and you're sending it to
PowerPoint through the code andPowerPoint understanding because
of the instructions.
Okay, the first name, put it onslide one.
Second name put it on slide two, the third name put it on slide
three, et cetera.
(15:32):
And automation is often justabout taking something that you
repeat over and over.
You're doing the same thingover and over, you're doing the
same thing over and over andjust making the machine do that
repetition for you.
And you can do it in all kindsof applications.
(15:53):
Here's the thing aboutapplications that we use all the
time we probably only scratchthe surface of what they can
actually do for us.
We find the particular piecesthat are interesting to us and
we go, oh yeah, this reallyworks for me, that's what I go
(16:13):
use it for, but thefunctionality of that particular
application is probably 10x ormore of what you use it for.
And so for me, in thisparticular case, it was just
about unlocking some of theexisting potential in
applications that people workwith every day.
And look, I used Microsoft.
(16:35):
Lots of places are they useGoogle.
Well, guess what?
You can do the same thing withJavaScript.
With Google, they do the samething.
It's just a different language,but you can still automate all
of these things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
If I weren't standing at a standing desk, I would be
at the edge of my seat becauseit resonates so wildly with me,
because I spent eight years on acustomer support team, becoming
the absolute expert on asoftware tool.
On a customer support team,becoming the absolute expert on
a software tool.
And if I look at how I used itbefore I was on that support
team, it was a tiny fraction ofwhat it was capable of doing.
(17:08):
And now I'm thinking about allthese tools that I use in my own
life.
I use craftdo.
That's like I'm in there everyday.
And if I could just figure outhow to unlock that other nine
tenths, to unlock that othernine tenths of what those things
do, just like, tell me how.
What are your tips for?
Okay, now I'm enlightened tothe idea that I'm using one
(17:28):
tenth of the software's brain.
What do I do now?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So I think the first thing you can do is just ask,
whether that's you're askingGoogle or you're asking Stack
Overflow, but understand what'sthe task that you want to
accomplish.
Right, and do I have anexisting tool where I can
accomplish that?
Part of it is just aboutcommunities you and I, before we
got started recording.
(17:52):
Today we're talking aboutsupport driven community.
There are all kinds of othercommunities like that where you
can just ask and say, hey, Ilove to try and automate things.
These are some of the toolsthat I use.
What cool use cases have youguys stumbled upon that you're
doing with these things?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I'm totally doing that now.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's such a great way to unlock power because when
you have that community thatdoes the same kind of things
that you're doing, they have allgone down these crazy rabbit
holes where they got ensconcedabsolutely ensconced in an
application and they're like Ijust I became the expert right
(18:35):
and they figured out all thesedifferent things that they could
do.
That 99% of other users had noclue.
And that's my first advice Justlike throw it out there and see
what kind of responses you get.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So your system with the Microsoft ecosystem is to
use VBA, and do you keep those?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
from my experience.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I know you've got to iterate on those right Like it's
going to up working or it'sgoing to do something you don't
want it to do.
Do you kind of keep those allin a central place where you can
go back and tweak them?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
yeah, so I?
I mean sharepoint is the mainstorage system in the microsoft
ecosystem, and so I have aSharePoint that has both kind of
the living templates and all ofthe historic documents.
The one thing that I do isbecause I have one application
(19:35):
reaching out and talking toanother application, I will
often download a local copy ifI'm making some iterations and
work on that local copy.
But then I need to make surethat I'm updating the copy
that's stored on SharePoint,because it has a unique address,
and so I always want to makesure that when something else is
(19:58):
trying to communicate with it,it's going to the right place.
And that was a hard lesson tolearn, actually, because I
thought, oh well, we'll justreplace it.
You don't want to do that.
So I keep a local copy thatI'll play with and make changes
to and then kind of track whatI'm doing.
(20:19):
And if it's code-based, it'sreally simple to just copy that
code, paste it into the workingversion of it and then we're off
to the races.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So, in learning that, who do you lean on?
Is there a community ofMicrosoft VBA hackers that
you're in?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I mean Stack Overflow and similar communities like
that I often relied on.
There's just an amazing wealthof knowledge, and the one thing
with with these tools is onceyou find a snippet of code that
works, it becomes prettyportable as long as you
(21:03):
understand how it works.
So I have done similar thingsin Excel-based applications
applications in the past, and sojust keep your code and bring
that with you, because often Ijust go, oh okay, I need this to
(21:24):
talk to Outlook, and so then Ijust dig through and the other
thing I will say and the codersout there know what I'm talking
about but make sure and putcomments in these snippets so
you know what it actually isdoing, because if you come back
to it two years later and youdon't have some comments to tell
(21:45):
you what's going on, it maytake you some time to figure out
what the heck is happening, andso that is one of the things I
did absolutely learn wascomments in there, that way you
always can come back to it andknow, oh okay, this is what this
does.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
That makes total sense.
When you started this process,did you get to the point where
you felt like I am spending moretime with this code and trying
to create these automations thanI'm saving?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
No, but I will say that there are diminishing
returns and you have to be awareof what you're automating.
Is it worth the automationeffort?
And I think this is in general.
You have to understand with anybusiness process what the value
is of automating that businessprocess.
(22:41):
If, for instance, yes, I repeatthe same process, but I only do
it once a week and it takesfive minutes, probably not worth
automating.
But if I do this multiple timesa week and it takes me hours
every time that I do it, nowwe're talking about value.
(23:02):
I also think that the more youwork on something like this,
there's a lot of repetition.
That goes, and so you go, go.
Oh, okay, I know how to do this, I have the basic building
blocks, and so putting togetherthat code doesn't take very long
because I already understandeverything I need to do with it.
(23:25):
But there are things that Ijust would say no, I'm not going
to automate that becausethere's not enough value in
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So those are the things that you only spend a few
minutes once a week on, or less.
How much time do you think yousave?
Oh, uh, over.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You know, I've I've been with customer direct now
for nearly eight years and I'mnot going to say that I saved a
year because I didn't, but Iknow I saved a month, if not
more time, over the course ofthose eight years.
And just automating theseprocesses it really is.
(24:02):
When you think about a new hireclass coming in and it wasn't
just new hires, right, we woulddo it for cross training as well
, and so I might have 20 peoplein a new, higher class, and so
I'm doing each of thesedifferent things 20 times, being
(24:23):
able to one-click that that's20x right there.
But then you have people whoget cross-trained, and so they
come in and they're learningsomething else, and there's a
similar process, and so evensomething as mundane as skilling
and re-skilling.
(24:43):
So, for anyone who's familiarwith contact center software,
there's this concept calledskills.
Skills tell you what calls canbe routed to a particular agent.
So, jen, maybe I've got you in atier one skill.
I want to get you into a tiertwo skill.
(25:06):
So you're going to go throughsome training and once that
training is complete, I can puttier two.
But I might want to have youpractice some tier two while
we're still in training.
Well, I want to take you out oftier one because I don't want
tier one calls getting in theway of you practicing tier two,
so I unskill you.
(25:26):
Then at some point I've got toreskill you and add a skill.
Right, there's all this back andforth.
Well, now imagine that, jen,you're coming into training and
you have eight skills alreadyand you've got a peer who has
six skills, but they'redifferent skills, and I need to
(25:47):
remove all of those skills fromyou and 19 peers, but I also
need to put them back at aparticular time.
There's a lot of work that goesinto that.
If you can click a button,remove all the skills, give you
one skill that you're learningand then later, when you're
(26:07):
ready to go back, click a button, give everybody all the skills
that they need to do their job,that saves so much time.
It's not even funny.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, it seems like it should be a feature of the
LMS to be able to do that.
Have you ever found that any ofyour automations become
obsolete because software thatyou're using issues that as a
new feature?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I can tell you that we wentthrough a migration.
It was the same company, but wemoved from one version to
another version and theirdatabase management was
different in how they managethings on their end, and it did
make a process that I hadalready built and relied on for
(26:54):
years obsolete at that point.
So I think we had been usingone process for like three years
and then not overnight butpretty close to it that process
was broken, and so that's anopportunity where you just have
to go back and say, okay, what'sthe value of me going through
this process again and making itwork?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
through this process again and making it work.
And can I make it work?
So, in all of those processes,um well, I know you, very
generously, have offered toshare your template, which is
amazing.
Can you walk us through that alittle bit?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
yeah, it's.
Uh, I will say the startingpoint for me is actually not me.
We have a template that ourrecruiting team uses, so when we
have new hires come in, that'susually where it starts, but you
don't have to start there.
(27:50):
What I call the playbook ispretty straightforward.
You put in information aboutagents that you're bringing in.
It's pretty basic informationand then you fill out some
things.
A lot of it is conditionallycolor-coded, so basically it's
screaming at you please putsomething here.
(28:11):
It's in yellow.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I use that for anytime I need to rely on myself
to fill something in.
It's got to scream at me forsure.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yep, once you put something in and then the color
goes away so that it's notscreaming at you and you go
through again like there areicons and they're kind of just
in a row.
Now a lot of these processeswouldn't make sense to another
(28:39):
organization because they're notusing the same tools or they
have different processes.
But the basics of how you canvisualize what your onboarding
looks like and kind of layingout all the things that need to
be accomplished.
That piece is where you have tostart.
(29:01):
Quite honestly and I tellpeople this all the time Forget
about the technology piece.
Start with your basic processes.
Make sure you have those mappedout.
Once you have them mapped out,then that's where you can start
automating things.
But if you don't know what yourprocess is, you can't automate
(29:23):
it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So process, for example, would be what you
described as how you graduateteams.
Would you call that like asingle process would be I need
to get them their certificates,I need to skill them and
certificates, I need to skillthem and do all the things
related to them graduating.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I would call that multiple processes.
But yes, I mean I will say Ican import some data.
That might be step one.
And then I'm going to send aninvite out, right.
So if it's a new hire class,it's going to be an Outlook
invite.
It's got a link for them sothat they know how to join that.
And then I'm going to get theminto an employee system, right.
(30:09):
So they're going to have anemployee record established with
our company.
We have an employee recordestablished with our company.
So that is going to be a simpleexport and then import, and
then I'm going to have to putthem into our LMS system.
Those are separate systems.
The process is similar, butthere are some other pieces
(30:31):
along the way.
Then I might have some clientcredentials that I need to get
issued.
That, again, is going to be aseparate process.
So each system that they needto be able to either be in,
exist as an employee or haveaccess to, each of those are
(30:52):
things and sometimes they havean order associated with them.
So, for instance, I can't getthem client access until they
have an email address.
So I need to make sure that Iget an email address established
internally first.
So a lot of that is justunderstanding, like what's the
order of operations here?
Because there are somefunctions that can't be carried
(31:15):
out until this other dependencyhas already been pleaded.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So do you keep kind of a list of the processes that
you need to do and whether ornot you've automated those?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's all right there in the playbook and they're all
dated and I even have a littlespot to put initials when it's
complete.
So even this document can beshared among a number of
different people, and so there'sa spot for someone to just say
hey, I did this.
That really is that check ofaccountability, so that I can
(31:52):
very quickly look at somethingand number one, see if
something's done but also whodid it.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So this is the template for one cohort of
onboarding and you duplicate itfor each cohort.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Interesting, yeah, and do you find yourself
iterating on it, or are you kindof past that point where it's
like it pretty much runs the wayit should?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, I'm past iteration.
I probably haven't made anyupdates to it for a couple of
years, but I did spend a longtime iterating, really as our
company went through a number ofdifferent iterations, and how
we did things.
We were a brick and mortarenvironment when I started.
(32:37):
We were a brick and mortarenvironment when I started, and
in 2018, we started to move to awork from home environment.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
That was prescient.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yes, it worked out very well for us.
But when you make a change likethat, processes change as well
and so that, like when I saysending out invites, that only
(33:06):
happens when we weren't allgathering in a classroom
somewhere.
Instead, we were gathering in avirtual meeting room.
So it's really important whenyou are making changes to
business processes that ifyou've got something like this,
that you understand how it'sgoing to impact what that's all
doing, because I had to makequite a few changes.
Or if we onboarded a new systemsomething that people needed
(33:29):
access to or migrated from onesystem to another, I had to go
in and make changes system toanother, I had to go in and make
changes.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Are there any other than employee onboarding?
Are there any major processesthat you found have been most
helpful to use this kind ofautomation for?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I will tell you that before I came to Customer Direct
, I used something very similar,and it just had to do with how
we go about coaching anddeveloping people that you
supervise at an agent level.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Ooh, exciting.
Yeah, that's a hot topic.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I will tell you there are much more advanced pieces
of software out there, that kindof do everything that I built
in Excel, but at the time it wasa way to help supervisors
(34:24):
reduce time doing data entry andspend time knowing what they
needed to coach and actually goand spend their time coaching,
and there were a lot ofsimilarities.
So, for instance, it wouldautomate scheduling coaching for
you.
So I would say, okay, I need tohave a coaching session with
Jen and I've got it in hercoaching plan that it's going to
(34:50):
be on this topic, this behavior, and then through the push of a
button it would create aninvite.
So block that time off on mycalendar but also on Jen's
calendar, so that Jen knew whenthat session was going to happen
, she would know what we'regoing to talk about and it holds
(35:10):
both of us accountable toensuring that that happens.
I think a big challenge foreverybody myself included,
sometimes is just timemanagement and really making
sure that you set aside time todo the things that you know will
(35:31):
really bring value to theorganization that you work for.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And not do those things that really don't bring a
lot of value that machines cando for you.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
That seems like the theme of this episode.
I think that's brilliant.
I would love to continue theconversation in the future,
maybe revisit these things, butI think I've taken up enough of
your time.
Do you have any other tips forsort of the average support
manager or support ops orservices ops person who might be
(36:05):
beginning this journey?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I think the big thing I would say is you don't have
to solve everything all at once,and you won't.
You will not solve everythingall at once and you won't.
You will not solve everythingall at once.
And so you mentioned did I needto iterate on this?
The answer is yes, but that'severything.
(36:27):
Everything is iterative.
So just start with the onething that you can fix or
improve today.
Fix it, Improve it, give itsome time, do some testing, get
some feedback, make sure thatit's working and then turn your
attention to the next thingthat's going to help you be more
(36:50):
successful or more efficient,whatever the case may be.
And as we already talked aboutyou, reach out.
Nobody judges you in a negativelight by saying I'd like to see
what suggestions you have tohelp me.
That's not going to be lookeddown upon.
(37:13):
I know people feel like I'm inthis role and I should know.
None of us know what the heckwe're doing.
Let's be real about this.
We don't know what the heckwe're doing.
Raise your hand, ask for help,and you'll find that there are a
lot of really generous peopleout there that will give you
advice, Some of it that you cantake and implement and love and
(37:34):
some of it.
You can just go.
It's not for me and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It's brilliant.
I love that.
I think that'll make a greatlittle clip for either of us to
use and reuse.
It's so true too, and I thinkthat imposter syndrome is real
and I feel it too.
I don't want to ask things.
I want to ask what a VBA is,because I'm supposed to know.
I've been in this field for solong.
I should know everything by now, and I don't want to reveal
myself as somebody who is not anexpert.
But you're right, we all cameto this field with varying
(38:09):
levels of experience and camethrough just like we were
talking about earlier, before wewere recording support versus
services call centers versus SASsupport.
They're in different worlds,with very different acronyms and
and we all have differentexpertise that we can learn from
.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That's why I'm doing this podcast.
So that's great.
That's it for today.
If you're spending too muchtime on repetitive work, take a
page from Rob's playbook.
Literally start small, automatewhat you can and free up time
for what matters.
If this episode gave you ideas,hit subscribe.
(38:49):
And also subscribe to our emailnewsletter for access to our
whole library of processes andplaybooks.
See you next time.
Automation is often just about taking something that
you repeat over and over.
You're doing the same thingover and over and just making
the machine do that repetitionfor you.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to Live Chat with Jen Weaver.
If you're drowning in manualtasks, this episode is for you.
Rob Dwyer from Happy2 figuredout how to automate onboarding,
training and QA using tools mostof us already have but barely
use.
He has saved hours with simpleVBA automations and today he's
(00:41):
sharing exactly how he did it.
If you're looking for quickwins to make your support ops
more efficient, hang around,let's get into it.
As you know, we're here withRob Dwyer of Happi2.
Am I saying Happi2 correctly?
Speaker 1 (00:56):
It's Happi2.
Happi2.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
I'm happy to be here with you, jen Fantastic, we
start every episode with a joke.
I have one for you if you're upfor it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
I am up for it.
Lay it on me.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Really don't want to offend anybody, but this is one
of my favorite jokes.
I'm going to shorten it becausemy dad tells it we would be
here all day.
So a guy is walking along by afarm and he sees a pig kind of
snuffling for truffles orwhatever under a tree and it
only has three legs.
One leg is wooden and it's kindof hobbling around on this
(01:32):
wooden peg leg.
And so the guy walks up to thefarmer and says, hey, what's the
deal with your pig's wooden leg?
And the farmer tells him thestory about how they were in the
barn and the barn was set onfire and the pig came and warned
them and dragged their kid outto safety.
And the pig was a hero.
And so he said, okay, but Idon't understand why the pig has
(01:52):
three legs, has a wooden leg.
And so the farmer tells thisother story about how the pig
does some other heroic thing.
And my dad is going to hatethis telling of this story, but
the pig is just an absolute heroand everybody loves the pig,
and so that.
And the guy's like, okay, butwhy does the pig have a wooden
leg?
And the farmer says, well, apig like that you don't eat all
(02:14):
at once.
Welcome to the podcast.
Today we're offending people.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Bacon.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, and so would you just tell me a little bit
about who you are, what yourperspective on support and
services is, and a little bitabout Happy2.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, absolutely Great to be here, Jen.
Thanks for having me.
My name is Rob Dwyer.
I work actually for twocompanies Happy2, which is a
sister company, and a technologyspinoff of a company called
Customer Direct.
Customer Direct is a BPO, acontact center based in St Louis
, Missouri, and then a few yearsago we spun off our technology
(02:57):
division, Happy2, and weautomate quality and do call
analysis for all kinds ofcontact centers of all different
sizes.
My background is actually intraining and quality, so I've
been involved in contact centersfor 15 years, but I came up as
(03:17):
a trainer, did training allacross the globe and then when I
came to Customer Direct,leading their training
organization was what I came into do and quality came along
with that eventually.
So that's it's really mybackground.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I love it and I I know you have a process to share
with us today, because ourpodcast is all about tactical
support helping support peopleto to do things.
Nobody got a manual when westarted this, and so somebody
like you who has a lot to share,is a real asset.
What is the process that youbrought with you today?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, absolutely so.
I firmly believe in usingwhatever tools you have
available, particularly basedoff of your size.
If you're a giant organization,you can buy all the things, but
if you're a smallerorganization, you have a limited
tool set, but you can reallyuse tools in a way that maybe
you didn't expect.
(04:15):
When I came into theorganization, we were a
Microsoft shop.
We had Outlook, we had Excel,we had PowerPoint all of these
things and when it came toonboarding new people in
training, there are all thesedifferent systems that they need
access to.
There are different things thatyou need to set up.
(04:37):
Eventually we migrated to fullyvirtual training.
So there were invites thatneeded to be sent out, needed to
get email credentials, systemaccess to various things, and we
did post-training surveys whichneed to go out.
And then I need to do datacollection and I want to get
graduation certificates out topeople, like all of these
(04:57):
different things that involve alot of data entry or manual
processes.
So what I did was I utilizedVBA, which is Visual Basic for
Applications.
It's a way to extend theusability of Microsoft
applications to automate justabout everything, so I could do
(05:18):
a lot of these things in oneclick Once I had data I could.
For instance we'll just startwith kind of the process I get
all of the agents in what I calla playbook, and so it's trainer
facing, but also as a leader inthe organization, I would use
(05:38):
it and the first thing that Iwould do is I would have this
series of tasks, things to do asfar as getting access, granting
access, doing things.
I would do is I would have thisseries of tasks, things to do
as far as getting access,granting access, doing things.
I would click a button and itwould create dated tasks in my
Outlook.
Because I am a task-focusedperson.
(05:59):
Sometimes I don't want to haveto come back, I just want
Outlook to tell me like hey,today you need to make sure that
you send out the graduationcertificates because the class
is graduating, Okay, great.
So that was the first thinggetting the tasks.
But then every little step ofthe way I tried to automate
whatever it was.
(06:19):
So if I need to get themcredentials to a particular
system, if there's a CSV that Ican just upload in bulk, then I
just have a button that I click.
That button executes creating aCSV worksheet that has all of
the data necessary formattedproperly for that system so I
(06:41):
can just upload it and go.
When it comes to sending outinvites, I have all of the new
people and the email addresses,so I just click a button.
It creates an invite in Outlook.
That goes out, has the link.
Everything's already set inthere and you can even set it
for variables.
(07:01):
So when we first started withthis, we were using Adobe
Connect for our virtual trainingplatform.
Adobe Connect had differentclassrooms.
Those different classrooms haddifferent links, so, depending
on what you were being trainedin, it already knew what link to
put in the body of that invite.
So it's just saved me so muchtime so that I could focus on
(07:26):
really high value activities andI think ultimately that's the
piece of anyone in support.
You want what you're doing tobe high value, but there are all
these kind of tasks that youstill have to get completed, so
any little bit that you canautomate.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So how did you start that?
Did you just, at the very basiclevel, create a list of all
these things you didn't reallywant to be putting a lot of
effort into?
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Well, it grew over time.
The first piece of it was reallyjust identifying what people
were being trained, what theywere being trained in, tracking
basic things like attendance andmaybe so the trainer could
communicate with me what theywere struggling with or who was
a strong performer, making surethat we tracked assessments.
(08:17):
And then over time, it juststarted to grow and so I would
decide, okay, we're doing thisnew thing now started to grow
and so I would decide, okay,we're doing this new thing now.
So let's just take supervisoronboarding checklist.
We created a supervisoronboarding checklist so that
when agents came out of trainingand moved to the supervisor,
that we made sure certain thingswere happening communication
(08:40):
between the supervisor and theagent.
We created a list in aSharePoint list and then what I
could do was just with the clickof a button it would create a
notification that goes to thesupervisor, create that
checklist for the agent.
They need to start goingthrough and doing these things
(09:02):
with the agent, and sointeracting with things like
SharePoint, with things likePowerPoint, is actually
relatively easy if you know howto do it, and it just kept
growing to the point where Ididn't have to spend very much
time when we had a new hireclass.
(09:25):
It would be maybe 30 minutes ofdoing things that before would
probably take a whole day.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Wow, that's impactful .
So you are using kind ofsnippets of code to do that.
Am I getting that right?
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Yeah, yeah.
So VBA is a really simple,straightforward type of coding.
It is coding but it's notobject oriented.
You don't have to.
You need to know the verybasics.
You need to understand thingslike variables, but I think the
(10:01):
average person can do it and,quite honestly, the way that Gen
AI has made coding accessibleto people who aren't coders, you
could get a lot of that codejust by having one of these new
Gen AI systems help you developthat code, just by saying this
(10:25):
is what I want to do.
Obviously, you need to test thecode and I will tell everyone
test, test, test as you're goingthrough this.
But I am not a coder.
I know enough.
But this was easy enough thatall I really needed to do was
(10:46):
get some help on the internet.
When I wanted to do something,a quick search often led me to
what I needed.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
You are using this for streamlining communication
with the leads who are doing thetraining.
What are some other?
And you mentioned initiatingyour tasks.
This is actually something I'vebeen trying to do.
I'm using linear, somethingI've been trying to do.
I'm using linear and what I'dlove to do.
I could do this in Asana, whereI would populate a task
template and it would dateeverything based on the due date
(11:14):
Sounds like, that's what you'veachieved here?
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's simple formulas based onhow long you anticipate
something is supposed to last,right?
I mean, a training class hasestablished timelines and so
it's just a matter of umautomating things based off of
those timelines.
But there are things like it'snot so much that it's a task,
(11:40):
but I want to do this and I'lltalk about the graduation
certificates.
It's a good example, when agentsare not in-house, being able to
celebrate their accomplishmentvirtually is a really cool thing
to do, right, and yes, you canhave certificates.
(12:04):
That may be in a learningmanagement system, because we do
have a learning managementsystem and it has certificates
but that tangible I get a PDF ofsomething that maybe I can
print out at home is really niceto have.
And I could, with PowerPoint,create a template and then in
(12:27):
that template, for instance, Ihad signatures in it.
We had the president of thecompany and myself.
Both had our digital signatureson this.
It would be customized ascustomer direct, as a BPO, so we
had lots of different clients.
So it would be customized withthe logo of the client that you
(12:48):
were supporting.
It would have your name on it,it would have the date.
But literally all I had to dowas store this PowerPoint on a
SharePoint and, with a click ofa button, this Excel-based
playbook would reach out to thatPowerPoint, create a copy of it
, populate the data and exporteach slide to a PDF and then
(13:15):
embed that PDF into an emailwith Outlook addressed to the
agent.
So it was literally like all ofthese different steps that you
would normally have to do.
I did with a click of a buttonand then it was just hit send.
And so if I had 20 people Iwould click one button and then
I would click send on those 20emails.
(13:37):
That popped up on my screenthat before we went through that
process it might take me fourhours to go through and create
all of those different things.
Automation is an amazing thingto do and you can use a lot of
existing tools to do it.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
You have me thinking about all the things that I'd
like to automate.
In fact, I think I'll sit downtomorrow and look back at my
week and just think through whatdid I do.
That really took me too muchtime.
I use Zapier I can use that,you know but also I often feel
kind of stuck.
So I love your idea of askingAI I want to do this thing,
(14:19):
what's the best tool for that?
Or like, how do I use Zapierfor that?
Or how do I work with Microsoftecosystem?
Um, and so you, you said youused PowerPoint and you were
able to to get it to uh, plug inlike, did you have?
I'm thinking of when I used todo kind of um, bulk, bulk
(14:40):
mailing and it would plug in theperson's address and like their
name.
And so is there a special fieldin PowerPoint that you use?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No, there's not a particular field for that.
You're using text boxes forthat it's really all about.
For those that are not coders,there's this thing called an
array.
An array is a way of containinga string of data, various data
elements that are the same thing, and really all you're doing is
(15:12):
you're taking that list ofnames and you're sending it to
PowerPoint through the code andPowerPoint understanding because
of the instructions.
Okay, the first name, put it onslide one.
Second name put it on slide two, the third name put it on slide
three, et cetera.
(15:32):
And automation is often justabout taking something that you
repeat over and over.
You're doing the same thingover and over, you're doing the
same thing over and over andjust making the machine do that
repetition for you.
And you can do it in all kindsof applications.
(15:53):
Here's the thing aboutapplications that we use all the
time we probably only scratchthe surface of what they can
actually do for us.
We find the particular piecesthat are interesting to us and
we go, oh yeah, this reallyworks for me, that's what I go
(16:13):
use it for, but thefunctionality of that particular
application is probably 10x ormore of what you use it for.
And so for me, in thisparticular case, it was just
about unlocking some of theexisting potential in
applications that people workwith every day.
And look, I used Microsoft.
(16:35):
Lots of places are they useGoogle.
Well, guess what?
You can do the same thing withJavaScript.
With Google, they do the samething.
It's just a different language,but you can still automate all
of these things.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
If I weren't standing at a standing desk, I would be
at the edge of my seat becauseit resonates so wildly with me,
because I spent eight years on acustomer support team, becoming
the absolute expert on asoftware tool.
On a customer support team,becoming the absolute expert on
a software tool.
And if I look at how I used itbefore I was on that support
team, it was a tiny fraction ofwhat it was capable of doing.
(17:08):
And now I'm thinking about allthese tools that I use in my own
life.
I use craftdo.
That's like I'm in there everyday.
And if I could just figure outhow to unlock that other nine
tenths, to unlock that othernine tenths of what those things
do, just like, tell me how.
What are your tips for?
Okay, now I'm enlightened tothe idea that I'm using one
(17:28):
tenth of the software's brain.
What do I do now?
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So I think the first thing you can do is just ask,
whether that's you're askingGoogle or you're asking Stack
Overflow, but understand what'sthe task that you want to
accomplish.
Right, and do I have anexisting tool where I can
accomplish that?
Part of it is just aboutcommunities you and I, before we
got started recording.
(17:52):
Today we're talking aboutsupport driven community.
There are all kinds of othercommunities like that where you
can just ask and say, hey, Ilove to try and automate things.
These are some of the toolsthat I use.
What cool use cases have youguys stumbled upon that you're
doing with these things?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
I'm totally doing that now.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
It's such a great way to unlock power because when
you have that community thatdoes the same kind of things
that you're doing, they have allgone down these crazy rabbit
holes where they got ensconcedabsolutely ensconced in an
application and they're like Ijust I became the expert right
(18:35):
and they figured out all thesedifferent things that they could
do.
That 99% of other users had noclue.
And that's my first advice Justlike throw it out there and see
what kind of responses you get.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
So your system with the Microsoft ecosystem is to
use VBA, and do you keep those?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
from my experience.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
I know you've got to iterate on those right Like it's
going to up working or it'sgoing to do something you don't
want it to do.
Do you kind of keep those allin a central place where you can
go back and tweak them?
Speaker 1 (19:10):
yeah, so I?
I mean sharepoint is the mainstorage system in the microsoft
ecosystem, and so I have aSharePoint that has both kind of
the living templates and all ofthe historic documents.
The one thing that I do isbecause I have one application
(19:35):
reaching out and talking toanother application, I will
often download a local copy ifI'm making some iterations and
work on that local copy.
But then I need to make surethat I'm updating the copy
that's stored on SharePoint,because it has a unique address,
and so I always want to makesure that when something else is
(19:58):
trying to communicate with it,it's going to the right place.
And that was a hard lesson tolearn, actually, because I
thought, oh well, we'll justreplace it.
You don't want to do that.
So I keep a local copy thatI'll play with and make changes
to and then kind of track whatI'm doing.
(20:19):
And if it's code-based, it'sreally simple to just copy that
code, paste it into the workingversion of it and then we're off
to the races.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
So, in learning that, who do you lean on?
Is there a community ofMicrosoft VBA hackers that
you're in?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I mean Stack Overflow and similar communities like
that I often relied on.
There's just an amazing wealthof knowledge, and the one thing
with with these tools is onceyou find a snippet of code that
works, it becomes prettyportable as long as you
(21:03):
understand how it works.
So I have done similar thingsin Excel-based applications
applications in the past, and sojust keep your code and bring
that with you, because often Ijust go, oh okay, I need this to
(21:24):
talk to Outlook, and so then Ijust dig through and the other
thing I will say and the codersout there know what I'm talking
about but make sure and putcomments in these snippets so
you know what it actually isdoing, because if you come back
to it two years later and youdon't have some comments to tell
(21:45):
you what's going on, it maytake you some time to figure out
what the heck is happening, andso that is one of the things I
did absolutely learn wascomments in there, that way you
always can come back to it andknow, oh okay, this is what this
does.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
That makes total sense.
When you started this process,did you get to the point where
you felt like I am spending moretime with this code and trying
to create these automations thanI'm saving?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
No, but I will say that there are diminishing
returns and you have to be awareof what you're automating.
Is it worth the automationeffort?
And I think this is in general.
You have to understand with anybusiness process what the value
is of automating that businessprocess.
(22:41):
If, for instance, yes, I repeatthe same process, but I only do
it once a week and it takesfive minutes, probably not worth
automating.
But if I do this multiple timesa week and it takes me hours
every time that I do it, nowwe're talking about value.
(23:02):
I also think that the more youwork on something like this,
there's a lot of repetition.
That goes, and so you go, go.
Oh, okay, I know how to do this, I have the basic building
blocks, and so putting togetherthat code doesn't take very long
because I already understandeverything I need to do with it.
(23:25):
But there are things that Ijust would say no, I'm not going
to automate that becausethere's not enough value in
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
So those are the things that you only spend a few
minutes once a week on, or less.
How much time do you think yousave?
Oh, uh, over.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
You know, I've I've been with customer direct now
for nearly eight years and I'mnot going to say that I saved a
year because I didn't, but Iknow I saved a month, if not
more time, over the course ofthose eight years.
And just automating theseprocesses it really is.
(24:02):
When you think about a new hireclass coming in and it wasn't
just new hires, right, we woulddo it for cross training as well
, and so I might have 20 peoplein a new, higher class, and so
I'm doing each of thesedifferent things 20 times, being
(24:23):
able to one-click that that's20x right there.
But then you have people whoget cross-trained, and so they
come in and they're learningsomething else, and there's a
similar process, and so evensomething as mundane as skilling
and re-skilling.
(24:43):
So, for anyone who's familiarwith contact center software,
there's this concept calledskills.
Skills tell you what calls canbe routed to a particular agent.
So, jen, maybe I've got you in atier one skill.
I want to get you into a tiertwo skill.
(25:06):
So you're going to go throughsome training and once that
training is complete, I can puttier two.
But I might want to have youpractice some tier two while
we're still in training.
Well, I want to take you out oftier one because I don't want
tier one calls getting in theway of you practicing tier two,
so I unskill you.
(25:26):
Then at some point I've got toreskill you and add a skill.
Right, there's all this back andforth.
Well, now imagine that, jen,you're coming into training and
you have eight skills alreadyand you've got a peer who has
six skills, but they'redifferent skills, and I need to
(25:47):
remove all of those skills fromyou and 19 peers, but I also
need to put them back at aparticular time.
There's a lot of work that goesinto that.
If you can click a button,remove all the skills, give you
one skill that you're learningand then later, when you're
(26:07):
ready to go back, click a button, give everybody all the skills
that they need to do their job,that saves so much time.
It's not even funny.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Yeah, it seems like it should be a feature of the
LMS to be able to do that.
Have you ever found that any ofyour automations become
obsolete because software thatyou're using issues that as a
new feature?
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
I can tell you that we wentthrough a migration.
It was the same company, but wemoved from one version to
another version and theirdatabase management was
different in how they managethings on their end, and it did
make a process that I hadalready built and relied on for
(26:54):
years obsolete at that point.
So I think we had been usingone process for like three years
and then not overnight butpretty close to it that process
was broken, and so that's anopportunity where you just have
to go back and say, okay, what'sthe value of me going through
this process again and making itwork?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
through this process again and making it work.
And can I make it work?
So, in all of those processes,um well, I know you, very
generously, have offered toshare your template, which is
amazing.
Can you walk us through that alittle bit?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
yeah, it's.
Uh, I will say the startingpoint for me is actually not me.
We have a template that ourrecruiting team uses, so when we
have new hires come in, that'susually where it starts, but you
don't have to start there.
(27:50):
What I call the playbook ispretty straightforward.
You put in information aboutagents that you're bringing in.
It's pretty basic informationand then you fill out some
things.
A lot of it is conditionallycolor-coded, so basically it's
screaming at you please putsomething here.
(28:11):
It's in yellow.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
I use that for anytime I need to rely on myself
to fill something in.
It's got to scream at me forsure.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
Yep, once you put something in and then the color
goes away so that it's notscreaming at you and you go
through again like there areicons and they're kind of just
in a row.
Now a lot of these processeswouldn't make sense to another
(28:39):
organization because they're notusing the same tools or they
have different processes.
But the basics of how you canvisualize what your onboarding
looks like and kind of layingout all the things that need to
be accomplished.
That piece is where you have tostart.
(29:01):
Quite honestly and I tellpeople this all the time Forget
about the technology piece.
Start with your basic processes.
Make sure you have those mappedout.
Once you have them mapped out,then that's where you can start
automating things.
But if you don't know what yourprocess is, you can't automate
(29:23):
it.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
So process, for example, would be what you
described as how you graduateteams.
Would you call that like asingle process would be I need
to get them their certificates,I need to skill them and
certificates, I need to skillthem and do all the things
related to them graduating.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
I would call that multiple processes.
But yes, I mean I will say Ican import some data.
That might be step one.
And then I'm going to send aninvite out, right.
So if it's a new hire class,it's going to be an Outlook
invite.
It's got a link for them sothat they know how to join that.
And then I'm going to get theminto an employee system, right.
(30:09):
So they're going to have anemployee record established with
our company.
We have an employee recordestablished with our company.
So that is going to be a simpleexport and then import, and
then I'm going to have to putthem into our LMS system.
Those are separate systems.
The process is similar, butthere are some other pieces
(30:31):
along the way.
Then I might have some clientcredentials that I need to get
issued.
That, again, is going to be aseparate process.
So each system that they needto be able to either be in,
exist as an employee or haveaccess to, each of those are
(30:52):
things and sometimes they havean order associated with them.
So, for instance, I can't getthem client access until they
have an email address.
So I need to make sure that Iget an email address established
internally first.
So a lot of that is justunderstanding, like what's the
order of operations here?
Because there are somefunctions that can't be carried
(31:15):
out until this other dependencyhas already been pleaded.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
So do you keep kind of a list of the processes that
you need to do and whether ornot you've automated those?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
It's all right there in the playbook and they're all
dated and I even have a littlespot to put initials when it's
complete.
So even this document can beshared among a number of
different people, and so there'sa spot for someone to just say
hey, I did this.
That really is that check ofaccountability, so that I can
(31:52):
very quickly look at somethingand number one, see if
something's done but also whodid it.
Speaker 2 (31:59):
So this is the template for one cohort of
onboarding and you duplicate itfor each cohort.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Interesting, yeah, and do you find yourself
iterating on it, or are you kindof past that point where it's
like it pretty much runs the wayit should?
Speaker 1 (32:11):
Yeah, I'm past iteration.
I probably haven't made anyupdates to it for a couple of
years, but I did spend a longtime iterating, really as our
company went through a number ofdifferent iterations, and how
we did things.
We were a brick and mortarenvironment when I started.
(32:37):
We were a brick and mortarenvironment when I started, and
in 2018, we started to move to awork from home environment.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
That was prescient.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Yes, it worked out very well for us.
But when you make a change likethat, processes change as well
and so that, like when I saysending out invites, that only
(33:06):
happens when we weren't allgathering in a classroom
somewhere.
Instead, we were gathering in avirtual meeting room.
So it's really important whenyou are making changes to
business processes that ifyou've got something like this,
that you understand how it'sgoing to impact what that's all
doing, because I had to makequite a few changes.
Or if we onboarded a new systemsomething that people needed
(33:29):
access to or migrated from onesystem to another, I had to go
in and make changes system toanother, I had to go in and make
changes.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Are there any other than employee onboarding?
Are there any major processesthat you found have been most
helpful to use this kind ofautomation for?
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I will tell you that before I came to Customer Direct
, I used something very similar,and it just had to do with how
we go about coaching anddeveloping people that you
supervise at an agent level.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Ooh, exciting.
Yeah, that's a hot topic.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I will tell you there are much more advanced pieces
of software out there, that kindof do everything that I built
in Excel, but at the time it wasa way to help supervisors
(34:24):
reduce time doing data entry andspend time knowing what they
needed to coach and actually goand spend their time coaching,
and there were a lot ofsimilarities.
So, for instance, it wouldautomate scheduling coaching for
you.
So I would say, okay, I need tohave a coaching session with
Jen and I've got it in hercoaching plan that it's going to
(34:50):
be on this topic, this behavior, and then through the push of a
button it would create aninvite.
So block that time off on mycalendar but also on Jen's
calendar, so that Jen knew whenthat session was going to happen
, she would know what we'regoing to talk about and it holds
(35:10):
both of us accountable toensuring that that happens.
I think a big challenge foreverybody myself included,
sometimes is just timemanagement and really making
sure that you set aside time todo the things that you know will
(35:31):
really bring value to theorganization that you work for.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
And not do those things that really don't bring a
lot of value that machines cando for you.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Right.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
That seems like the theme of this episode.
I think that's brilliant.
I would love to continue theconversation in the future,
maybe revisit these things, butI think I've taken up enough of
your time.
Do you have any other tips forsort of the average support
manager or support ops orservices ops person who might be
(36:05):
beginning this journey?
Speaker 1 (36:07):
I think the big thing I would say is you don't have
to solve everything all at once,and you won't.
You will not solve everythingall at once and you won't.
You will not solve everythingall at once.
And so you mentioned did I needto iterate on this?
The answer is yes, but that'severything.
(36:27):
Everything is iterative.
So just start with the onething that you can fix or
improve today.
Fix it, Improve it, give itsome time, do some testing, get
some feedback, make sure thatit's working and then turn your
attention to the next thingthat's going to help you be more
(36:50):
successful or more efficient,whatever the case may be.
And as we already talked aboutyou, reach out.
Nobody judges you in a negativelight by saying I'd like to see
what suggestions you have tohelp me.
That's not going to be lookeddown upon.
(37:13):
I know people feel like I'm inthis role and I should know.
None of us know what the heckwe're doing.
Let's be real about this.
We don't know what the heckwe're doing.
Raise your hand, ask for help,and you'll find that there are a
lot of really generous peopleout there that will give you
advice, Some of it that you cantake and implement and love and
(37:34):
some of it.
You can just go.
It's not for me and that's okay.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
It's brilliant.
I love that.
I think that'll make a greatlittle clip for either of us to
use and reuse.
It's so true too, and I thinkthat imposter syndrome is real
and I feel it too.
I don't want to ask things.
I want to ask what a VBA is,because I'm supposed to know.
I've been in this field for solong.
I should know everything by now, and I don't want to reveal
myself as somebody who is not anexpert.
But you're right, we all cameto this field with varying
(38:09):
levels of experience and camethrough just like we were
talking about earlier, before wewere recording support versus
services call centers versus SASsupport.
They're in different worlds,with very different acronyms and
and we all have differentexpertise that we can learn from
.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
That's why I'm doing this podcast.
So that's great.
That's it for today.
If you're spending too muchtime on repetitive work, take a
page from Rob's playbook.
Literally start small, automatewhat you can and free up time
for what matters.
If this episode gave you ideas,hit subscribe.
(38:49):
And also subscribe to our emailnewsletter for access to our
whole library of processes andplaybooks.
See you next time.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!