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May 13, 2025 57 mins

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We’re exploring how to balance inbox work with long-term projects on a support team! Chase Clemons from 37signals returns to share how his team uses six-week cycles to manage support coverage, build new initiatives, and avoid burnout while still delivering exceptional customer service.

In this episode, you’ll learn how 37signals structures their support team to thrive in both reactive and proactive work. Discover how they balance daily inbox demands with meaningful project work, the benefits of hiring “managers of one,” and why project days are key to team longevity. Chase also shares how cycles promote clarity, protect focus time, and allow support pros to contribute far beyond the queue

We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!

To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com.

Thanks for listening!

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Priscilla Brooke (00:00):
Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about
customer support from the peopleof Buzzsprout.
I'm your host, priscilla Brooke.
Today we have Chase Clemonsjoining us, from 37signals.
Chase is going to share with ushow his team works in cycles,
how they balance inbox coverageand project work, and some of
the strategies that he uses tokeep everything running smoothly
.
Thanks for joining us, let'sget into it.

(00:22):
Thanks for joining us, let'sget into it.
All right, hello, hello toanother great episode of Happy
to Help.
If you've been listening toHappy to Help for the last
couple months or since itsbeginning about a year ago, then
you will recognize the namethat I dropped in the intro.
Welcome to the show, chase.

(00:42):
Yeah, happy to be here.
Thanks for having me.
I'm really excited about it.
Last time you were here, wetalked about customer feedback
and how you take that in andwhat you do with it to make your
product more valuable to yourcustomers and to improve your
service, and so if you'relistening and that is
interesting to you, go find thatepisode with Chase, because
it's really great.
So I'm excited to have you back, chase, to talk to us about

(01:10):
working in cycles and balancingproject work with inbox coverage
.
I think it's going to be areally good conversation, but
before we start, chase, who hasmade your day recently?

Chase Clemons (01:15):
Yeah, I got to tell you about an older guy by
the name of Nate over at thelocal Ace Hardware store.
So I went in there the otherday looking for a light switch
plate.
We had one that the previousowners had painted and I was
like this looks dumb, I want awhite one.
So went in and tiny littlething, right, like a light
switch plate, just a tiny littlething in this massive store.
I walk in, I'm looking up atthe aisle numbers, trying to

(01:37):
make sense of like what is where.
And this guy's spotty sense musthave went off at that point,
because he walks over and askswhat I'm looking for and then
just walks with me to the rightspot and a lot of folks at that
point would just like stop andmove on Right.
This guy stood there and he waslike all right, here's where
they are on the shelf, here'sthe different brands that we
have, here's the one that I usein my house.

(01:58):
I was like sold, I'll take thatone.
Wow.
And then the guy walks back upto the front.
It was like and again, I spentmaybe $2 on this thing.
I was in and out inside of fiveminutes essentially.
But the care and attention thatthis guy put into that one
moment of his day is the reasonwhy I drive past two other
hardware stores to get to thatparticular one.

(02:18):
So Nate at the local AceHardware, he was fantastic.

Priscilla Brooke (02:22):
I love that.
That's awesome.
I like the fact that he had tobe observant to see you looking
around, Like it wasn't asituation where he waited for
you to come to him.
He saw you so he had to beaware.
And I think sometimes whenyou're working in a situation
whether it be in like emailsupport, like in a queue waiting
for an email to show up, orwhen you're like standing

(02:42):
physically in a hardware storewaiting for someone to ask you a
question there's a tendency ora temptation to kind of check
out until someone walks over toyou and to like take that as a
breather.
But he must not have done that.
He must have been fully engagedin the role he was playing,
even when he wasn't activelyhelping someone, so that he
could go and be proactive abouthelping someone.

Jordan Blair (03:02):
Well, and you mentioned that you were in there
for such a short time maybelike two minutes out of five
minutes but he was the reasonwhy you were in and out of there
so quickly, because he took thetime to help you and he,
instead of you, like wanderingaround, going where are the
light switches?

Chase Clemons (03:17):
Yeah, I was talking to a friend the other
day and I was like, see, this isnot to be like too on the nose
with things, right, but that'sthe same kind of mentality we
have with our support and evenwith Basecamp, the product.
Like we want you to get intoyour work and get out Right.
We're not like gamifying thewhole Basecamp app to get more
of your time and attention onthere.
We literally want it where youcan be in and out in the
shortest amount of possible.

(03:38):
And to see that he didn't doany of it.
It was he knew what I needed,got me what I needed, walked me
up to the front, to the cashier,and then, you know, gave the

(03:59):
friendly goodbye on the way outthe door, like it was perfect
for how short a moment.
And I'm sure this guy does itwith everybody right.
So it's a very small part ofhis job, but it's one where,
like I said, I drive past twoother hardware stores to get
there.

Priscilla Brooke (04:11):
So it pays off and it impacted you positively,
so it might feel like a small,insignificant part of the day,
but the reality is it actuallymade enough of an impact that
you remembered it, and so nowyou're talking about it here.

Chase Clemons (04:27):
See, this is what we do we look for good customer
experiences in the real worldthat we can then bring back into
our support teams.

Priscilla Brooke (04:29):
Essentially it was a perfect example.
Yeah, and the more we talkabout it, the more we promote it
as a way for people to do theirservice, and I just love it so
much.
Before we jump into how youbalance kind of project and
cycles and working in the inbox,for anyone who didn't listen to
that episode that you were onearlier, can you give them just
a quick rundown of what it isyou do and where you work and

(04:50):
what products you support?

Chase Clemons (04:52):
Yeah, definitely.
So I work at a company called37 Signals.
We make a couple of differentproducts, most notably Basecamp
and hey.
Basecamp for projects, hey foremail.
We are ancient in internetyears, which is kind of like dog
years.
Right, we've been around since1999.
And then Basecamp itself theapp has been around since 2004.
For me, I joined in 2011.

(05:12):
So I've got what is that mathLike?
14, 15 years of experience withthe team.
Essentially, I lead thecustomer support team there and
we provide support for thoseproducts, along with all of our
I guess you would call themvintage kind of like.
So we have products that, eventhough aren't in active develop
anymore, we still go out andsupport the customers that are

(05:33):
still using them.
So you have different, olderversions of Basecamp.
You have an older app calledHigh Rise which is a CRM, an
older chat app called Campfire.
Like, if you tally it up at theend of the day CRM, an older
chat app called Campfire.
Like, if you tally it up at theend of the day, it's 15 people
on the team.
There's two products that arein active development, one more
coming up later this year, andthen seven that are in that kind

(05:54):
of vintage stage where we'restill supporting so small little
team but supporting just a lot.

Priscilla Brooke (06:00):
Yeah, so I'm curious what makes you excited
about customer service thesedays?
So I'm going to give you ananswer, but it's probably not
for the reason that most peoplethink.

Chase Clemons (06:09):
We'll start with that way AI right and most
people would be like, becauseit's going to open up all the
sorts of technological wonderand all the rest.
Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.
I am not well steep enough inthat to make any kind of
prediction, even if I was in theprediction business.
Right, I'm excited about itbecause it is a great time to
figure out what great supportreally means to you and really

(06:30):
means your company right.
So is great support directingeveryone to a bot?
Is it training the bot to be asclose to a human as you can and
kind of going that route?
Or is it hiring and thentraining a team that customers
can quickly talk to?
Is it a mix?
I don't know.
Like the thing is, wherever youland on that AI trend I think
at least all of us in thismoment it forces you to lay down

(06:53):
a line and say this is whatgreat support looks like.
This is where I'm going tofocus and this is where our team
is going to head for the nextcouple of years.

Priscilla Brooke (07:01):
Essentially, yeah, you have to make a
decision.
You have to define that,regardless of whether it's AI
focused or human focused orwhatever you choose.
But you're going to have tomake a decision here and if you
don't make a decision, that'sgoing to be your decision.

Chase Clemons (07:14):
Yeah, you can't just stick your head in the
ground and ignore all of it.

Priscilla Brooke (07:21):
And I know there's a lot of I in the
support world when it comes toAI and replacing people, but I
think you're exactly right.
We have to figure out for eachindividual company what it is
that you're going to value inyour support and how you're
going to measure a goodexperience, and you might find
that for you, you're going tomeasure that as full AI support.
I'm probably not going to agreewith you, but you're right.

(07:43):
We're going to have to bepushed to that decision and
figure out what that looks like,and so it's exciting to see
what's going to happen andhopefully it pushes people to be
even more human, focused andlet AI be that tool we use to be
even better in that humanconnection.
That's a very good answer.

Chase Clemons (07:59):
I try to bring good answers for you.

Priscilla Brooke (08:01):
You always have the best answers.
That's why we have you on again.
All right, so let's jump intoit.
About, I don't know, mid lastyear we had an episode of Happy
to Help where we talked aboutthe importance of working in the
inbox and having projectsoutside of the inbox and finding
that balance and why that'snecessary for your team.
You know it allows your team toflex different muscles and it

(08:22):
gives them a break from kind ofthe inbox grind, as sometimes
that can feel like a grind.
It allows flexibility in yourschedules, it allows your team
to grow and develop theirknowledge and offering more cool
things to your customers, andwe also talked about some of the
strategies we use here atBuzzsprout to make that happen.
But I'm excited because this isa slightly different kind of

(08:45):
conversation and Chase is reallygoing to share what he does and
his strategies around this withhis team.
First, I want to get a littlemore context of your team.
So you kind of mentioned thatyou're supporting a lot of
different products, some inactive development, some not.
Remind me how many people didyou say you have on your team?
15, including me, and doeseveryone on the team support all
of your products or some oncertain products and some on

(09:08):
others?
How does that break down thestructure of your team?

Chase Clemons (09:11):
Yeah, the goal is everyone handles everything.
Now, of course, the moreexperience and tenure you have,
the more quickly you can handlesome things right.
So, if we're talking, basecampClassic come out in 2004, ran up
until 2010, 2011, like right,when I get hired, essentially
I'll have more experience withthat than someone who has been
with our team for six months Now.

(09:31):
That said, we're not going toshy away from letting them
support that product right.
It's just going to take them alittle longer to find the answer
, figure it out, that kind ofthing.
So the goal again everyonehandles everything.
Tenure and experience.
That plays into it a little bit.
The big thing here is there'sno silos in any of it.
We kind of think of ourselveslike a local fire department.

(09:51):
Right, you do reactive, whichis go put the fires out.
Right, Proactive, which is goout and you know, controlled
fire burns and wooded areas orputting sprinklers in buildings,
like that kind of thing.
Right, you do training, you doeducation.
My kids had one of the firetrucks that came to the school
the other day and was teachingthem about fire safety and all

(10:11):
that.
All that happens in your localfire department.
It's not like you've got thisone department that does only
the reactive and then anotherdepartment that does only the
training right.
So that's how we like to thinkof ourselves too.
We want everyone to be able tohandle pretty much anything
that's thrown at them, becausethat makes everything else
easier down the road.

Priscilla Brooke (10:31):
Yeah.
Do you have some people on yourteam that are specialized in
certain like features within theproduct, or do you have people
who kind of are your go-topeople for certain things and
they educate the rest of theteam?
Is there like a structure inthat way?

Chase Clemons (10:45):
Structure is a very big word for what we do.
It's more along the lines ofdoes someone have an interest in
X, right?
So, like, one of the productswe have is hey, it's an email
service.
There are a couple of membersof the team that are just really
love it and really want to godeep in it and learn all the
different corners of it and thatkind of thing, and then they

(11:08):
come back so that when a newperson is learning hate, they
can share all of thatinformation with them.
So, yeah, if I have a reallytricky hate question that I am
beating my head against, right,my first stop is in our campfire
chat, in our team chat, likehey, has anybody else ever seen
this?
You know it doesn't ring a bellfor anybody that kind of thing.
Now, if that person is out forthe day, then I might ping them

(11:29):
and be like hey, I know you'reout, like, answer this tomorrow,
like, have you seen this?
That kind of thing, just tomake sure they see it more than
anything.
So we have people that areinterested in some things more
than other things, but it's notone of those where we set up and
say, hey, you're our hey personnow or hey, you're our billing
person, now You're our X person,right, because I mean two big
things off the top of my head,right.

(11:55):
One it makes scheduling anightmare, because if you have a
dedicated person and they wantto take vacation what do you do?
So you end up in a weirdposition there.
And that also goes for likewhat if they decide to leave?
What if they join anothercompany, Like that kind of thing
.
And two, we think of ourselvesas support professionals.
You're not just there to answera case and move on.
Like part of your career in thesupport industry is to get
better, and that means gettingbetter at supporting multiple

(12:21):
apps, multiple products, holdingthat knowledge in your head or
at least being able to find itwhere you need it when you need
it.
So it makes each person on theteam better, so that again, if
they do decide to leave and joinanother company, they're more
valuable in that new role.
Yeah, so again, structure isvery yeah, strong word.
Not the right word there, but,like you know, you hire curious
people, you hire people that areinterested in things, and that

(12:42):
kind of naturally happens.

Priscilla Brooke (12:42):
Yes, you're going to have people that are
interested in things and thatkind of naturally happens.
Yes, you're going to havepeople that are naturally more
knowledgeable at certain areasand honestly, that's what makes
a really good well-rounded team,because if everyone tried to be
experts about everything, itwould be difficult to stay on
top of all that knowledge.
So having that kind of balancethroughout the team is, I think,
makes for a better experiencefor the customer because they
have more access to everyone atthat point.

(13:04):
So you mentioned kind ofeducation and obviously inbox
coverage and the proactive andreactive.
What other projects or whatother kind of areas fall into
the realm of support over at37signals?

Chase Clemons (13:16):
A lot.
So all of our help guides, ourdocumentation, knowledge base,
whatever you want to call itright that's all maintained by
us and created by us Classes.
So we offer weekly classes forBasecamp that are entirely free
for new customers.
We have an intro class and thenseveral other more advanced
classes.
We do what's called tier one oncall, which is when you think

(13:37):
about escalating to a programmer, right, Like we have a first
stop in there that can cut offmost of it so that we can handle
it ourselves, essentially,rather than bugging a programmer
for some stuff.
The community we have aBasecamp community that we run
for any of our customers thatwant to join, and then we're
working with other teams whenwe're doing things like the
onboarding videos, the helpguide videos not all the

(13:59):
marketing videos, but the onesthat are like support contained,
like teaching features, kind ofthings.
Onboarding, customer surveys,product research yeah, like if
it's customer involved in someway, then there's a good chance
someone on our team is involvedin it.

Priscilla Brooke (14:14):
I love that.
It brings back something that Ifeel like we talk about a lot
on this podcast, but is the ideathat support is so much more
than just like this one littlesection off to the side in a
company that doesn't have anyinput into anything else.
Yes.
Just hearing all the things youjust listed off and the way that
your support team kind of has ahand in so many of those

(14:34):
projects maybe not fully doingthem themselves, but like
helping with a certain thing orproviding insight, that kind of
a thing really just reinforcesthe fact that support is so
important and is such animportant part of your company
and your product and the successof that, and that your support
professionals that are workingwith your customers every day
have so much valuable insight tooffer to your marketing team,

(14:57):
to your video producer orwhoever it is that's working on
the project.
So I think that's a great wayto bring your team into and
provide that feeling of value toyour support professionals,
which really can be a hugebenefit in having just a healthy
team.

Chase Clemons (15:12):
Yeah, that's why we've got people that have been
here for just as long as I have.
Yeah, when we have an openingor a team, it's very rare, right
?
Because even our youngesttenured folks at this point have
three, three and a half years.

Priscilla Brooke (15:21):
Yeah, and that is really rare in the world of
support to have that kind oflongevity with someone in a
quote unquote support role.
And I think that speaks to thefact that you treat everyone on
the 37signals team, includingthe support team, as
professionals.
It's a career, it's not just ajob that you're checking into
until you burn out and thenyou're going and jumping into

(15:43):
another place.
So there's a lot of things thatyou guys do over at 37signals
that doesn't follow theirtraditional company practices,
and one of those things is thatyou guys do over at 37signals
that doesn't follow thetraditional company practices,
and one of those things is thatyou work in cycles.
So can you tell me a little bitabout what that rhythm looks
like for the company and then alittle bit about how that
affects your support team too,because I would imagine it's a

(16:03):
little bit different for support.

Chase Clemons (16:05):
Yeah, it's a little different.
So for folks that haven't heardof the cycle setup before but
yeah, it's a little different.
So for folks that haven't heardof the cycle setup before my
best resource for it would be goto Basecampcom slash shape up,
read the book, because we don'ttry to hide any of it.
This is exactly that whole bookis about how we run projects
and how we think about productdevelopment and all that fun
stuff.
So check that one out.
Essentially, a cycle is sixweeks and then we have a two

(16:27):
week, what what we call acool-down in between, just a
little break in between beforewe start a next cycle.
Essentially, the entire companyruns off of them, right?
So we all start a new cycle,product ops, support and you
start to develop.
I think you said rhythm earlier.
That's the right thing.
There's this rhythm that startsto happen essentially.
So the new year starts, a coupleof days into January, we're

(16:50):
starting a new cycle andeverybody puts out their
kickoffs, which list off theseare the projects that we're
going to tackle Essentially.
These are the things that we'regoing to work on for the next
six weeks.
And then you're off to theraces, essentially, and you're
working and building things anddoing these projects and at the
end of six weeks everyone getstogether and writes up what we
call a heartbeat, which isliterally a look at here's the

(17:11):
kickoff, here's what we did andhere's the heartbeat that
basically summarizes all of thatand gives out kudos and
accolades for the work that wasdone essentially.
Then we take a two week, againcool down, where everybody can
kind of work on what they wantto work on for support.
It's usually little projectshere and there that can be
knocked out in like a morning oran afternoon.

(17:31):
For product, it's more like,hey, there's this like bug I've
really wanted to fix, but Ihaven't had a chance yet.
So I'm going to like knock itout essentially and then at the
end of the two weeks we startthe next cycle and move on to
another one.

Priscilla Brooke (17:43):
Yeah, I think cycles are great.
They really does provide thatrhythm.
We also work in cycles here atBuzzsprout, which I think
there's so much value in knowingthat whatever you're about to
tackle has to be within that sixweek period, and so it has to
be kind of an appetite that'sgoing to be able to be done in
that time.
It helps things move forward.
I know I've worked at othercompanies where there's not that

(18:05):
rhythm and then it's beenmonths and months and months
where you've been haphazardlyworking on something and it's
just taking so long becausethere's no end date in sight,
and so it's just this ongoingthing which doesn't lead to, you
know, effective work orefficient use of your time.
And so, coming into Buzzsproutseveral years ago and being
introduced to this kind of cyclework, like you just laid out, I

(18:27):
think it's a really great wayto stay on task.
As the support team here atBuzzsprout, I mean, I think we
started introducing working incycles probably about a year and
a half ago.
Before that we had kind of beenseparate from the company and
we weren't working in cycles,because the support inbox is not
a cycle.
You know, we don't take twoweeks where we don't do inbox

(18:48):
coverage, and so it was kind ofhard to see how support kind of
worked in the cycle as well intothat same rhythm.
And so about a year and a halfago we started bringing support
into that and we had somestruggles and a lot of learning
things along the way.
But can you tell me a littlebit about how you lead your team
in a way that allows that kindof rhythm along with the rest of

(19:10):
the company, while you alsohave these things outside of
cycles that you're doing?

Chase Clemons (19:14):
So I think it's a couple of things.
One, we're looking to hire whatwe call managers of one right
People that can come up with anidea, execute on the idea, ask
for help when they need it,bring in people when they need
it, but do all that without amanager breathing down their
neck.
Essentially, yeah.
So it is a high performing teamthat has ideas, whether it's

(19:34):
ones that we've talked aboutbefore or ones that they just
came up with on their own andthen shape this idea so they can
start working on it.
Essentially.
So the first thing there is yougot to have a good, high
quality team to do that.
If your whole setup isliterally nothing but I'm
focused on the next email andtrying to get through it as
quick as I can and you've hiredfor that kind of setup, it's

(19:55):
going to be hard shifting overto anything like we're going to
talk about, right.
So that's the caveat in there,too.
I think the thing is there aresome ongoing things that you
can't get away from.
The inbox is a good example,right.
When we do a kickoff, we tendto talk about that as keeping
customers happy, like thisongoing work kind of thing.
Ops is similar, right.

(20:16):
So your operations team.
They have to keep the serversgoing.
Our ops team calls that keepingthe lights on and everything
that goes along with that right.
So the server upgrades andmaintenance and all that kind of
thing.
So there's this base level ofthis is going to happen every
cycle and you just acknowledgeit and you're like all right,
this is a big portion of what wedo every cycle.
And then you start looking at,well, what's the other things

(20:38):
that we have influence in thatwe can work on that?
A key phrase here, what'ssomething that is going to get a
good return on effort for us.
And then from there we canstart talking about does it make
sense for this cycle, does itmake sense for the next cycle,
that kind of thing.
Now, one of the things that setsus apart from, say, the product
team is that there isn't reallylike a betting table with us.

(20:59):
So product comes together.
They've got 20 different ideasthat they're looking at and they
look at here's who we haveavailable for this cycle.
These are the ones that we canreasonably do.
Support doesn't have like thisbet.
Essentially, ours is more alongthe lines of someone comes to
me again in that manager of onementality and says I intend to

(21:20):
do this, and nine times out of10, it's like, yeah, great idea,
go for it, right.
Or they'll come to me and saylike I'm thinking about this,
have you done anything in thisarea?
I had one of our support proscome and talk to me about
creating a new online class forBasecamp.
I was like, yeah, I've donethat multiple times now I know
kind of how to help through thatprocess.
Yeah.
But still, great idea.

(21:40):
Let's do it for the cycle,right?
It's very rare maybe like 1 in10, 2 in 10 at the max that
someone comes to me with an ideaand it's like I see where
you're getting at right, butit's not for now, like it's not
a good idea for this moment, orit is just generally we're not
going to get the return oneffort that we would want to see
there from that kind of thing.
So it's a little different thanlike again, if you go to

(22:02):
Basecamp and reshape up likeyou're going to get the product
development, so support's alittle different in that.
But there are still bigprojects that we tackle, whether
it's like we've got a newproduct launch coming up, so
it's going to be.
We have to create a brand newhelp site essentially and think
about all the guides anddocumentation and videos and all
that's going to go into it.
That is a cycle project.

Priscilla Brooke (22:21):
That's a big project Now.
Would you tackle that in onecycle or would you spread that
into smaller chunks that youcould do over multiple cycles?

Chase Clemons (22:30):
Depends on how soon the design settles and this
is always a moving target,right?
So the cool thing with ourdesigners and programmers is you
might get two, three weeks intosomething and they go like
actually, I just had this betteridea last night.
We're going to pivot real quickinto that.
It doesn't really happen asmuch with individual features,

(22:50):
but new product development.
Yeah, Like that's not uncommon.
Yeah.
We had a big design overhaul forthe product we're working on,
where everything looked good forlike six months, and then one
day it was oh wait, here's thisother, so they like read it.
So if we had done any real prepwork up until that point, it
all would have been like tosseddown the drain yeah.

(23:11):
So there's this sweet spot inthere, right, where, say, if
we're going to launch somethingin the beginning of August about
four to six weeks out beforethat things start to settle into
the point where, yeah, we canstart looking at drafting up
probably not videos, right, butat least like some screenshots,
some text to go along withthings, get the bones in place

(23:32):
essentially.
So, yeah, you can do that.
You just, again, you got to becareful for new products, for
existing products.
It's usually a lot easier.
So, like we add a new featureto Basecamp, right, that's one
where we can get the skeleton ofa new help guide or whatever
written up pretty quick and thenyou're just plug and playing
some screenshots and some videosfrom there.
That takes maybe a couple ofdays at max.

Priscilla Brooke (23:54):
So what are some of the recent cycle
projects that you've worked onthat you can talk about, that
have been really rewarding foryour team, or just fun tests
that you've done, or projectsthat you've worked on recently?

Chase Clemons (24:05):
So the biggest one for us was we tried out a
different support app.
Okay, we've been talking aboutit for a while and the timing
kind of came up pretty well atthe end of the year last year
and we were like hey, like let'ssee if this is actually going
to work, because it's one thingto like look at an app and
evaluate it.
It's another to look at it whenyou've got real customer stuff

(24:25):
going on inside of it.

Priscilla Brooke (24:26):
And you are referring to like an email.
You know service.

Chase Clemons (24:30):
Yeah, so we use help scout right now.
It would be like switching overto any of the other big ones,
right, zendesk or Intercom orFreshdesk or whatever, so like a
shift in your core tool thatyour team is in every day, kind
of thing yeah, it's a big shift.
Yes, yeah, and I gotta say likethings look good from the like
early evaluations we did Once wegot in there and started

(24:51):
running.
The cool thing with multipleproducts is that you can run
like pay customers through itessentially.
So we rerouted just one group,just one product, those support
requests through it and thatgave us a real look at is this
going to work or not?
Same thing, you can go out andyou can buy a hammer or a saw I
guess I'm a hardware kind ofthing today, since I'm at the
store.
I don't know you can go out andbuy a tool and it looks good in

(25:14):
the store, but is it reallygoing to work on the project
that you need it for at thehouse?
You got to actually try it andso, yeah, we did that, learned a
lot of good stuff, ended up notswitching over, but I think out
of that experience, it wasreally cool to put ourselves in
the position of a new customertrying something new, which is
what happens every day when aBasecamp customer tries Basecamp

(25:35):
for the first time.
Yeah, so like that was a reallycool experience.
For you know, support teamlisteners out there Like, if you
haven't done that in a while, Idefinitely recommend it.
Even if you don't switch,you're going to learn so much
and be able to bring that backinto your support experience,
which is really cool.
Yes, that was the big one.
On the smaller size scales,we've done a couple new Basecamp
classes, which have been reallycool.

(25:56):
Those are always a littleinteresting because you work on
them for a week or two and thenyou put it out there and you're
like is this like?
Are people going to show up?
What are they going to say?
Did we get it right?
You can do all the research youwant beforehand, right, but
it's not until you put it outthere.
You're like, oh yeah, ok, thiswas a good idea.
I'm glad we did this.

Priscilla Brooke (26:13):
How do you measure the success of that?
Is it a measurement of, OK, Xamount of people?
We want this many people toshow up and if that many people
show up, it was successful.

Chase Clemons (26:24):
No, it's oh man, I feel like I'm dating myself or
whatever, because it's vibes,right.
Like sometimes you know ifsomething is working just by.
Are you in the class?
Are you seeing the chatter inthe chats?
What kind of questions arecoming across?
Right, it is like a little bitof how many people are there,
because if you do a class andlike two or three people are
showing up, it's probably notworth 30 minutes of your time

(26:46):
all the time.
But if you're getting a decentcrowd for whatever that means
for you, right, and theinteractions in there are
happening, engagement, that,yeah, that engagement part it's
again, it's hard to quantify,right, because it's not number
of questions, it's not number ofpeople, it's not number of
comments, it's not number ofanything really.
It's standing there in theexperience and going is this

(27:08):
helping customers?

Priscilla Brooke (27:09):
Right, and you were talking about your return
on effort and you know you lookat the amount of time it takes
to build out that class and howmany people show up or how the
engagement is there or how itaffects those customers that
came.
I think you know all of that isbalanced.

Chase Clemons (27:25):
And it's a long time too, right, like, we do the
class once and then like all ofour quote unquote research at
that point, right, the R&D partis done.
Right, we're just shipping thaton a continual basis after that
and we're going to reuse it allover the place, right, so the
video recordings end up in otherplaces.
So I've talked to people beforewho are like oh yeah, we did
online classes and five peopleshowed up and it wasn't.

(27:47):
And I was like, eh, like yougot to look at the big holistic
picture at that point.
It's not just pure numbers inthat one moment.

Priscilla Brooke (27:54):
There's a longer lasting effect there that
you'll see your customersexperience.
For the past couple a year anda half or so we've been working
in cycles and so really puttingemphasis on that routine, that
rhythm, with work outside of theinbox.
How do you see that balance ofinbox versus project work?

(28:15):
How does that affect the peopleon your team, just like their
mentality when it comes toworking, both positive and
negatively?

Chase Clemons (28:21):
So the biggest thing for us is the hiring of
the managers, one that we talkedabout earlier.
Right, we hire supportprofessionals that we then treat
as professionals.
We give them responsibilities,and then the salaries are higher
to match up with theprofessional status.
The benefits are higher tomatch up with the professional
status.
The benefits are higher tomatch up with the professional
status.
So it's a big thing if we'regiving you lots of freedom but

(28:41):
we're expecting in return thatyou're not going to need a lot
of Chase breathing down yourback.
There should be no Chasebreathing down your back
essentially, it should be morealong the lines of hey, chase, I
want to do this, cool, go dothat and then come back to me if
you have questions or ifwhatever you're working on is
ready to ship essentially.
And that flows down into thebalance too, right, and a lot of

(29:03):
times when I talk with folksabout how we're set up, they're
like that makes no sense.
Like how can you trust peopleon when they should be working
in the inbox and when shouldthey not?
Yeah, you treat them likeadults, you treat them like
professionals, as managers ofone, and you give them space.
That's a big thing, right?
So for our team, every personhas one project day a week where
they're expected not to work onany cases, not to be in the

(29:26):
inbox at all.
This is their dedicated day toget accomplished whatever they
need to get accomplished.
If they need more time thanthat, cool.
Like just find a spot in theschedule where it'll work and
block off a little bit of timeand let us know like hey, I'm
going to be out Thursday morningfor a couple hours to work on
this thing, but there's a lot oftrust in.
You've got the day that youhave automatically.

(29:47):
If you need more time, pleasedo that.
And then from there you've gotto get the balance right, like
that's, that's a them thing.
I can talk about how I do it, Ican talk about, like, the
experience I have with that.
But in the end each person hasto find their own balance
between here's my project, I'vegot to get that done.
Here's my customers.
Here's my inbox.

Priscilla Brooke (30:07):
I've got to get that done too.
Yeah, I think we're nowtransitioning into the time
where I am going to start beingselfish with the questions I'm
asking, because now I'm justlike, oh OK, I could try that, I
could try this, because, youknow, yesterday I was working on
the schedule for our team andsometimes building a schedule
out when you're talking aboutfiguring out project work and
inbox coverage, and there aredifferent times in the inbox

(30:28):
where it's busier than othertimes, and so you have to
account for that it can get very, very tedious and you have
meetings.
We don't have that many meetingsover here at Buzzsprout, but
when we do, you know you have toaccount for that and you want
everyone to be present in themeeting, so you don't want
anyone to need to be.
You know, in the inbox it canget very structured, which is a

(30:51):
scary word, I'm sure, for you,for us maybe a little less, but
still the same idea.
So it's like there has to be ahigh level of trust there if
you're going to go about it inthe way that you were just
talking about, which is saying,hey, we're going to treat you
like adults and let you choose.
You've got this project day, soa full day, which is very cool
to me.
Can you talk to me about thebenefits of giving that full

(31:13):
project day versus like halfdays or versus like smaller
chunks?

Chase Clemons (31:17):
Yeah, you got to get into a groove, a rhythm,
right, it's not like you wake upand start your, you know, start
your day at eight, nine,whatever, right, and instantly
move into oh, I am fully focusedon my project and I'm going to
start knocking things out.
You can kind of do that withemails, right.
Like you log on, you're likeall right, I got an email Like
here's the customer problem,like all right, I've seen that,

(31:38):
here's the answer.
You move on.
That ramp up time, usually forprojects, is just a little bit
longer.
Essentially, and if we can giveyou blocks of uninterrupted
time like that is the holy grailin product work, right, like
having that time and space towork without being dragged back
into something else, that isreally valuable and the return

(31:59):
on the effort that we're goingto get out of that is very, very
high.
So, again, like by hiringmanagers of one, my job at that
point doesn't become oversight.
It becomes protecting your time.
So you know, say, priscilla,today is your project day,
you're focused on that.
If a server goes down for basecamp right and we get this
influx of customer cases, I'mthe one that's stepping in to

(32:20):
help with that.
We're not pulling people off oftheir project day because we're
protecting that time as much aswe can.
So that's the job of a managerat that point.
It's the protect their time.
Free up any problems that theymight run into, free up any
blocks that might happenessentially.
But, but other than that, givethem the time because they're
going to be able to use it andbring something back.

Priscilla Brooke (32:40):
Yeah, there's a high level of trust there
between you and the people onyour team because of that
manager, of one characteristicthat's so valued.
But also they're trusting youto protect them in a situation
like that.
You're trusting them to usetheir time wisely when they're
outside of the inbox or whenthey're doing those project days
, and also just be honest abouthow much time they need and if

(33:02):
they need more time or if theydon't, how do you figure out how
much project work to give outin a cycle and balancing that
with that inbox?
Ongoing customer happiness work.

Chase Clemons (33:13):
Yeah, the cool thing, like you mentioned, like
our inbox is pretty consistent.
I can point to specific hoursof the day and be like oh yeah,
this is what the time is goingto look like, this is what the
volume is going to look like, aslong as nothing goes wrong.
Essentially, basecamp is alsovery seasonal, so it's kind of
like January 1st rolls aroundand everyone joins a gym, starts
a blog and decides to get theirbusiness together.

Priscilla Brooke (33:33):
Essentially, and they start a podcast.
We also have circuit breakersin place.

Chase Clemons (33:36):
So, basically, if we're working on a project and
it does not ship by the end ofthe cycle we pull a circuit
breaker the metaphorical breakerand say, all right, that was

(34:08):
fun, let's shelve it for themoment.
We can decide if we want tocome back to it next cycle or if
we missed somewhere, like maybethe shape of the idea was wrong
, maybe whatever went wrong wentwrong.
Now it doesn't happen a ton.
Since I've been here, I cancount on one hand how many times
we've had to do it across thecompany.
Right.
But it does happen.
You know.
Beyond that, like looking atthe projects and trying to guess
more than anything and how longthey're going to take and what

(34:30):
time is going to be needed, thatkind of thing yeah, it's just,
you go with your gut, you go allright.
I've developed a new classbefore.
I know it should take about aweek to two weeks.
So this person is new, we'llcall it two weeks.
Well, their project day is oneday a week, so that's probably
going to be their big focus formost of the cycle Trying a new

(34:51):
app.
That is much bigger.
Right, there's a lot of thingsthat we have to both prep to get
into the test and then actuallyhave to do during the test.
So that was a full six weeksfor January, and then I also
spent a lot of time lastDecember just my own self going
through and setting things up.
But yeah, there's no magicformula, there's no secret sauce

(35:11):
on that one.

Priscilla Brooke (35:12):
It's you get better by just doing it and I
would say, for anyone who'slistening to this and
considering, maybe not workingin cycles but just like bringing
project work into their flowmore, it is going to take some
time to figure out what thatbalance is.
When we started working incycles, that was one of the
harder things for me in theearly couple cycles we did was

(35:33):
figuring out how much work isthe right amount of work to
bring in without overwhelmingpeople on the team, because when
you have this six-week deadline, it's hard to go.
Okay, I have to get everythingdone in this six weeks, but I've
also got this high prioritythat is the inbox, and then
people are taking PTO, or maybesomeone has something unexpected

(35:55):
come up and so things withouteven talking about something
happening that is causing moresupport.
Sometimes it is just a trialand error thing and you might
have a cycle where, like, we bitoff way too much the cycle.
We got it done, but was it calm?
Were we working from a place ofyou know having time for it, or
was it a place of reacting toeverything because we didn't

(36:15):
have time to really prepare?
Well, you'll learn that as yougo.
So I think that's just a goodpiece of encouragement.
It's not going to be perfectthe first time you start
bringing project work in, and soit's nice for me to hear
because it's getting you knoweasier, I think, for me to find
that balance.
But it's nice to hear from you,who's been doing this for so

(36:42):
long and working in these kindsof cycles, that you're like it's
a gut thing I go okay, okay, itwill become easier as I do it
more.

Chase Clemons (36:44):
So that's an encouragement to me, for sure.
And that's the other thing,like we were joking about it
before we started recording,like this is not rocket science,
this is not a high stresshospital environment, it is
customer emails.
Right Before I worked atBasecamp, I worked at a couple
of different restaurants, so thephrase that I always use with
folks this is just sandwiches.
You're just making sandwiches,right?
Like it's not that big of adeal.
So if you blow a cycle and haveto pull the circuit breaker and

(37:05):
kind of reset things, that'sfine, it happens.
Been there, got the t-shirt.
If you do a cycle that waslight, okay, next time, you know
, like to push it a little bitmore.
You don't have to be 100percent on target every single
cycle because you're doing themlike six, six a year.
So you've got plenty ofopportunities.

Priscilla Brooke (37:24):
Yeah, another thing that I was thinking about,
as you were talking about thefull project days, is the other
side of that.
When you have one or two peopledoing a project day, let's say
on a Wednesday the rest of theteam then they are primarily in
the inbox, right?
And do you schedule out thattime at all, or is it just hey,
you're in the inbox today eighthours.

(37:44):
Enjoy the inbox, go.

Chase Clemons (37:46):
Yeah, so it is a very loose schedule.
I'll put it that way.
We have kind of falling intolike shifts that we typically
work, so my day typically runsseven to four.
Are there some days I startlater or start earlier?
Yes, I have kids, it's bound tohappen.
Yeah, right.
Or like you might need to comein later on a certain day for
whatever, right, but typicallyspeaking, I'm online, working

(38:07):
seven to four, monday throughFriday, and everyone else on the
team has kind of fallen in thattoo.
We've also been veryintentional with our hiring.
So that you know, we want toget 24-hour coverage, which
means we've got two folks inAPAC, the Asia-Pacific region,
we've got two in the EU, we'vegot several on the East Coast
and we have several on the WestCoast.
So it's staggered when peopleare starting.

(38:28):
So, even if you're on the WestCoast and starting your day at 8
o'clock well, that's 10 o'clockmy time.
That's a start of a busy time,especially with us flowing into
lunches by that point.
So it's not like you have tohit these hours.
It's more of a.
This is what we're doing.
This is kind of what we'vefallen into.
If you need to move hoursaround, it's not a big deal,
just let us know that kind ofthing.

Priscilla Brooke (38:48):
Do you ever have a situation where you have
more than enough people coveringthe inbox and you have to kick
people out and say, hey, go workon some project work.
Do you ever run into that?

Chase Clemons (38:59):
So not typically, life intervenes right, finds a
way all that fun stuff right,because you'll have people out
for PTO, you'll have people outto the doctor.
You'll have like.
We woke up this morning and twofolks were unexpectedly out,
right, so you're going to bedown to people automatically for
the rest of the day.
At that point again, my job asa manager is to step in as much
as I can to protect time forpeople that are on their project

(39:22):
days and that kind of thing.
So more often than not, it'snot that we're kicking people
out to other stuff.
Our rule of thumb with theinbox is we don't want anything
past an hour on the first replytime.
So we get to that point.
You know I've got the inboxpulled up on a side screen over
here.
If I see it getting to thatpoint, I jump in.
If it's stretching way beyondthat, we throw up the proverbial

(39:42):
bat signal and call in whoeverelse that we possibly can.
But those are rare cases.

Priscilla Brooke (39:47):
It's nice to hear that that's a possibility.
That bat signal, yeah, whensomething goes wrong and support
is getting buried and maybe youhave two or three people in
there covering the inbox at thattime and the emails are flowing
too fast and people are gettingpast that hour that they have
an outlet of where to go,whether it be you or whether it

(40:08):
be other people on the team whocan jump in and help for a 15
minute spurt to get thingshandled.
That's like a safety net that'snice to know you have.
Yeah.

Chase Clemons (40:15):
We also use that for not that.
That again, we have a bunch ofmeetings or anything right Like
for our support team.
We get together for we callthem team hangouts.
It's more social chat thanbusiness chat.
I'll put it that way.
We do a West coast and Eastcoast, so two of them every
month.
But after those happen you'llsee all of us swarm back into
the inbox like a big thing ofbees, essentially, and knock

(40:40):
things back until that hour markgets caught back up.
We do the same thing, like whenwe're at company meetups.
You know, during those times sofar we've always had one or two
people that couldn't make aparticular meetup, so they'll
provide coverage while we're inan all hands, for instance.
So they're knocking out the bigstuff while all of us are
laptops closed, talking to otherpeople on the team

(41:00):
participating in the all hands,and then once that is over, then
yeah, we swarm back in andknock that the case volume back
a little bit Again, thankfully,like we're very consistent.
So, like that volume that'scoming in, unless something
breaks, we typically know likehey, two o'clock in the
afternoon.
It's not going to be that busyLike.

Priscilla Brooke (41:17):
And unless something breaks, we typically
know like hey, two o'clock inthe afternoon it's not going to
be that busy Like we can gettogether if we want.
Yeah, what you just said made methink of my early days of doing
support here at Buzzsprout,where we would have a team
meeting and I would bring mycomputer because I didn't want
to leave the inbox unmanned andI'd be in a meeting trying to
participate but trying torespond to emails.

(41:38):
That attempt really took me outof the meeting.
It also took me out of givingquality emails, because I was
trying to do two things at onceand it really made me not feel
as valuable to the team as awhole because I wasn't able to
participate at 100%.
And so it's so nice to hear yousay like we really want to make
sure because this is where weare too but we really want to
make sure that our support teamis able to be fully present.

(41:58):
And if that means customers arewaiting for an hour and a half
instead of an hour for oneafternoon or one block of time,
it's worth it, because whatwe're getting there is our team,
our support team, feeling fullyvalued and included in these
bigger company conversations,and I think that's just
refreshing to hear, because Idon't think that's the norm in a

(42:20):
lot of other probably biggerbut a lot of other companies.

Chase Clemons (42:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely okay, it's just
sandwiches right At the end ofthe day.
it's just emails, like we dogive our customers an outlet.
So like when you contact ourteam using the in-app widget
little thing, right.
There is an option there to saylike hey, I've got an emergency
, like I need something, rightnow right and when it flows over
into Help Scout, it throws anemergency tag on it and it

(42:44):
notifies me, so like if it isbig, then it'll buzz my phone
setting off to the side and Ican step out and handle that
essentially.
But I mean, we've been offeringthat for three, four years now.
You get like one a month.
Yeah.
So I think a lot of people getscared around offering customers
choice because we think we haveto control everything right.

(43:06):
We want customers to flowthrough this exact funnel that
we've built and it's going to beperfect.
Their experience is going to beperfect at that point when, in
reality, customers just wantchoice.
They want to be able to have alive chat, if they want to, with
you.
They want to be able to talk toan AI bot, if they want to.
They want to be able to dropyou an email.
They want to be able to tellyou I need help right now.

(43:26):
They want to be able to giveyou a call or send you a text or
whatever right.
When you give them a choice,it's going to end up as a better
experience overall.
I'll say it that way.

Priscilla Brooke (43:35):
Well, and it's kind of like what you're saying
about treating your team likeadults.
You know it's the same thing.
Your customers treat them likeadults most of the time,
especially once they start torealize that when they reach out
to you it's not going to bemore than an hour.
They're not going to abuse thatemergency option because they
know that they're going to getan answer.
But if you call Comcast andyou're used to being on hold for

(43:57):
four hours and they give you anemergency option, you're
probably going to use it becauseyou know that the alternative
is a four hour hold time.
Just like button punching, thezero Right.
But as you get to know this teamand what to expect and the
consistency of that service,then you go OK, actually I'm not
going to hit the emergencybutton because I know that Chase
is going to be back in touchwith me within the hour, even if

(44:19):
I don't hit that, and I thinkthat that really speaks to
trusting your customers withthat information and saying, hey
, if it is an emergency, youhave an option here, but we also
trust you not to abuse that andso we don't have to take away
from you.
I think that's really a niceplace to be able to operate from
.
Okay, so for anyone who'slistening, who wants to start
incorporating project work intotheir normal rhythm of their

(44:40):
work, what advice would you givethem to kind of start that?

Chase Clemons (44:44):
Yeah.
So first up, team size mattershere, right?
If you're a team of three, it'sgonna be different than if
you're a team of 15.
So I've been talking about whatwe have done as a team of 15.
So if you're like that dozenpeople range, then a lot of
stuff that I've offered up isgoing to work.
Please try it.
I'll put it that way.
If you're a team of two or three, right, you're going to have to
go slower and take it insmaller chunks.

(45:06):
It is good to work in cycles,just so that the two or three of
you are all on the same pageabout what's important to us for
the next six weeks.
Kind of like we were talkingwith the AI question earlier.
Right, it forces you to sitdown and say this is important,
this is what we're going to workon, this is what we're going to
get out of it and then fromthere just set aside a morning,
maybe an afternoon, to kind ofstart working on those things.

(45:27):
You're going to know yourcoverage better than any of us,
so if you've got a hole in theresomewhere where you can squeeze
some time in, you know aim forthat.
If you're a smaller team andyou're trying to push down to
like we want 30 minutes or less,Domino's pizza style replies,
then loosen up.
Give yourself a little bit ofgrace on that.
Stretch out to an hour.
We've done that.
Customers didn't mind at allAnything.

(45:49):
Less than an hour usually worksjust fine for most of the
customers out there.
So start there.
If you're bigger than us, thenhaven't had a ton experience on
that side of things.
But I would say again, take theopportunity to sit down and
sketch out a couple of ideas anddon't look further than six
weeks.
This is the big mental shiftthat folks make.

(46:11):
It's oh, we're coming from acompany where we had roadmaps
for every quarter and for halfyear and the one year mark and
we wanted to do all this stuff.
One of the core ideas of ShapeUpis you're just guessing at what
the next six weeks should be,so just embrace that.
Take it six weeks at a time.
Don't look further than that.
Sketch out the ideas you havefor the six weeks and then go

(46:32):
out and just try it.
See what happens.
Essentially, again, if you'relike that 12, 15 group, maybe up
to like 20, like we are, thenyeah, most of the stuff in here
is going to work.
You can copy paste essentially.

Priscilla Brooke (46:43):
The six weeks kind of provides you a little
bit of a safety net to say we'reonly spending six weeks on it,
so if this doesn't work, wehaven't spent a quarter or two
quarters or the year trying tomake it work.
We're committing to six weeks ofgoing full in and trying to
make it work, and you might findthat at the end of the six
weeks like you, you know, hadyour example with a different

(47:03):
email service you might find,hey, it's not worth it, but we
haven't sunk that much time intoit, you know.
And so it's easier to say welearned a lot and we're going to
move on and go a differentroute, without feeling like, oh
my gosh, we just spent the lastyear working on this and now
we've decided not to do it.
It can feel like a lot more ofan investment because it is, and
so it's nice.

(47:23):
The six weeks kind of provideyou with the freedom to test
things out, knowing that if itdoesn't work, it doesn't mean
that it's a complete loss oranything like that.
It's just another way to learn.

Chase Clemons (47:34):
It really is.
I mean, you would not believehow many times I've gone into a
project going.
Is this going to work?
I don't know, but the only waywe're going to know is if we try
it.
So we did that with we wantedto offer up a like an incoming
phone number and that customerscould call and text if they want
to like really radical idea,very much so.
But that also just came out ofexperience where I had to call

(47:56):
my bank one day and it washere's the phone number and I
got to a person within like twominutes.
I was like geez, like that'seasy.
And then afterwards they werelike oh yeah, we're going to
text you some stuff.
I'm like this is great.
So, yeah, I was talking aboutit with a colleague and she was
like, yeah, same thing.

Priscilla Brooke (48:25):
I've been wanting working in cycles.
There were definitely learningand growing pains in the
beginning for our team.
But, like we were talking aboutearlier, the more you do it,
the more you kind of getconnected with that rhythm, the
easier it gets and the benefitfor your team is so big.
Because, you know, I have heardhorror stories from people who

(48:46):
work in support where all theydo is an email queue, that's it.
That's the only work they getto do and the burnout is so high
and the inability to grow.
You know your strengths.
I mean, you just can't do thatwhen all you're doing is email
reactive support and you mightbe able to provide a really good
service, but at what cost isthat happening?

(49:06):
And being able to go back andforth between projects and inbox
work and finding that balanceand giving your team that trust
and the ability to be managersof one.
All of that, I think, comes backto the reality of what we're
trying to do as leaders here,which is to create an
environment where people cangrow and feel empowered to do

(49:29):
really good work.
And when you have people on yourteam who are empowered to do
really good work, it's going tobe a healthier environment,
which is going to be a betterservice for the people that are
using your product and then,ultimately, it's going to end
with customers who are loyalbecause they're getting a
consistent, remarkableexperience from people who are
happy doing the job that they'redoing because you, as a leader,

(49:49):
are supporting them andempowering them and allowing
them time to try things and pushthe boundaries, and I just
think doing it in a six-weekcycle or doing it in a six-week
period of time is a really greatway to have that safety net and
to keep things moving andalways be pushing forward,
always trying to improve.

(50:10):
Thank you for coming on andsharing all of your insights
with us.
I know there were some of thosequestions that I was like, okay
, now I literally did thisyesterday, but I really
appreciate that you are givingme the help that I need.
I'm already excited to thinkabout how we could do the
schedule differently next weekto save me time, to give my team
more flexibility.
So thank you so much for comingand doing that.
I really appreciate it.

Chase Clemons (50:30):
Of course, of course, I'm always happy to be
here.

Priscilla Brooke (50:32):
Always happy to help.
I love it.
All right.
So it's time for Support inReal Life, our segment where we
discuss real-life supportexperiences.
So what do you have for ustoday?

Jordan Blair (50:46):
We have an interesting question from
TheElevateCX.
Slack Says I'm looking for somehelp on shift management.
Nobody on our team wants towork closing shifts.
Do you face this issue at yourcompany and how do you approach
it?

Priscilla Brooke (50:58):
So OK, chase, you know you mentioned, you have
people all over the world whoare working on your team.
But when you run into asituation where someone doesn't
want that, like I don't know,like late in the evening shift
or whatever it is, how do youhandle that?

Chase Clemons (51:10):
Yeah.
So, just for honestly, at ourcompany we don't really run into
that because with our remotesetup we have two in the APAC
region, two in the EU and thenthe rest of us split between the
East Coast and West Coast.
So we've been very intentionalwith hiring from multiple time
zones to make sure that we canget that 24 hour coverage that
we were looking for.
Working here I mentionedearlier, I worked at a couple of

(51:35):
different restaurants.
Closing crews were always hardto hire for the restaurants I
worked for.
We typically ended up payingthem a higher hourly rate or a
higher salary to entice folksover.
If we were trying to getsomebody from an opening shift
to cover a closing shift, wewould often give them like an
extra day off, essentially soincentives.
You do X for the team andyou'll get Y in return, and then
if that doesn't work and you'renot interested in the remote

(51:59):
coverage like we do, then Iwould start looking at do you
really need a closing shift?
If not, then the problem solvesitself.
Right, if you don't need aclosing shift, then cool, like
don't have to worry about it atall.
If you do, then yeah, youreally got to start looking at.
Can I give them something orcan I hire for that, and there's
not really a lot of other waysaround it.

Priscilla Brooke (52:18):
Yeah, one thing we have kind of run into
is kind of like a rotatingschedule type of a thing.
So the support team atBuzzsprout is six people right
now.
It's on the smaller side and sowhen we have those necessary
hours that we want to make sureto cover that are less ideal, we
don't typically have peoplethat refuse to do it, but we

(52:39):
want to make sure that there's abalance there.
And so what we will do is kindof have a rotating situation
where you know, for six monthsout of the year maybe you're
working that shift and then theother six months you're not, or
something like that.
I would say one thing that wekind of fell into a habit of
doing a couple years ago washaving our newest hires kind of
fall into that shift naturally.

(52:59):
And I would warn people againsttaking your newest hires and
putting them in the leastdesirable role One, because
they're new to your team and soit can be a cause for burnout
early on when they're gettingthe slush hours burnout early on
when they're getting the slushhours.
But also then it kind of makesthis feeling of that is a role

(53:20):
for someone who's new, and assoon as a new person comes in,
then they move out of that.
But then anyone else who's notnew.
It's like a hierarchy thingthat you kind of want to stay
away from when it comes tospecific hours, and so we have
moved away from thatintentionally because of what we
were kind of falling into withthis idea of well, now no one
wants to work it becauseeveryone perceives this as being

(53:41):
for the new person or for thelowest on a totem pole that
doesn't exist, that we are not,you know, running our business
by.
It is a tough one to find thatbalance, and I really like what
you were saying about looking atif you actually need it.
Like, one shift that we kind ofhad that discussion about was
Friday evenings.
You know, a lot of timesthere's this like 24 hour cycle.

(54:04):
You want to make sure you havesupport for 24 hours and we had
everyone on our team go.
No one really wants to workFriday nights and I was like do
we even need to have support onFriday nights?
Are people podcasting on Fridaynights?
If there's something reallyurgent, we would like to be
aware of that.
But, like you were saying, it'ssandwiches.
Do people need that on a Fridaynight?
And so it's nice to step backand really evaluate that.

(54:27):
Is it necessary?
And if it's not, then there'sno reason to put anyone in that
role just for the sake ofcovering that.

Chase Clemons (54:33):
Yeah, you're not a Waffle House.
Yes, some teams are right, open24, seven like all the rest
Right, like sometimes you are.
But I think the other thing,too, would be like give
customers a choice.
So perfect example Fridaynights, like if somebody's
podcast goes down and they havea big show that's recording the
next morning, I could see howthe customer would want somebody
as quickly as possible in thatsituation.
If they have a, this is anemergency button, right, that

(55:01):
goes to an on-call person or tothe head of the team or whatever
, that's a good outlet.
Or even just like I've got theHelp Scout app on my phone and
then sometimes I'll just likeflip through real quick and just
make sure there's not anythingcrazy that needs attention at
that moment.
You can do that without havinga full-time person.
You can also I mean again likewe talked about AI- a little bit
like this would be a good spot,for if you can turn your AI on

(55:21):
and off, like, maybe you givecustomers an option.
Do you want to wait eight hoursuntil the morning to get a like
human on the line, essentially,or do you want to try like the
AI bot real quick and see if itcan answer your question?

Priscilla Brooke (55:30):
That's a good point.
That is a really good use of AIand giving people that access,
even if a human isn't there.

Chase Clemons (55:36):
It's options, that's the thing at the end of
the day.
It's choices.
It's give more customers a sayin the process, a say in the
flow, and it's just going towork out better.

Priscilla Brooke (55:45):
Awesome.
Well, if you have a question ora support story or situation
that you would like us todiscuss or shout out, you can
email us at happy to help atbuzzbratcom, or text the show
using the link in the episodedescription.
You may hear your questiondiscussed on a future episode of
the podcast.
So before we wrap it up, chase,how can listeners learn more
about you, about base camp andthe way you work?

Chase Clemons (56:07):
Easiest way, cause email is always the
easiest it's just drop me anemail, chase at heycom H E Ycom
H-E-Ycom.
If you want to find out moreabout Basecamp and we've talked
a lot about how project cycles,that kind of thing, can be run
in Basecamp.
All of our team coordinationand communication is also run in
Basecamp.
So if you're a support teamlooking for something that's not

(56:28):
Slack and Google Docs and Atlasand all the rest of them, right
, give Basecamp a shot.
It's what our team does.
That's Basecampcom.
Yeah, and then I'm surePriscilla is going to put all
this in the show notes.
So yeah, just definitely willfind me on LinkedIn or drop me
an email.

Priscilla Brooke (56:40):
We have been using Basecamp as long as I've
been here and it really is sucha great tool for organization
and communication with the team,and it is like the only thing
we use outside of Help Scout.
It really is the way that wecommunicate as a team.
It's a great product.
So if you are trying to findwhat that way you're going to

(57:01):
communicate with your team is, Ihighly recommend checking out
Basecamp.
And, as you know, because Chaseis here, they offer remarkable
customer experiences too, so youknow you're going to be in good
hands if you run into anyquestions.
So, yes, highly recommendBasecamp and everything that
37signals produces, because theyhave some really great products
over there.
So thanks again for joining us,chase, and, as always, if you

(57:21):
liked this episode, please shareit with someone who works in
customer support and leave us areview on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you all for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.
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