Crisis Management Tips for Customer Success Teams

Text the show!

In this episode, special guest Megan Nelson joins us to dive into customer support during a crisis! Whether it’s a sudden server outage or an unexpected system issue, handling customer needs under pressure is a challenge every support team faces. Join us as we share real-life lessons from Buzzsprout’s 2021 DDoS attack, where our team went into overdrive to keep customers informed and reassured. 

We’ll cover essential strategies for crisis management, including how to communicate effectively with customers, coordinate with internal teams, and stay resilient as a support team.

Tune in to learn how a solid crisis plan can transform a potentially negative situation into an opportunity for building trust and customer loyalty!

We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at [e-mail]!

To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com.

Thanks for listening!

Episode Transcript

Priscilla (00:00):
Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer
support from the people atBuzzsprout.
I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke.
Today we're in crisis mode! Notreally, but we're going to
discuss how to offer remarkablesupport even in the middle of a
crisis.
We'll talk about planning ahead, communicating with your
customers and supporting yourteam when things get crazy.
Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into it.

(00:20):
We have a special guest with ustoday.
You guys probably remember herfrom a couple months ago now.
Megan Nelson joined us for anepisode about angry customers
and how to work effectively withangry customers, and now she's
back with us to talk aboutworking through crisis
situations.
Hey, Megan.

Megan (00:40):
Hi, thanks so much for having me back.
I'm excited.

Priscilla (00:43):
Yeah, I'm excited too.
When Megan was here the lasttime, she was on our support
team, and now she's no longer onthe Buzzsprout support team.
What does that mean, megan?
Where are you now?

Megan (00:53):
I have moved from support to marketing, but I still have
a support at heart.
Yeah, so she's still on theBuzzsprout team.

Priscilla (00:59):
She's just now on our marketing team and not in
support, which is reallyexciting for Megan.
She also just launched her ownpodcast a couple months ago.

Megan (01:08):
Yes, jordan and I work on Buzzsprout Weekly, which is a
weekly podcast from the peopleat Buzzsprout, and it's just a
quick three-minute podcastingnews updates and just gives you
a little bit about what's goingon at Buzzsprout.

Jordan (01:21):
Yeah, you're probably so much more comfortable now,
having been, you know, a podcasthost for a little bit, and now
you're back on as a guest, whichis a much easier gig.

Megan (01:32):
You would think I'm more comfortable, but I'm still
pretty nervous.

Priscilla (01:35):
There's nothing to be nervous about.
It's so funny though, like Ifeel like you going from support
to marketing is such a coolthing for our customers, because
you are now in the marketingworld, but you still have all of
this knowledge and all of thesemuscles you've strengthened
through support.
So now, as you're working inmarketing, you're kind of like

(01:56):
thinking about our customers ina new way and thinking about
possible new customers in a newway, but you still have all of
this knowledge from learning howto support customers way, but
you still have all of thisknowledge from learning how to
support customers.

Megan (02:09):
Yeah, it's definitely been like a reckoning I've had
to kind of figure out withinmyself because I mean, once
you're in support, you're alwaysin support.
I think those muscles neverreally go away and I'm always
thinking about like well, howcan this help the customer or
how I can anticipate questionsthat people are going to ask
about it, because I'm used toanswering them and I've had to
kind of with some of my writing,like pull that back in some
ways and also push it forward insome ways.

(02:32):
Sometimes you don't need to tellthem every little piece about
what could go wrong before whenyou're just introducing
something, but in some ways itis nice to be like hey, I know
right away this is going to besomething we need to talk about.
So it's been really fun to havethat knowledge and to kind of
get to support our customers ina new way.

Priscilla (02:44):
Yeah, it's fun too because, like you said, you know
when you're writing formarketing it's a different
strategy than writing forcustomer support, and so you're
having to kind of like changethat in your head and only write
for marketing and not thinkabout the customer support.
But you still have this insightbecause you know where the
customers are and have questions, because you've been
anticipating questions like thatfor years and years.

Megan (03:05):
Yeah, yes, and you know, the hardest part about the
change in writing has been theexclamation points.
Oh gosh, Because in support wethrow them out there, like you
get an exclamation point and youget an exclamation point
because you just want tocommunicate that you're like
excited, you're personality,happy to help.
And I think a lot of times itcan come across like in support

(03:26):
if you're just like periodperiod, period period, that
you're angry, and that's notalways the case and marketing is
not that way.
So I've had to really pull itback and I'm like I promise I'm
not mad.

Priscilla (03:35):
I promise, I'm not mad, I'm just using a lot of
periods.

Megan (03:38):
I promise, I'm not mad, I'm just really professional now
.

Jordan (03:41):
Yeah, honestly, like your support background has
helped so much with like one ofthe things that the marketing
team does a lot is writing ourhow to guides or our blogs and
stuff like that, and so I thinkMegan is just so good for that
because of her supportexperience.
She's so good at likeexplaining how things work and
you know, so she's she's kind ofcombining the support and

(04:03):
marketing together in that and Ithink it is just awesome.

Priscilla (04:06):
Yeah, and it's cool for the support team too,
because we feel like we havethis inside scoop into the
marketing world and so we likereach out to Megan.
We're like Megan, we need youto help us with this.
So it's cool because we havethis like loophole now into the
marketing.
But it's really cool.
There's so much about marketingand support that really do go
hand in hand, and so it's verycool to have that crossover and

(04:27):
to have that really tightbetween the two departments.
Before we jump into what we'regoing to talk about today, I
want to ask you who has madeyour day recently, Megan?

Megan (04:37):
I know this is like such the cheesy, quintessential
answer, but my husband hey,that's great, that's a really
good one.
Yeah, he went to pick up dinnerfor us the other night.
It had just been like a superbusy day, like really chaotic.
We had just traveled over theweekend and we're getting back
in town and just you know howthat feels you get home.
there's a million things to doand when he brought home dinner

(04:58):
he also had gone next door.
There was like a little cakeshop next door and he got my
favorite flavor of cupcake andhe's like I know it's been a
hard day, just wanted to likeget you a little something to
make you smile.
It was really nice and it youknow it's something small, but
it definitely made my day, Ilove that, and it's not even
customer service related, right?

Priscilla (05:15):
It's just like it's just another person making your
day better, which?
is the base of what customerservice is, and so it's cool
because it's like, hey, youdon't have to be working in a
customer service field to makesomeone's day better, but if you
are working in customer service, you have all of these options
in front of you, all of theseopportunities to make someone's
day better, which I just love.
So that's a great answer to thequestion.

(05:36):
So Megan is here today becauseshe and I had a pretty intense
support experience several yearsago, back in 2021, megan and I
were one of three people on theBuzzsprout customer support team
and, megan, I think you'd onlybeen with the team for like a
year.

Megan (05:54):
A year.
At that point yeah.

Priscilla (05:56):
And so you were still kind of in a new zone.
I mean, I think at that pointyou were pretty established, but
you know it was less than ayear, so there was still a lot
of new things hitting you.
At this point we were offeringweekend support and so it was a
Saturday or it was a Sunday.

Megan (06:10):
It was a Sunday.
I can like see it so clearly.

Priscilla (06:12):
Okay, set the scene for everyone.

Megan (06:15):
Usually working Sundays at that time in 2021 was like
not super crazy.
I would work it alone duringthe day and just get on every
couple hours and help people outthe best I could.
Yep, and I had been working inthe inbox for a little while
when all of a sudden, the numberjust starts climbing yeah,
climbing, and I'm like wait,what's going on?

(06:35):
Because we are getting like somany emails at once.
This seems weird.
And then I go into Basecamp.

Priscilla (06:43):
Yeah.

Megan (06:43):
Which is how we talk to each other within the company,
and I was like somebody mustknow something clearly because
this is not normal, yeah, and Ibelieve Tom had posted in there
like I think there's some sortof I don't even know if we were
calling it an attack at thatpoint.
But there's something going onwith the servers, or so I call
you immediately and I think bythis point we're at over 300
emails probably call youimmediately and I think by this

(07:06):
point we're at over 300 emailsprobably.

Priscilla (07:07):
Yeah, on a Sunday is like insane Right, because on a
Sunday at that point weprobably had like 40 to 50
emails that would be in theinbox at a busier part in the
day.
Yeah.

Megan (07:15):
You know, maybe answered 80 the entire day.

Priscilla (07:17):
Right, it was.
It was pretty slow on a Sundayand so Megan called me.
People are running into issues.
I'm not seeing a ton ofconsistency on what the issues
are, but people are havingtrouble accessing pages.
Tom had posted something inBasecamp just saying, hey,
something's going on.
We're not sure, and basicallywhat was happening was we were
under a DDoS attack, so someonewas just spamming our servers

(07:40):
and locking them up so thatpeople couldn't get into
Buzzsprout.
They couldn't get into theplatform to do their work, and
they had been DMing us andasking for some Bitcoin.
I believe is what they werewanting.

Jordan (07:51):
Like a ransom.

Priscilla (07:52):
Yes, and so it was kind of wild.
Right, it's a Sunday afternoon,you know, I think it was
February or March of 2021.
It was beautiful weatheroutside and then all of a sudden
it's everyone get to theircomputer.
I mean, I think Kevin was downsouth and immediately got his
family in the car and finishedtheir vacation early and came
back.
It was this whole wildsituation.

(08:13):
And we actually have an episodeof Buzzcast, which is another
one of our podcasts, that'sspecifically about the DDoS
attack.
So if you want more details onthat side of it, you should go
listen to that episode.
We'll put it in the show notes.

Jordan (08:26):
It's a really fun episode to listen to honestly,
and we talked to Jack Reisider,who has Darknet Diaries, which
is about the hacking world, andit's a fascinating podcast.
You have to listen to that too,but it's a really good episode.
I think that's our most popularepisode we've ever published.

Priscilla (08:41):
Yeah, it's really cool.
So if you haven't listened tothat, if you don't know what I'm
talking about, you should golisten to it.
But what we want to talk abouttoday is what that experience
was like for customer supportspecifically.
There was no like consistencywith the issues that we were
seeing.
It was not like everyonecouldn't log in.
Sometimes people could log in,sometimes they could get to a
place where they're about toupload an episode, and then

(09:02):
sometimes they couldn't uploadthe episode or they couldn't get
to a certain page and it's likehow do you even like respond
when you don't even understand,like what a problem is?
I remember Megan and I at onepoint got on speakerphone and
just had speakerphone on.
For days multiple days, thespeakerphone was on Just so that
we could feel like we were inthe same room, because at this

(09:23):
point it's 2021.
We were was on just so that wecould feel like we were in the
same room, because, at thispoint it's 2021, we were working
, everyone was basically fullyremote at that point, and so we
just put the speaker on so thatwe could just be in the virtual
room with each other, because weneeded to have some kind of
human interaction, because therewas so much emailing happening.
One time I remember not beingable to think straight about
something and Megan said I thinkyou need to stand up and walk
outside and be in the sunlightfor a minute.

(09:44):
And I was like, ok, yeah, good,and I did, and it was so
refreshing to like get out for aminute, take a deep breath and
to come back in.
What else do you remember aboutthose two or three days?

Megan (09:54):
I remember when we found out it was the afternoon, like
Sunday afternoon at like three,and then the next thing I know
it's like seven thirty pm and wehad not left the computers.
It was all happening so fast.
I remember getting pings atlike 2.30 in the morning and you
being like I'm going to bed fora few hours and then I'll get
back in here and Tom sending outpings at like 4 in the morning
and just a lot of confusion.
I think we were confused on whatwas going on.

(10:17):
I think we had much moreclarity once it stopped what had
happened.
I remember being reallyconfused about how long is this
going to last and when is thisgoing to end.
Yeah, and I also remember justlike the resilience of
Buzzsprout customers at thattime, Like I was so thankful
that we have such amazingpodcasters who were so
understanding and we're likewhat can we do to help?

Jordan (10:39):
Like they were like we ride at dawn for Buzzsprout.

Megan (10:42):
They were so ready to help us, which was so sweet and
amazing and definitely made itmuch easier to work through that
time.

Priscilla (10:50):
Yeah, so it was like 36 hours the actual attack and
we kind of were able to get itresolved after about 36 hours.
But then there was probablyanother day and a half where, at
least from the support side ofthings, we were still dealing
with a lot of just more emailsthan expected, because there was
a lot of, still a lot of peoplewriting in.
After that the biggest surprise, I felt like, was how

(11:10):
understanding our customers werelike you were talking about.
You know the kindness.
We were getting messages frompeople that were just saying,
hey, I know you're in the middleof this right now, but I just
want you to know we're rootingfor you and it was just like a
lot of really sweet messages andkind messages from our
customers and you know we'rerooting for you and it was just
like a lot of really sweetmessages and kind messages from
our customers.
And you know there were angrypeople obviously there's always

(11:30):
going to be but we really feltlike we had an overwhelming
amount of positivity from ourcustomers and neither of us had
dealt with anything like thatbefore.
There were definitely times whenthe site would be down before
the DDoS attack, when, you know,we'd have like a site down for
a couple hours and we'd have tokind of manage those mini crises
, but this was 36 hours ofconsistent, you know, the site

(11:53):
not being fully usable, and sothis was something unlike
anything we had dealt with,megan or I, and so I feel like
we had a lot of learning inthose two days.
A lot of learning like whatkind of things we want to do to
make this easier on ourselves tobe able to get through this.
Like you said we didn't knowhow long it was going to last,
and so the sustainability factorof it was a big deal.
Like are we going to be able tosustain this kind of influx

(12:15):
with just the two of us for morethan two days?
I don't know how long we wouldhave been able to sustain it,
probably not much longer.

Megan (12:22):
Yeah, I majored in public relations in college and I had
taken a crisis public relationsclass and then after college I
worked at an agency where I didcrisis PR for a few brands.
Oh, and let me tell you, workingin support during a crisis is
very different than being on thePR or media side of a crisis.
Really, because you're hand inhand with the customer through

(12:43):
it and you're experiencing itnot only from the company side,
but you're hand in hand with thecustomer through it, and you're
experiencing it not only fromthe company side, but you're
also experiencing it from thecustomer side and you're trying
to bridge that gap for them.
I think it's so cool that we'retalking about this, because I
wish we had had something likethis before we went through that
crisis.
Yes, I feel like there's a lotout there for how to deal with a
crisis like with your companyimage, but not so much with

(13:05):
image.

Priscilla (13:06):
Yeah, I think that's a really good point that it is
so different and that you arewalking hand in hand with your
customers and, as someone who'sbeen in support for many years,
you feel it on both sides.
You kind of feel like you'restanding in the gap because you
feel for your developers who aretrying to fix the issue, but
then you also feel for yourcustomers who are like, hey, I'm
in a tough spot and you're inthe middle of that going.

(13:26):
I see both sides of this.
I see where you're feeling thefrustration and I see how hard
we're working on this side, andit's my job to do as good a job
as possible in communicatingbetween those two things.
So today let's talk throughsome of the things we learned
from that.
So some strategies.
The first thing I'm going tosay here is to plan ahead.
That is the most important.

(13:47):
I mean Megan just said you knowI wish we had had something
like this podcast to listen to,because if we had had some kind
of strategy in place before thathappened, I think it would have
taken a lot of the stress of itdown a little bit.
We would have it still wouldhave been insane.
It still would have been acrazy three days, but it
wouldn't have been quite sostressful maybe.

Jordan (14:06):
Because you guys were trying to figure out, you know
how to navigate that and likewhat to say, what to do while
you're in the trenches, Exactly.

Priscilla (14:14):
Which is really hard .

Megan (14:15):
Yeah, and I just want to say is like a word of
encouragement too, if you don'thave a plan in place yet, I
think what we really did is wetook the plan we'd had for
smaller fires, other things wehad, and really scaled it up.
Yeah, and a lot of it was likea lot of our learning in that
time was just scaling the planfor a bigger attack or a bigger
issue.
And so if you don't have a planin place, like, look at what
you do for smaller things andsee how you can scale that up,

(14:37):
you don't have to completelyreinvent the wheel.

Priscilla (14:40):
Right, and if you've already set your tone, if
you've already set yourcommunication goals and all of
these things that you arebuilding as you're building a
support team, a lot of thatstuff will apply in a crisis
situation.
A crisis situation, you're notgoing to start treating your
customers differently than youwould outside of a crisis
situation.
So, being able to continue onwith the tone that you speak in

(15:00):
and the goals that you're goingafter like one of our goals is
that you know, we want you toknow, that Buzzsprout is on your
team.
That comes into play whenyou're dealing with a crisis
like this and you want to makesure your customers feel cared
for because we're on their side.
And so, yeah, I think that's agood point, that it kind of is
scaling what you're alreadydoing just up to the max,
because now you're in the middleof a situation that is not

(15:23):
something you have ever dealtwith before.
So sometimes people will createlike a crisis document or like
a crisis management plan orsomething like that.
This, I think, should includethings like you know how you're
going to communicate withcustomers, what that process is
going to look like, assign theroles of who's going to do what
during those kinds of things?
How are you going tocommunicate with your developers

(15:45):
to stay up to date?
Have all of that in placebefore you even get to that
crisis so that, when it comesinto play, you can go back to
that document and say, okay, Ineed to make sure that I'm
executing on these things thatwe've already lined out.
And, look, I've written somecontent now that I can morph a
little bit so that it's applyingto this specific crisis we're

(16:06):
in.
But I don't have to, like yousaid, I don't have to reinvent
the wheel now, in the middle ofthe stressful time.
Yeah, the other thing I wouldsay kind of that aligns with
this is be prepared to debriefonce the crisis is over, so that
you can adjust your document,because you might create it like
now, when you haven't had acrisis, you haven't gone through
it, and then you go through it,and then you'll want to come
back to it and say, ok, whatworked, what didn't work, what

(16:28):
did I not plan for that I wantto adjust so that next time, if
this happens again, I'll beprepared.
And so I think that's animportant key to it to like come
back to it and revisit it atthe end Debrief with your team,
with the product team as a whole, and figure out what things you
want to change and be preparedfor going into the next crisis,
because the likelihood is you'renot going to think ahead for

(16:50):
every little step in thisprocess.
You know you're going to misssome things and you want to make
sure to capture that afterwards.
So the biggest importance whenyou're dealing in a crisis
situation is to communicate well, and that is communication kind
of on three different levels.
When I look at it, I think ofthere's communication with your
product team as a whole, so thewhole team and what's happening

(17:12):
with whatever crisis it is.
And then there's communicatingwith your support team as a unit
that is helping customers, andthen there's communication with
customers.
So I kind of want to start withcommunicating with your product
team.
So, as a support specialist, youare probably not the one that's
actually fixing the problemright.
Like Megan was saying, you'reworking both with the developers

(17:34):
and with the customers.
You're in the middle of thatgap.
So it's important for you to beaware of what's going on as
much as you can be, becausethings are probably going to be
changing really quickly and inour case, with the DDoS attack,
things were changing a lot.
Yes, I mean, it was very quickthat things would change and
different pages would beunavailable, and so it's very

(17:56):
important for you to be on topof that and so hopefully, you're
working with a company that isopen communication, like that
and sharing with the supportteam, that and sharing with the
support team.
But I know there are peoplelistening to this going well,
that's great and all, butthere's no way that I'm going to
be able to get that informationfrom our developers.
We don't have that kind of anopen communication system.
And so I would say, when you'rebuilding that plan, when you're

(18:16):
building that crisis managementdocument, I would encourage you
to go to your developers now andsay hey, when this happens in
the future because something'sgoing to happen where we're
going to need to use this howare we going to keep our
communication lines open?
And maybe they say we're goingto make one person our point of
contact and you're going to goto them and they're going to
give you updates from theproduct side, but you want to

(18:37):
make sure that those lines ofcommunication are open, because
the worst thing is that youcan't get the information from
the developers and then you havenothing to share with your
customers, and then that givesyou this look of oh, they're not
being transparent about what'sgoing on, they're not being
helpful because we don't haveany more information to give,
and so I think it's reallyimportant to establish that line
of communication early on, evenbefore the crisis starts.

Megan (18:59):
I would agree and I would say too if you don't have
direct communication with yourproduct team, do you have direct
communication with somebodyelse who does and can share that
information?
I think it's just mostimportant that you get that
information to share with yourcustomers in a timely manner.
So wherever that's coming fromon your team is great.

Priscilla (19:16):
Yeah, and honestly take the crisis out of it.
You should have directcommunication with your product
team.
I mean you should, but thatdoesn't always happen and if
you're listening, well, and ifyou're listening to this and
you're like I don't, then Iwould encourage you to advocate
for yourself, like knock on somedoors, figure out why there's
no communication there.
It's really hard for you to doyour job well if you don't have

(19:37):
that open communication.
So if you're working for acompany that doesn't provide
that, I would start knocking ondoors.
I would start figuring out howto make that communication easy,
because once you get to asituation like this, you have to
have it.
There's no way around it, andso you want to make sure that
that part of your culture issorted out before you get to a
place where you are really goingto get stuck.
No-transcript, becausesometimes you're going to want

(20:15):
to say something to a customerand they're going to say, hey,
we actually can't share thispublicly.
We want to keep this piece ofinformation private, and so
having that information in thefirst place is good, but make
sure you know what's public,what shouldn't be publicly
shared, so that you cancommunicate with confidence when
you're working with customers.
Yeah, I also recommend that allof this communication be done
in a public written way.

(20:36):
So Megan mentioned we useBasecamp, which is just a way
for us to communicate as a team.
Try to keep this stuff out ofpings or direct messages, where
the rest of the team can't seeit.
Keep this kind of stuff in allcompany chats so that that way,
or all company messages so thateveryone can see where the
current status is on whatever'sgoing on.

(20:57):
So the whole support team is inthe same boat and they can all
see that information.
Because if you remove all thisrelaying information, it's kind
of like telephone Like.
If I get a ping from adeveloper says this is where we
are now, and then I turn and Iping this person and this is
where we are now, and theymessage this person.
It's going to morph by the timeit gets to the customer and so
if you have it all in one placethat's publicly available to

(21:18):
everyone on the team, that'sgoing to be a much easier way to
communicate that informationand then get the accurate
information back to yourcustomer.
Yeah, okay.
So now let's talk aboutcommunicating with your support
team specifically.
So in addition to communicatingwith the product team and
putting fires out, you also haveto communicate well with your
support team so that you guyscan all move together as a

(21:39):
unified team to work with yourcustomers and it's really
important that you, as a supportleader, are taking care of your
team in this time, like whenMegan and I were doing it, it
was just the two of us, we werethe only two support specialists
and we were in constantcommunication.
But if you're in a big team andyou have, you know, 30, 40,
hundreds of people on your team,you have to be really, really

(22:01):
intentional about making surethat communication stays easy
throughout the whole time,because people are going to be.
If things are changing in thiscrisis, you're going to want to
make sure that everyone's on thesame page, and that's your
responsibility as the head ofyour team to make sure everyone
on your team feels that knowsthe information and feels
supported in themselves rightWorking through this crisis.

(22:22):
It's not always about themmaking sure that they can help
the customer, but in somecases's not always about them
making sure that they can helpthe customer, but in some cases,
it's also about them makingsure that they can step outside
for a few minutes and take adeep breath, because being glued
to your computer for 24 hoursis not healthy.
Not at all, yeah, ok.
And then the last level ofcommunication is communicating
with your customers, and thismight sound like a no brainer,

(22:43):
but I really don't think it is.
I think it seems like whenthere's a crisis, sometimes you
feel like there's this need tohold back information or hide it
yeah, or hide it or not let itbe known that there's something
happening behind the curtain.
You kind of want to be like oh,something's happening, or like
let's not tell them anythinguntil we know exactly what's
going on, or kind of keeping itto yourself a little bit.

(23:06):
And I feel like you have ashort window of time there
before your customers start tolose faith in you that you're
taking care of them if theydon't hear anything back.
If people started emailing, so,megan, if on that Sunday people
started emailing you and youdidn't respond and you were like
we don't know what's going on,I'm not going to respond to
people, it would not have takenlong for them to think, ok,

(23:28):
buzzsprout is totally out of it,because they're not responding
to us and we don't know what'sgoing on and no one's keeping us
in the loop.
And so I think thecommunication between your
customer support team and yourcustomers is the most vital part
.

Megan (23:42):
And I think you'll find that customers are much more
patient when they haveinformation.
Yes, People just want tounderstand what's going on, and
so I think the more you're ableto obviously, you don't have to
tell them everything, but themore you're able to tell them
about what's happening and youknow the information you have
that's available, I think themore patient that they are,
because they feel like they'rebeing told the truth, they feel

(24:02):
like they're in an authenticconversation with you and they
have more patience for you as aperson.

Priscilla (24:07):
Well, and even if you don't have a resolution for
them, they at least know thatyou're working on it.
They at least know you careenough about them to respond to
them and let them know that John, your developer, is working on
it, and that kind of likepersonality or that
personalization of the situationI think can be really helpful.
You know, we've all hadexperiences where something
breaks with a product that we'reusing or a service that we're

(24:28):
using and then we email theirsupport team and you don't hear
anything back, and then you justfeel like you're in a hole.
You're like I have noinformation.
A good explanation of this is,I guess last year I went and saw
a concert, a Taylor Swiftconcert.
We had like a huge storm beforethe show actually started, oh
yeah, and so it was delayed forlike four hours.
But it was crazy because we'resitting there in this hotel

(24:50):
lobby with no information onwhat's happening or when the
show is going to start, and soyou just feel very disconnected.
You're like I don't know how toeven who to reach out to.
We ended up finding that thestadium where she was going to
be playing was giving updates onthe weather, and they were
doing a great job of keepingthings updated and they were
sharing email addresses sayingyou know, if you need to reach

(25:13):
out to us with specificquestions, you can email us here
.
Otherwise, the updates are bestto be kept on the status you
know on this Twitter page.
It felt really good in themoment to be like OK, wait, they
do actually care about us.
We're sitting here waiting.
We're not actually in this hole, no-transcript.

(25:47):
Absolutely so as supportspecialists, our goal obviously
is to support the customers,which is pretty straightforward,
but in times when you're in acrisis, your customers need more
support.
Yes, you know, I think it'sreally important to communicate
quickly and often with yourcustomers.
So, you know, don't make yourcustomers wait.

(26:07):
If you can respond to themquickly and let them know you're
on it, do it.
It's okay if you don't have aresolution, respond to them
right away.
Let them know you're working onit.
Define what the issue is,because they won't know what the
issue is so you can respond.
Def what's going on.
Take responsibility If it'syour product, something that you
know we broke.
So in the DDoS attack it wasn'tsomething we had done, but we've

(26:28):
definitely had situations wherewe've pushed out an update that
has broken something and wewill take ownership of that and
say, hey, we are working to getthis resolved.
We will be in touch with you assoon as it is.
We made a change that glitchedthe system, like.
We'll take ownership of thatbecause people respect that when
you take the ownership of whatthe issue is.

Jordan (26:50):
And I think the instinct in a lot of these situations is
to like not say anything untilyou have all the answers, Like
not say anything until it'sfixed.
You know.
You just instinctually likedon't want to give bad news and
you don't want to say that youdon't know.

Priscilla (26:59):
Yeah, but when you don't say anything and people
are left in the silence, thenthe worst case scenario is
what's going on in their head,you know.
So getting back to peoplequickly and offering that
communication early on, even ifit's not fully resolved or on a
road to resolution, that can bereally helpful in kind of
showing your customers thatyou're in there with them and

(27:20):
you're working on it and you'readvocating for them.
Like Megan was saying, be astransparent as you can be.
You know, if you know the issue, say what the issue is.
If you don't know what theissue is, tell them.
You're looking into it andyou're trying to find a solution
, and you haven't fully figuredout what's going on.
People respect it when you tellthem the truth.

(27:42):
I think it's also important toaddress the important concerns
with the DDoS attack.
I remember specifically that wetold people over and over and
over again that their billinginformation and their personal
information was safe and theirepisodes were safe and their
content was safe.
Because that's what people areworried about.
They're worried about theircontent being leaked or they're
worried about especially whenyou say, hey, we're experiencing
a DDoS attack.
People don't know what thatmeans and they go oh my gosh

(28:05):
attack, you've been hacked, youknow all my stuff is being
removed, but that's not what'shappening.
And so we were very intentionalto say hey, it's not an attack
where your information, yourbilling information, is being
shared or any of your content isat risk.
You just can't get into youraccount right now, which isn't
good, but at least you can beassured that your information is
safe and so getting ahead of itwhen you're working in a crisis

(28:28):
situation, and telling someonethat before they even ask about
it can be really helpful too,just to reassure them.

Megan (28:34):
And if you're not sure what those main concerns are
going to be for your customers,those first few emails you get
will let you know.
Like I remember, we had a lotof people in the beginning
writing in asking, being like ifthere is an attack, is my
information safe?
Is my billing information on myepisode safe?
And we had kind of anticipatedthat that would be people's
questions.
But if you're not sure whatthose concerns might be, your

(28:55):
customers will let you know andyou can adjust your materials to
address those real time In themoment.

Priscilla (29:00):
yeah, exactly as you start to, you start to see
where their worry is coming from.
You can adjust things.
So it's nice to have that planin place so that you can be
ready ahead of time.
But the reality is things aregoing to change in the moment of
the crisis and as you learnabout what your customers are
worried about, you can adjustthings to speak to those
concerns.

Megan (29:17):
I think that's really good.

Priscilla (29:19):
I would also say thank them for being patient.
I think this is something thatsometimes is overlooked, but the
reality is your customer istrying to use the product that
they're paying you for, and ifthey can't use it or if they're
dealing with some kind of aglitch, they're having to be
patient, they're having to wait,and so, yes, you're the one.
That's like fielding fires andyour developers are working

(29:39):
frantically to get things done,but your customer doesn't see
any of that, and so I would justsay thank them for being
patient.
It is always a choice, assomeone who is writing into
support, whether you want to bepatient or not.
You don't have to be.
They did not.
There's no need to be patient,and so I always try to be aware,
especially when someone writesin and they are calm and they're
understanding.

(30:00):
I always want to reinforce thatbehavior by thanking them for
being understanding and beingpatient with us while we work on
this, but I think that thatkind of just brings in that
human aspect of it, andhopefully it encourages people
to recognize that, okay, likethey're going through a lot,
they're dealing with this.
We're going to be patient withthem while they're working on it
.
I also love the idea offollowing up once you get more

(30:22):
information.
So following up with yourcustomers.
I think that it's hard to scalethis right, so you might be
hearing this and going, oh, youhad 500 emails that afternoon.
That's nothing on a regular dayfor us and so, of course,
volume is going to be differentfor every product, every service
.
But if you have the ability tofollow up with your customers

(30:42):
when something either whenthere's new information that's
gathered, or when you're on theroad to recovery, or when things
have finished I think that's sovaluable because it really
shows the person like hey, Iremember you and I want to
follow up with you and let youknow that this is resolved and
you should be all good to go andeverything is.
But if you see anything off,let us know.
I think that follow up piececan be really impactful when it

(31:05):
comes to the loyalty of someoneon your product.

Megan (31:08):
Yes, and if you are not working customer support
directly through email and maybeyou're doing it through social
media, like putting out a poston social media to follow up
with people, even like a fewdays later, reminding people
that things are OK is also likea great way to continue to
reassure your customer base.

Priscilla (31:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
Another thing you can do isoffer additional resources.
So we said you know, we're kindof talking about this DDoS
attack, which was pretty localto Buzzsprout.
As far as you know, it was anissue that happened within
Buzzsprout.
It wasn't an issue we came upwith, but it was Buzzsprout
specific.
We recently had a situationwhere several, many of our

(31:43):
podcasters had an issue withYouTube that affected their
episodes on Buzzsprout, but theissue was YouTube, and so in
those situations where it's anactually it's an issue with a
third party that's outside ofyour control, and now you're
just managing customer feedbackright, you're trying to work
with customers and make surethat they feel taken care of,
but you actually don't have anycontrol over the situation at

(32:07):
all.
Offer additional resources.
Find them the help articlesthat the other third party has
created, find the status pagethat the third party has created
or their help emails, and sharethat with your customers and
say, hey, this is actuallysomething that's happening over
here at this third party.
We've reached out to them, butwe also recommend that you reach
out to them as well.

(32:27):
Here's the information to getin touch with them.
That can go a long way, too,because it really shows.
Instead of just saying, oh, notour fault, you deal with it.
It says, yeah, we are aware andwe are trying to get this
resolved on your behalf.

Megan (32:39):
I think it goes back to that theory of we're really
standing in the gap between thecustomer and the company, and
sometimes that is not yourcompany.
Sometimes you have to like fillin that gap for wherever the
issue is coming from, tocontinue walking with the
customer.
Totally true.

Priscilla (32:54):
And it says so many good things about your company
that you're willing to stand inthe gap for someone else.
Yes, so when you have customersthat are frustrated because
YouTube isn't doing somethingthat they should be doing
because we're all human andthings happen right yeah, we
stand in the gap for ourcustomers, even if the issue is
not Buzzsprout.
I do think that that reallygoes a long way for customers.

(33:16):
And then I mentioned a minuteago having like a status page or
something.
I think you know, if you'reworking with so many customers
that you can't follow up withthem directly, having a status
page is a really, really greatway to keep people in the loop
and to let people know what'sgoing on as it's happening.
Yeah, and I would just saydon't be stingy about your

(33:37):
updates.
It's okay if you're updatingregularly on that status page,
even if the updates aren't huge.
I mean, I know I've gone tostatus pages to get updates on
things and I'm like man, theyhaven't posted an update in two
hours.
Did they forget about this page?
Even if they had said hey,we're still in the same spot.
We were an hour and a half ago,but I just wanted to give you
an update.
We're still working on it.

(33:58):
That would feel at leastsomething right, and so I would
say, don't be stingy about yourstatus updates.
If you're working on a statuspage, I think that is a really
good way to keep your customers,you know, in the light.
In that situation, moreinformation is going to make
people feel so much calmer whenthey're dealing with that.
The next tip I would tell peopleis to develop materials before

(34:18):
you get to the crisis.
So we talked about kind of acrisis document, but when I'm
talking about materials, I meanlike writing your saved replies
or your canned responses or somehelpful phrases that you know
are going to be good when you'redealing with a crisis, like
these phrases that you're likeoh yeah, this is I've really
thought through thisintentionally and this is going
to communicate that we're onyour team, and so I'm going to

(34:39):
write this ahead of time,because then, when we're in the
middle of the crisis, I can usethese tools that I've already
developed to be really efficientwith my emails, because when we
were doing that DDoS attack, wehad no time to develop anything
like that, and if we haddeveloped it in the moment which
a lot of it was in the moment,but it was hard to step back and

(35:01):
be really intentional about howwe were writing things, because
we were seeing this number justexplode and so many emails
coming in.
Yeah, it's really helpful to doit outside of the crisis right
To step back and be reallyintentional about developing
those responses, sharing themwith your team so your team
knows where to find all of thatinformation, and then you can
tweak things as the crisisactually starts.

(35:21):
Right when you're actually inthe middle of it, you can adjust
things so that it's specific,because you don't want it to be
these like vague, overarchingemails that don't feel like
they're specific to thesituation, but they can still be
used as a framework for thatcommunication with your clients.

Megan (35:37):
Yeah, I think you never wanted to feel like, oh, they're
just sending this because theyhave to.
I know I've definitely receivedemails in the past where it
just feels like they're puttinga bandaid on the situation or
they're like trying to, you know, put their head in the sand and
it's like, we're fine, we sentyou the email, like we told you,
but I'm like you didn't reallytell me anything.
Customers can really seethrough that quickly.
So, like you said, it's OK todevelop something that's pretty

(35:59):
vague, but then make sure youtailor it specific to your
situation.

Priscilla (36:02):
Yeah, and what I will do.
So with that YouTube examplefrom a couple of weeks ago, what
I will do when we hit somethingwhere we start to move into
crisis mode, I will step backand I will write a very specific
canned response for that issue.
And it's hard sometimes,especially when emails are
coming in quickly and you go,man, I really wanna keep

(36:24):
answering these, but actuallytaking the step back, focusing
on it, writing whatever responseyou're gonna write, defining
the problem for the customer,writing it within your tone,
with your communication goals inmind all of that is really
important and then you can addit to your email service,
whatever service you use.
You can save it as a reply inthere and then you can add it to
your email service, whateverservice you use.
You can save it as a reply inthere and then you tailor it for
each email that you send.

(36:44):
But that base information isall going to be there for you,
and it is hard sometimes,especially if you have a team of
two people, to take one personout of the inbox to focus on
that.
But it's really importantbecause it will make your email
so much more efficient as youthen get back into the inbox and
you start working throughemails, when you have the

(37:04):
ability to take this really goodemail that was just written and
send it off and tailor it foreach individual that's writing
in, I think it's reallyimportant, even though it's
really hard to step back and dothat.
And so as much as you can do itbefore the crisis is really
great, but then, within thecrisis, be okay with taking a
step back and focusing on thatin the moment.

(37:26):
Another thing I think we'vementioned a couple of times is
just being adaptable when thingschange.
In our situation with this DDoS, things change really fast.
In whatever crisis you're in,it's probably going to change
really fast, and so be adaptable, be nimble, be able to change
things quickly, be able tocommunicate with your support
team about how things arechanging, because you may go

(37:47):
from saying one thing to yourcustomers and then you learn a
new piece of information, andnow you need to change what
you're telling your customersbecause actually it's slightly
different and you want to makesure you're up to date on what
you're telling people.
You're up to date on whatyou're telling people, and so be
able to have things in place sothat that communication can be
done freely and that change canbe seen by the whole team.

(38:07):
You know I was thinking throughthese kind of strategies.
I was thinking, you know what doI feel like when we went
through this DDoS attack, madeit successful.
It doesn't seem like the rightword, but I keep coming back to
the idea that we were human.
Megan and I were human.
We did not know what was goingon, we were doing our best, we
were trying to figure it out inthe moment and we were being

(38:28):
human.
And when people would write inand be frustrated, we would say,
hey, we're in the middle ofthis DDoS attack.
Megan and I did not know what aDDoS attack was.
I even think I Googled itbecause I didn't know what it
was.
I was like, what does this evenmean?
And I think sometimes thathuman aspect of it can have such
a big impact on your customerswhen they feel like, oh man, I'm

(38:48):
talking to Megan.
Megan knows podcasting, butMegan is not a tech wizard and
knows everything about a DDoSattack.
But she's helping me stay calmand she's reassuring me that the
people on her team that do knoweverything about that are
working on fixing things, and Ithink that that human aspect can
be really, really powerful.

Megan (39:08):
Yes, at the beginning of the episode we talked about how
we had so many positive repliesabout the issue as well, and I
think that comes from beinghuman.
The entire time we're insupport, like people were ready
to stand with us and encourageus because they know us.
Yeah, and I think that reallygoes a long way, not just when
you're in a crisis, but whenyou're not, because it can help
you when you're in a crisis aswell.

Priscilla (39:29):
Right, it's that empathy aspect right.
You want to be empathetic forpeople who are dealing with the
customer side of thisfrustrating situation.
You're dealing with the supportside of the frustrating
situation.
The developers are dealing withthe support side of the
frustrating situation.
The developers are dealing withthe technical side.
So everyone is frustrated, andso being able to offer empathy

(39:51):
for the people who are dealingwith their side of it is really
important.
Having grace for your customers, especially the ones who are
going to write in and befrustrated and saying you know,
I understand this is frustrating.
I would be frustrated too.
I am frustrated.
I'm working for seven hours ona Sunday and I don't want to be.
But that allows me to be evenmore empathetic with you,
because I know how frustratingthis is to be doing this, and so
I think letting that be part ofyour communication, it can have

(40:13):
a huge, huge impact on yourcustomers and that relationship
solidifying.
And you said something cool,megan.
You said, like they know us,you know they were able to give
us grace because they know us,because we'd already built these
relationships with them beforewe were in crisis management
mode, and I think that is a hugething to remember that when
you're leaning into this humanside of support, this human side

(40:36):
of customer service, you'rebuilding these relationships.
It's not just an email or acall center, it's a relationship
, and so then, when somethinggoes off the rails, you have a
foundation to work from.
Yes, and people are going tofeel like they have you on their
side and I think that's areally cool thing when you see
it happening.
It felt really cool during theDDoS attack to have people who I

(40:59):
felt like cared about me backwhen I was so they cared about
my crazy situation that I was inand I was caring about their
crazy situation.
They were in and it was reallycool to have that happen.

Megan (41:10):
Yeah, that definitely went a long way during the late
night hours.
Yes, definitely did.

Priscilla (41:15):
I think another thing we can't forget is you
have to take care of yoursupport team.
A lot of times when you're inthe middle of these crises, it
can be hard to think about thefact that you actually need to
step out of it for a minute.
And the people on your team arestruggling and it's your job as
the leader to say hey, I needyou to step away from the

(41:36):
computer for an hour.
I need you to take a break.
Yes, that means people aregoing to have to wait a little
bit longer, but I need you totake a break.
Yes, that means people aregoing to have to wait a little
bit longer, but I need you to beable to have some calm in your
life, because the reality is inthat situation, we didn't know
how long it was going to go for,and we had to make sure that
you and I were protectingourselves, and so, as a support
leader, I want to encourage youto look out for your team in

(41:58):
those moments and remember, justlike you're remembering, that
your customers are human andyour customers have strong
feelings and are frustrated inthe situation, that your support
team also needs to have thatsupport, just like you're giving
to your customers.

Megan (42:12):
Absolutely.

Priscilla (42:12):
I mean, I really vividly remember you telling me,
megan, to get up and walk outof the room, and I thought I
would never have told myself todo that.
I would have said I got to stayhere, I got to stay on the
computer.
I can't let these customerswait any longer than they're
already waiting.
And Megan said hey, guess what,you need to go outside.
You need to go outside and takea break because there are
bigger things here and you'reprotecting of your own just

(42:36):
ability to keep working, letalone mental, let alone all
these other things.
You know, it was just reallygood for me to hear that from
someone else.
And you're also in that momentsaying I'm going to take on the
load of this while you gooutside.
So that to me felt like, ok,megan's going to hold it down
and then I can come in and dothe same thing for her, to give
us both the ability to keepgoing and to keep pushing

(42:58):
through the crisis.
And you mentioned somethingabout me sending an email at
2.30 or something I remember inthe attack in the middle of the
night it like got really intenseagain because we'd go in these
like waves.
And it was the middle of thenight and I saw it and I jumped
in the inbox and Tom one of thefounders of Buzzsprout he pinged
me and said hey, I want you togo back to bed.

(43:19):
Like you need to go back and goto sleep because I need you to
be able to work at 7 am.
I don't want you working at 3am.
Yes, and I also felt like thatwas another one of those moments
where it was like I was giventhe permission to take care of
myself no-transcript right.

(43:51):
You have to lead by example, too, and you have to say, hey, I'm
going to look out for you, butI'm also going to take some time
to walk outside or to get aglass of water or to go lay down
for 20 minutes.
Another thing that we findreally helps us when we're
dealing with these kind ofcrisis moments is assigning

(44:12):
roles to different people on theteam.
So in any crisis situationMegan and I laughed about this a
lot right after the DDoS attack, but there would be people who
would write in and they'd sayhow do I reset my password?
And we'd be like do you notrealize there's a huge attack
going on and you're asking ushow to reset a password or how
to delete an episode, and otherpeople can't even move around.

(44:33):
And so in any crisis, you'regoing to have people who don't
realize there's a crisishappening and they're going to
ask their random you know run ofthe mill everyday questions.
And so what I find to behelpful is to assign a couple
people the role of looking forthose everyday questions, and
that is their job.
And then you take other peopleand you assign them to the
crisis questions, and that helpskeep your communication clear,

(44:56):
because you know that these arethe three people who are dealing
with the crisis and I'm gonnago work with them specifically
about all of these updates onthe crisis and I know that the
other two people are looking forthings that are not crisis
related and they're staying ontop of kind of your everyday run
of themill support.
So I think establishing thoseroles early can be really
helpful and sometimes, dependingon what the crisis is, you only

(45:18):
need one person fielding thosecrisis emails, and sometimes
it's the other way and you needone person dealing with everyday
emails and everyone else on thecrisis.
But I think establishing thatahead of time can be really
helpful.
And then the last thing that Ihad, which we just kind of
talked about, was accepting help.
You know we are very used togiving help as a support team.

(45:42):
We are very used to solvingother people's problems, but we
are not very used to acceptinghelp from other people.
And one of the big things thatwe noticed during that DDoS
attack was it was just the twoof us, but I don't know if you
remember Megan Brian Hunt, whois one of our developers on our
team.
He spent the entire 36 hours insupport with us.
Yes, I don't even think weasked him.
I think he just showed up andsaid hey, I'm here to answer
questions, put me in.

Megan (46:03):
Which is just like the best thing about Brian he is
always so willing to help outand he has the foresight to
think or is going to needsomeone with developer knowledge
in there?

Priscilla (46:11):
Yeah with developer knowledge, yeah, and he brought
himself in and we accepted itand it was huge to have him in
there and it really justreminded me that you don't have
to be the only people that aredoing it in those crisis
situations.
It doesn't have to just be thesupport team.
If your CEO can't help squashwhatever bug is happening, maybe
they can get in and help workwith customers.

(46:33):
I think it's hard sometimes tolet other people come into your
space when that's not whatthey're used to doing, but as
long as you communicate wellwith them and show them those
tools we talked about, wherethey can find the tools, and
keep that communication open,then they're going to be able to
help in a way that's going tobe helpful.
Even if it's not perfect, evenif it's not someone who's been

(46:53):
trained on support for eightyears.
It's helping If a designeremails one of your customers and
says, hey, here's the situation.
That's going to feel good to acustomer who's going oh, I'm
talking to a designer.
This must be like a seriousthing, because the designer is
telling me what's going on, andI think that can be a great way
for you as a support team tofeel supported by the company.

(47:14):
But it can be hard to accepthelp in that way sometimes.

Megan (47:17):
Yes.

Priscilla (47:18):
So if you haven't experienced a crisis like we
have with the DDoS attack,that's a good thing, and the
reality is you may neverexperience a crisis at that
level.
But if you're working incustomer support, you are going
to run into bugs, you are goingto run into glitches, things are
going to break, the site isgoing to go down and these are
not huge, terrible things thatare going to happen, but they

(47:40):
are going to be situations whereyour customers are affected,
and so hopefully some of thesetips that we've shared will help
you to better stand in the gapbetween your customers and your
product as you support them andmake sure that they know that
you're on their team and you'retaking care of them, because it
can be a really hard job, butthe reality is, the way that you
handle a crisis can lose yousome customers, but it can also

(48:03):
make loyal customers for life,and so preparing for that ahead
of time is so important.
Even if you never hit a DDoSattack, the way we did, the way
you handle that, will have ahuge impact on your customers
and can ultimately come out withsome really, really loyal
customers at the end of it.
So hopefully these tips willhelp you with that.

(48:27):
It's time for Support in RealLife, our segment where we
discuss real life supportexperiences and questions.
So what do you have for us thisweek?
Jordan, I have something.
Oh, megan has something.

Megan (48:38):
Ok, megan what do you?

Priscilla (48:39):
have.

Megan (48:40):
So we are recording this the day after Halloween and
yesterday on Halloween, I wasjust scrolling through my social
media as one does, goingthrough my social media as one
does, and I saw one of myfriends had posted that her
flight attendant had madeHalloween goodie bags for all of
the passengers on the flight noway and it was just like a
little bag, like it wasn't ahuge thing, but she had taken

(49:01):
his picture like holding all thebags and posted about it.
And this friend doesn't work incustomer support, she's not like
a super huge traveler postingabout that all the time.
It was just like a kind thingthat somebody in customer
support did and it moved her somuch that she posted about it on
social media.

Priscilla (49:19):
I love that.
That's such a good story.
Typically we have in thissection we talk about like
questions and like advice, but Ilove just talking about this
great story.
That's so encouraging.
I feel like I've been on abunch of planes recently and I
feel like I've been noticing alot more about just the
difficult job it is to be aflight attendant yes, and so

(49:41):
someone going out of their wayto create those little goodie
bags to give everyone on theirplanes.
They can have a fun experiencebecause they're flying on
Halloween.
I think that's such a greatexample of like going above and
beyond as a customer servicespecialist or worker to really
take care of your customers.
I really love that story.

Jordan (50:00):
Well, and I mean to go with that, you know, we just got
back from our trip in Nashvilleand it was so funny because
while we were at the Nashvilleairport we were walking by this
big candy store and Priscillalike pops in because she has to
go buy treats for all the flightattendants to give them when
she gets on the plane.

Priscilla (50:21):
Yeah, it's something I've just recently started
doing and obviously I didn'tcome up with it.
I saw someone else that doesthis.
They basically buy just alittle treat for the flight crew
before they get on a plane,just as a way to say thank you
ahead of time.
I love it.
I saw them do it.
I thought that is just such agood thing and I, you know, we
have this podcast and talk a lotabout making people's day and I

(50:43):
just thought.
You know I can do this easilyand so it's something I've
started doing the last severalflights I've gone on and it
really it's so much fun to walkon the flight and to hand it to
someone and say, hey, this isfor the flight crew, and their
face lights up.
They get so excited and it'sjust a sweet moment.
And what is it?
$15, because it's an airportchocolate.

Megan (51:03):
So it's probably $15.

Priscilla (51:04):
But, still it's not that much, and it's a great way
to just show people who work inthe service industry because,
let's be honest, it's hard towork with people all the time,
especially when you're stuck ina tiny tube in the middle of the
sky with them.
You know.
I want to make sure that youknow that I appreciate the work

(51:26):
you're doing, because it's hard.

Megan (51:27):
Yes, and I feel like the aviation industry in general
gets kind of a bad rap forservice.
I feel like most people'sstories about flight attendants
or airlines in general, airlineworkers yeah, airlines in
general are typically negative.
So it's nice to hear positivestories too and to know that,
like if you're working in anindustry that might have
negative connotations associatedwith service, that like you can

(51:49):
still make a huge impact andpeople are always going to be
receptive of it.

Priscilla (51:53):
Yeah, I completely agree.
Well, thanks for sharing that,megan.
I think that was a great storyfor our Support in Real Life
segment.
Yeah, so if you have a questionor a support situation that you
would like us to discuss, youcan email us at happytohelp at
buzzsproutcom, or you can textthe show by using the link in
our show notes.
Each episode we will discuss adifferent question or story, so

(52:14):
if you send something in, we maydiscuss yours on the next
episode.
And remember, if you like thisepisode, please take some time
to rate or review it on ApplePodcasts.
We are getting close towrapping up our first season, so
as we plan for season two, wewould love to hear some of that
feedback.
So click the link in the shownotes to text us and let us know
or leave a review on ApplePodcasts, because we would love

(52:35):
to see that.
Thank you so much for beinghere, megan.
I really appreciate you takingthe time to talk through this
with us and, as always, jordan,thank you for being here and
being the best producer in theland.
Oh, wow.

Megan (52:45):
Thank you both for having me.
This has been so fun.

Priscilla (52:50):
And thank you both for having me.
This has been so fun, and thankyou everyone for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.