How Support Teams Can Prove Their Value Across the Company with Andrew "Coach" Rios

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Customer support is where every company decision eventually shows up.

In this episode, we’re talking with Andrew “Coach” Rios, a customer experience and support operations leader with more than 25 years of experience building support teams at companies like Cisco, Fitbit, and Cityside Fiber.

We dig into why support teams often feel overlooked, how support leaders can communicate their value to the rest of the company, and why customer insights need to be translated into the language other departments actually understand.

We also talk about how coaching youth sports shaped Coach Rios’s leadership style, why “winning” looks different for every support team, and how leaders can start building influence even before they officially have a seat at the table.

Plus: how to create a support report people actually read, why employee satisfaction may be the most important support metric, and why great support leaders should constantly sell, market, and advocate for their teams.

This episode is for support leaders who want their teams to be heard, respected, and integrated into the bigger picture and for support pros who know their work is about far more than answering tickets!

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, PriscillaBrooke.
In today's episode, we'rediscussing the value of support.
We'll cover how to communicatesupport's value to other
departments, the importance ofempowering your support team,
and we'll give you somestrategies for integrating your
support team into your companyas a whole.

(00:20):
Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into it.
It's time for another awesomeconversation about customer
support, and I am pumped tointroduce our guest and get into
it.
But before I do, I just want toremind anyone who's listening
that if there is a specifictopic that you want us to cover,
let us know.
You can text the show using thelink in our description.

(00:43):
You can email us at happytohelpat buzzbrout.com.
If you know someone who youreally think would be a great
interview, you can send them ourway.
We want to make sure that thispodcast is bringing value to our
listeners.
And so part of that is knowingwhat you're struggling with and
giving you episodes that aretailored to that.
So help us help you.

(01:04):
Exactly.
Okay, so on to today's episode.
Joining us today is AndrewRios, known as Coach Rios.
He is a global customerexperience and support
operations leader with more than25 years of experience building
and transforming support teamsat companies ranging from
startups to Fortune 100organizations like Cisco and

(01:25):
Fitbit.
Wow.
He is currently leading thecustomer experience team at
Cityside Fiber.
Through his leadership,coaching, speaking, and
practical Coach Rios Pro Tips.
He's helping leaders buildstrong teams, better cultures,
and customer experiences thatactually win.
So thanks for being here,Coach.

Coach Rios (01:45):
Oh, Priscilla, thanks for having me.
Super excited to chat today.
And thank you for that greatintroduction.

Priscilla (01:51):
As I was preparing for this, I was like, am I going
to call him Coach?
Am I going to call him Andrew?
I Andrew does not seem right.
So I think I'll call you coachif that works for you.

Coach Rios (01:59):
I love it.

Priscilla (02:00):
I know some people just call you Rios too.
So it's all, you know, you haveall a whole wide range.

Coach Rios (02:05):
I I love it.
And sometimes I not sometimes,always now I introduce myself as
Coach Rios at a networkingevent.
It'll be like, oh yeah, CoachRios.
Like your real first name?
I'm like, I don't know, maybeone day.
And then it just kind of startsthe conversation.

Jordan (02:17):
You've got your whole brand.

Coach Rios (02:19):
Took a while for me to embrace, but once I started
coaching the kids, it was reallylike, Coach Rios, this is what
it is.

Priscilla (02:25):
I love it.
We always kick off our episodeswith positivity.
And so I wanted to ask you aquestion, which is who has made
your day recently, Coach Rios?

Coach Rios (02:35):
It was last weekend.
I was lucky enough to coach agroup of fourth graders in a
basketball tournament.
They have a tournament ofchampions here in Irvine, where
I live, where the elementaryschools get to play against each
other in various sports.
You know, my kids grow there,so I want to be part of their
the chapter of their lives, andI coach them.

Jordan (02:51):
That's cool.

Coach Rios (02:52):
The parents after the tournament, we had a great
weekend.
It's a great weekend ofcommunity.
I got to play five basketballgames, you know, just great
growth, great experience.
But at the end, the parentskind of gave me a card, stop me,
coach, I'll give you something.
And the words were veryheartfelt, touching.
I think they really saw andfelt what I was giving to the
team.
And I do it for the love, thepassion.

(03:14):
You know, I treat them all likethey're my children at that
point and treat them like youngadults, right?
I feel like I have thisopportunity to do that.
And the words they shared, thatthey noticed it and the impact
it made for some of the kids.
They shared kind of, they sawthe confidence grow over six
weeks.
That really made my day.
You know, that really just thewords and I saved it.
And so that was it.

Priscilla (03:35):
That's great.
Wow.
That's a great story.
I love those moments.
Nothing beats a heartfelt thankyou card.
Yeah, I agree.
Like when someone takes thetime, I feel like we've all been
there where we have to write anote or we want to write a note,
and it takes time to sit down,carve out a few minutes, think
about what you want to say,actually take pen to paper and
write it, not type it up on acomputer, you know.

(03:55):
Yeah.
And I always feel like it takesa few minutes to do, and it's
very, you have to be veryintentional about it.

Coach Rios (04:01):
Yeah.

Priscilla (04:01):
And you kind of forget sometimes the impact that
having someone actually writeout a note really can have on
you and have on someone.
And so I always recommendwriting it out.
But that's so great.
I love that so much.
That's such a good story.

Coach Rios (04:14):
Yeah.
It touched my heart.
It still does, right?
And I see the kids every dayand I see their parents, and I'm
like, I made an impact for thatsmall amount of time, and I'm
glad.

Jordan (04:22):
So well, that's nice too, because you can revisit it
later.
You know, that's the otherthing that I love about those
thank you cards, especially whenyou're volunteering your time.
I'm assuming you'revolunteering to coach.
And when you're volunteeringyour time, I did this with my
daughter's play, and I got athank you card from the kids who
were backstage thanking me forit.
And it literally like almostmade me cry.
And I still sometimes will justgo back and revisit that card

(04:45):
and read it.
And it just makes me feel sogood.
So that's cool.

Coach Rios (04:48):
I have a bowl on top of the cabinet here in our
living room, says Coach Rios.
And it was from one of thesoccer seasons I coached, and
the kids had our pinata party atthe end of the season, right?
No matter what happens, we'rehaving a party at the end of the
season.
Yeah.
And the kids signed it all.
So it's kind of turned intothat, you know, has this
mementos throughout the coachingyears, whether it's a little
ball or kind of those littlethank you cards that come once
in a while.

(05:08):
That's great to have rightthere, right?

Priscilla (05:10):
I love it.
That is so good.
And it's like a tangiblereminder that you did this
thing, you had this impact onthese kids.
That's very cool.
I love that.
So, coach, you've been incustomer support for over 25
years.
How did you first get intocustomer support?
Did you kind of find yourselfthere?
Or was it an intentionalchoice?
How'd you end up in customersupport?

Coach Rios (05:31):
Oh, when I look back all these years, it happened
because I wanted a car.
It happened because I needed ajob.
Want a car.
Yeah.
I wanted a car when I was 16.
You know, my parents were hardworkers, but you know, they
weren't giving me any money fora down payment.
You know, I'm sure they wantedto, but they just couldn't.
And those were, you know, lifelessons there.
So I said I need to get a job.
So I got up to Upper BurgerKing.

(05:52):
That was my first job,part-time worker, freshman in
high school, and said I need tohave a year to save some money.
What I found was, you know, Iwould get excited about going to
work the cash register.
So I was in the back flippingburgers, fry station, making
those chicken sandwiches.
Everybody loves all the greatstuff.
Maybe if I was lucky, the drinkmachine.
Um, but I really found when Igot energized was when I get to

(06:15):
go work the cash register andtalk to people and take their
order.
And then I really enjoyed itwhen I would work the
drive-thru, right?
Be able to take their order,take the cash, and have that
interaction all day long.
And I just is looking back,right?
I found that I was a little bitdifferent when I talked to the
customers, like I talked tothem, right?
Like I would recommend thingsfor your Whopper, right?
Or where you're coming from.
Because I was this when I wasin Vaccaville.
So a very town betweenSacramento and the Bay Area, a

(06:38):
lot of tourists coming throughand out.
So I'd talk to people all ofthe time.
And I found myself reallyenjoying those conversations
while cleaning the table out inthe dining hall, just talking to
people about anything, right?
Yeah.
And then the jobs, I stayedthere for two years.
Then I got jobs in retail.
And that was it.
I worked at the Converse Outletand the Vans Outlet, and I
loved talking to people as theyshopped.

(07:00):
I liked welking them in, and Inoticed other people didn't.
And I was like, for them, itwas just a job.
For me, this was a job, but itwas fun.
And then kind of that was it.
I like I had a help center jobout of college, right?
I went to college to get abachelor's of science in
telecommunications, right?
So that was kind of whytechnology booming, late 90s,

(07:22):
dating myself, right?
Like boom, boom.
So I got lucky to get intothere.
And then that was it.
I was on the call center, andit was more than getting in and
out of the conversation.
It was really like taking careof the person I was talking to.
And I I candidly I probablycredit my mom for that, for her
work ethic and work style that Iwatched, that I just kind of
grew into.
So that's kind of how thejourney began.

Priscilla (07:41):
I love to hear that.
I feel like I have a verysimilar history where I started
working in like a bakery.
The things I loved werechecking people out and getting
people the taste tests andthings like that and like the
direct interfacing with thecustomer.
And, you know, you say that younoticed that you were excited
to do it, and other people justkind of did it because it was

(08:03):
their job.
I don't think I've everrealized that, but I have
similar memories where it waslike, man, why are you not
excited to talk to this person?
I'm excited to talk to thisperson.
And then I had some jobs whereI was not in a customer-facing
situation.
I was in like an officesetting.
Those were just the jobs,right?
Those were not the ones that Iwas excited about until I got
back into a customer-facingrole.

(08:24):
And then that excitement cameback.
And so I think it's a coolthing to recognize about
yourself, especially in thoselike early years when you're
trying to figure out what thingsmake you excited about work and
being able to find somethingthat allows you to be excited
and that you can use thatexcitement to like be your
career going forward, I think isreally special.

(08:46):
And a lot of people can't findthat.
And it's very cool that youfound it so early on and you
have stayed in it for over 25years, and now you're leading
teams and looking for people whohave that same kind of
excitement that you had.
At what point did you feel inyour career that it really was
more than just answering ticketsor closing out conversations

(09:07):
or, you know, checking peopleout?
And it was more relationshipbuilding.
And then even beyond that, moreinto like the leadership side
of things.

Coach Rios (09:15):
When I made that transition from frontline tier
one, tier two technician, right,to a network operations center
engineer.
So I was recruited to acompany.
When I was in NorthernCalifornia, I was recruited to a
company in Southern Californiafrom someone I went to college
with.
Their company had just acquireda company that provided DSL
services, technology, internetback in the day, right?

(09:37):
Just better than dial up.
So they needed someone whounderstood that type of
technology, had supported itbefore.
I, for a couple of years,worked at a startup in the Bay
Area called North Point thatprovided that DSL technology.
So I knew it.
So I made the move, came on in,and the manager at the time of
the Network Operations Centerstarted letting me do more than

(09:58):
just answering the phone.
So, you know, write a process,you know, write a phone script,
take an escalation, right?
Take some ownership in buildinga lab, take the initiative to
talk to engineering aboutcertain tickets and would just
coach me through it, right?
Let me sit in, shadow them, andthen talk to me about, you
know, why he had thatconversation that way and what

(10:20):
he was, you know, playing thegame of chess for, working with
networking, working withmarketing.
And I started really thinking,like, whoa, this is what it
takes to put the team togetherthat answers the phone calls and
puts the system together.
All this is happening in theback.
So he introduced me tooperations.
And that was kind of like awow, this is something that not
a lot of people understand orsee or kind of enjoy.

(10:42):
Right.
And that it was the internalcustomers that you then get to
work with, right?
And kind of those dialogues andhow to have conversations and
then you, you know, things thatwe'll probably start chatting
about a little bit later is justhow you communicate needs,
asks, you know, and based onthose relationships.
So, you know, John, shout outto John Langlois out there for
betting on me, giving me thatchance and showing me a

(11:04):
different side of customerexperience and support beyond
the break fix.
Yeah.
And I also say this he was thefirst one to give me a tough
conversation and really actuallysteered me into, and this is a
true vulnerable story, you don'ttalk to customers that way.
He was the first one toliterally tell me that.
I think before, when I lookback, people probably let me get

(11:26):
away with rough conversationwith the customer and whatnot.
He overheard a conversation ofmine, like third week there
working after I'd beenrecruited.
You know, they gave me a littlepackage to move down here, all
that great stuff.
Pulled me outside and candidlysaid, you know, probably one of
the technicalest people I'veever met.
You're great at talking topeople.
But if I hear you talk likethat to another customer again,

(11:49):
I will fire you.
And it was those were thewords.
I don't care how much we paidyou to do here, you will not
have a job here.
And he just looked at me likethat.
And I was what, 22, 23, 20years old?
I'm like, some big words.
Like, what do you mean?
Fire.
Hold on a second.
I'm and boom.
From that day, I can say this.
From that day, I had neverdisrespected a customer before

(12:10):
or talked to them in aninappropriate way.
Doesn't mean we hadn't had firmconversations.
It just means I know how totalk to them now as a manager of
a team.
So big story there.

Priscilla (12:20):
It can be hard too when you're talking to a
customer, especially when youare super conversational and
relational with them, to keepthose lines of professional
there, even when that's notwhat's driving the conversation.
Kudos to him for doing thatbecause had he not taken the
time to do that in that moment,a really great, you know,
support professional may havenot happened 25 years later,

(12:44):
still in this space.
You know what I mean?
And so I do.
Sometimes you do have to havethose hard conversations.
And as a manager, that can betough, but knowing how to spot
it and how to call it outquickly and graciously is a real
skill.

Coach Rios (12:57):
Yeah.
And I learned it from him therebecause he learned he knew he
could talk to me like that.
Yeah.

Priscilla (13:01):
Right.

Coach Rios (13:01):
He probably couldn't have that same conversation
with another coworker of mine.
And so he knew that I knew whenhe was talking to me, he was
talking to me.
Yes, as a manager, he was beingdirect, but there was also a
lesson there.
And I think one of the thingsthat I I look for and that I
know I am is I'm coachable.
I'm always learning.
We always got to learnsomething.
And I think he recognized thattoo.
And I recognized that in thatmoment.

(13:22):
And it really was that one ofthose moments that puts you on
the path of, okay, you're gonnago this way instead of maybe
going to sales or maybe alifelong support engineer where
you don't got to talk tocustomers, right?
Yeah.
I I'd probably be miserablebecause if you know me,
Priscilla, I like to talk toeverybody.

Priscilla (13:40):
Yeah, right.
Well, and you just saidcoachable, that you're
coachable.
And I thought, oh, that's aperfect transition.
Because when I first met you,it was a couple of years ago at
a conference, and you were gonnagive a talk, and they announced
you and they called you CoachRios and they pulled you up on
stage.
I remember being kind of struckby the amount of applause there
was for you.

(14:00):
I think there was an air horn,maybe.
It felt like, oh my goodness,this is a celebrity coming up on
stage.

Coach Rios (14:07):
A band came through.

Priscilla (14:09):
There was so much good energy.
And I was like, we're allcalling him Coach Rios.
I think someone, whoeverintroduced you, I think they
said something about you being acoach.
And then you came up on stageand you gave a great talk, and
you had some really coolcoaching analogies that you tied
into your talk.
And so I want to kind of take asecond before we get into our
main topic today and talk aboutthe parallels between coaching

(14:33):
athletes and a support team.
And when did you put thattogether?
Was there like an epiphanymoment where you went, oh, these
are similar situations here?

Coach Rios (14:42):
Yeah, the the word that comes to mind, and it was
an epiphany probably a couple ofdifferent times, but the more
recent one was competitive.
When you're playing a sport,there's level of competition
there and competitiveness as ateam, personally.
Same thing in support.
You're competing.
You're competing against thatticket queue.
Yep.
You might be competing againstthat stakeholder team, right?

(15:05):
You might be competing againsteach other, whether you're
having power hours in the queueor kind of for bonuses and
things of that nature, right?
You're competing for thosescores.
And what I was noticing isthat, you know, customer support
folks have that competitivenessin them because they want to
deliver a great experience,right?
To them, that's winning.
So it's like losing is oh, Ididn't get to all my tickets

(15:28):
today, or maybe I didn't handlethat case as well as I could
have.
Let me go learn a little bitmore about it for my leader, my
lead, or my peer, or whatnot.
But it was being competitive.
And we talk about this, Ithink, as leaders on the adult
side.
Focus on the strengths, work onthe opportunities for
improvement, quote unquoteweaknesses or whatnot, but focus
on the strengths of everybodyon the team.

(15:48):
And that will kind of lifteverybody up.
I found myself doing a lot ofthat with the youth sports
coaching, right?
They're young.
Some are just getting thatsport, so some might be fast,
some have different strengths.
Yeah.
So as you looked at them, it'slike, okay, how do I put them
together to be in the bestposition to win?
So it's the same thing on thesupport side.
How do you take these folkswith different strengths,

(16:08):
various strengths, backgrounds,put them together in a position
to win and grow?
And I think what I found iswinning is different for
everyone.

Priscilla (16:18):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (16:19):
And adults and kids.
You know, I go back to myearlier days of my career,
winning for a peer I worked withwas hey, I'm at that point of
my career where I just want agood, stable job.
I come in here 40 hours a week,maybe a little bit of overtime,
they get my best, and then I'mout of here.
Right.
I was younger, I was like, I'mgiving 12 hours a day, I'm
cocking that overtime, I'mputting my name.

(16:40):
That was winning.
That was winning.
It's different.
You got to respect and kind ofrespect that.
I think also having those hardconversations and the why.
Right.
So two topics there, I findbleed over a lot.
When you're coaching youngkids, you want to why we're
running, why we're doing thisdrill, why we're doing this
stretch, why we run this play,why.
It's the same thing I alwaystalk about on the support side

(17:01):
too.
Why are we doing this?
What do the facts mean?
Why are we presenting thesefacts?
Right.
We always kind of got to leadwith the why as we're training
and coaching.
So I found those to be verysimilar.
And the one thing I find thatis not as similar, I like to
just share with people is youcould probably talk to kids a
little bit more candidly thanyou can an adult.

Priscilla (17:20):
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, and I like what you weresaying about winning.
When you're working withsupport professionals, how do
you approach talking about whatwinning means to a support team?
Because obviously, it's veryeasy to know what winning means
when you're playing a littleleague baseball game.
You either win the game, youget the most runs, or you don't.
But in support, it's harder todefine.

Coach Rios (17:41):
You know, it's all going to matter where you're at
in the game to keep the sportsanalogy.
So I'll use an example from myCisco days.
When I had the opportunity tolead the support engineering
function there, one of the earlywins was the backlog.
There was a large backlog, andthere was no reason for it.
No one could share why.
It was just they're there.

(18:03):
Why aren't we catching up?
So I said winning now isgetting control of the backlog,
understanding what's caused it,right?
That's the first win.
We need to just understand.
So it's building those wins,compounding them up.
So eventually, as the leader,you're looking, going, okay,
eventually I want to get to abacklog of, you know, 10%
tickets.
I want to get to my handle timeof this.

(18:24):
I see this, my effort score.
I want to be this, whatevermetric I want to kind of put out
there.
And you have to think aboutwhat wins get you there.
So winning kind of changes andmorphs and compounds as you go.
Once you get the backlog undercontrol, you celebrate it with
the team.
We won.
Look, we have a process forthis.
We got the backlog undercontrol.
Customer sentiment has risen,you know, we're getting less

(18:44):
escalations now.
Then it becomes, you know, thewin in that scenario was okay,
now how do we continue tomaintain this?
Oh, we're gonna have to trainmore downfield to the tier twos
at the call centers.
Okay, so winning means now wehave an escalation process
because we were the center inIrvine that took the global
escalations from the BPOs aroundthe world, right?
Yeah.
I'm like, winning is now thatwe're taking those escalations

(19:07):
and hitting our metrics, right?
So once that became, it becameokay, now what's winning?
And this was always one of mypassion topics is winning as a
support team is being listenedto.
And when you bring up asituation, issue, a fact, an
opportunity for improvement, abusiness insight, all the trendy
words that they're acted on.

(19:28):
That's a win.
Are they all gonna be acted on?
No.
But that some are is winning.
So I always put that as like,well, not even a North Star,
just a star.
As a team, we want to berespected, we want to have a
seat at the table.
But to get there, we got tohave all these other wins first.
Cause you you don't just startlike that, right?

Priscilla (19:47):
Yeah.
Well, and that's a perfecttransition into the topic that
we're here to really talk abouttoday, which is that idea of
proving your value, the value ofyour support team to your
company as a whole, andintegrating support so that we
don't feel like this, you know,side section or department
that's not really respected inthe same way that, you know,

(20:10):
maybe marketing or developmentor some other team might be.
And I think it's pretty commonin customer support that
customer support professionalsfeel isolated or separated or
not as respected on the team.
And so I guess let's startthere.
Why do you think support teamssometimes feel isolated and
overlooked?

Coach Rios (20:30):
Attitude reflects leadership is one of my quotes I
like to use out there is likeattitude reflects leadership.
So top, maybe notacknowledging, celebrating,
talking about, allowing to talkat you know, company all hands
events or or whatnot, or it justcomes from the top, right?
That's where really gonna come.
Now, where the support leader,and and I may include a support

(20:53):
leader in that as well, whoevermay be leading that.
So we as support leaders, andthis is where I always say
leadership, that word doesn'tmean you have to manage people,
right?
You can just lead by how youact, how you behave, right?
If there's a supervisor or aleader, a manager somewhere in
there that notices that and cantalk to the team to sunshine it
and bring those opportunities upto share what's happening in

(21:16):
the team or those feelings,that's another win, right?
That starts driving thatchange, that momentum.
You know, the first thing iscalling it out, right?
Letting the employees say thattoo.
We don't feel valued, here'swhy.
Um, and leadership can't beafraid to hear that.
So it's all gonna come down tothat.
And the strong leaders, that Ihate to use that word, but the
strong leaders in support aregonna recognize that and fight

(21:40):
for their team.
Be proactive with sending out acommunication or be proactive
with communicating with theirpeer managers in the
organization about topics andnot asking for permission to
communicate with them, butcommunicating with them as a
peer.
I use the phrase sometimes,which is if there's not a seat
at the table for you just yet.
You can stand by it.

Priscilla (22:01):
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good.
I've never heard that.
I love that because there areso many conversations,
especially in the supportindustry, about getting a seat
at the table.
And that's so true.
You can stand.
You don't have to sit.
You can get there.
You can stand until they giveyou a seat.
Eventually they'll give you aseat if you're standing there
long enough.
It's like, what are you doing?

Coach Rios (22:22):
What do you what do you have to say, Rios?
What do you have to say?
Well, I just wanted to mentionthis right here.
I'm gonna tell you a quick30-second story, right?
And what that means or what I'masking for.

Priscilla (22:33):
Yeah, I love that.
As support professionals, it'sclear that it is important for
your support team to be fullyintegrated with your company and
fully part of the value of yourcompany and what you're
bringing to your customers.
But I think people outside ofsupport might not understand
that value.
So why is it important, in youropinion, for support

(22:54):
professionals to be included andrespected as part of the
company and the value of theproduct?

Coach Rios (22:59):
They're the one team that is, if you take away
forecasting for the futuresupport volume that comes in,
they're the one team that isdealing with 100% truth and
facts.

Priscilla (23:12):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (23:12):
Right?
Marketing, sales, if you thinkabout everything else,
accounting, it's if this, maybethis.
We're hoping for this.
This is what we plan, this iswhat we project.
We do that too.
It's just built on what'shappened previously, right?
The volume of contacts we get.
But at the end of the day,everything we deal with,
external with customers andinternal with our internal

(23:33):
stakeholders and customers, isall facts and truth.
So I think that's important.
And I say that a lot to peopletoo.
We're the one of the one, onlyteams that are dealing with day
in, day out, facts and truth.
And we're one of the teams thatcan really see and feel the
impact that other teams make,decisions or not.

(23:55):
And I always say that support'sthe one place where all
decisions in the company aremanifested.
Good, bad, and no decision is adecision, right?
But they're all manifestedthere.
And I think once we as supportleaders really embrace that,
know that, it's like, okay, nowhow can I sell this to the right
people in the organization?
What's that one topic orconversation that I can have

(24:17):
with marketing that mightinfluence something or with
product development?
We always use productdevelopment, might influence
something, right?
Or even the sales team.

Priscilla (24:25):
Yeah, I think you're completely right.
And I think there's this otheraspect of it too, when you look
at the people on your supportteam, you want your support team
to do their best work.
And you want them to feel asort of ownership over the work
they're doing.
And if the rest of the companyis not valuing your support
team, your support team is notgoing to value your support

(24:47):
team.
And they're not going to valuethe work they're doing.
And then you're going to end upwith people who either the
light and excitement that theyhad when they started working in
support kind of gets put outbecause they're not seeing that
valued outside of themselves.
And then they start to realize,oh, I am just a cog and a
machine.
And there's no reason to goabove and beyond and give this

(25:07):
customer a great experience.
And so I think when I look atit from my side of things,
there's so much value in valuingyour support team for all the
reasons you said, because wehave that direct line to the
customer and we are seeing whatthey are actually feeling and we
are taking that.
But there's also this level ofif you want your customer

(25:28):
experience to be great andamazing and remarkable for your
customers, then you have totreat your team that is building
that experience, you have totreat them in a way that makes
them want to do that.
And I think that comes back tovaluing and respecting and
including your team and givingthem a seat at the table, even

(25:49):
if it means, you know, maybeit's not like the head of the
table, but they're there andthey're part of the
conversations.
I think that's reallyimportant.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I thinkthere's kind of two sides to it
and both are equally valid.
And for any companies that arenot seeing one or both sides of
that, I think that they'remissing out on something that

(26:10):
can really take your company tothe next level.
If you are putting effort andvalue on your customer support
team, you're gonna see that inthe way your customers talk
about your product.

Coach Rios (26:21):
Yes.
Yes.
That's from everything.
And it could be something assimple as when you we'll talk
about in-office and remotescenarios, right?
In-office, you see a supportprofessional walk in the
hallway, ask them how they'redoing, right?
Yeah.
Hey Jordan, how's everythinggoing today?
How's everything in the queue?
Right.
And then give them a chance tosay what they're saying and hear
them, right?
Act on something if you can.
It could be as something assimple as that, or even an

(26:42):
acknowledgement.
Hey, I saw that report yourmanager sent out last week.
Great job on those cases,right?
Things like that.
Then kind of the extreme, notthe extreme, not the extreme,
but the a step above that.
In some cases, yeah, a stepabove, but sometimes extreme in
some organizations, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Is you know, celebrate themwhen it's, you know, customer

(27:02):
support week, right?
Give them that one week everyyear and celebrate them.
Celebrate them more, butacknowledge them then as well,
too, right?
And then the tools.
Like, really, I think that's awhole nother conversation,
probably, right?
But the tools really invest andhear are the tools working for
them?
Is there an opportunity tostreamline their clicks, their
swiveling, their quality oflife, all the terms we use to

(27:26):
make sure as they're providingsupport, it's as effortless for
them as possible too.
Yeah.
Right?
We always talk about effortlessexperience for the customers.
We got to give that to our teamtoo.

Priscilla (27:36):
Yeah.
And if you can take away someof those steps and some of that
effort that's needed, then whatyour support team can do is they
can turn around and they cantranslate that to customers in
going above and beyond, becausenow they're not having to go
through all of the differentpathways to get what they need
done.
If they can do that easier,then they can focus more on the
relationship building side ofthings, which goes back to your

(27:58):
original story about gettingstarted in customer support and
that excitement of working witha customer.
If you don't have to go and doall of these other things that
are not as exciting for you andyou get to focus on the
excitement of relationshipbuilding, that's going to be a
better experience for yourcustomer at the end of the day.

Coach Rios (28:16):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
It all comes down torelationships.

Priscilla (28:19):
It really does.
So imagine you're listening tothis and you're on a team or
you're leading a support teamthat really does feel sidelined
or feels isolated and not partof the team.
They're not worried aboutstanding next to the table
because they can't even get inthe room in the first place.
I want to talk a little bitabout how you can work as
someone in the supportdepartment.

(28:40):
So whether you're a leader oreven just an individual
contributor, how you can startto change that perception from
the inside out.
How have you helped otherdepartments understand the value
that support brings throughyour career?
What things have you done?

Coach Rios (28:55):
Oh, man.
First things I like to do andI've done is find that one ally
in another department that youcould talk to.

Jordan (29:04):
Oh, yeah.

Coach Rios (29:05):
Right.
Just with that, that one ally.
I take it back to the Fitbitdays.
I had a great ad, a couple ofgreat allies there in the
engineering side and the productmanagement side.
That, you know, I give thestory that, you know, the
product manager, after apresentation where my team
presented a bunch of stuff tothe product team, we thought it
was a great presentation.
It was good, not great.

(29:25):
He took me for a walk around,you know, San Francisco and
Barcadero and gave me a talkthat was like, hey, great data
there, great information, a lotof information.
I'm not sure what I'm supposedto do with it though.
And he talked inside I wasboiling.
What are you talking about?
I had charts.
I had this.
He goes, yeah.
And he looked at me, he goes,Rios, Rios, they called me that
back then.
Hey, what's the one thing I cango change in the product that

(29:47):
will make it a better experienceor us sell more?
Next time, answer that questionfor me.
And we talked and we began arelationship and we talked about
that.
That right there helped becauseas we went through it, I was
managing the field testing team,their alpha beta testing.
As we went through the testing,they really looked forward and
listened to what we wereproviding because we learned how
to tell the story in theirlanguage.

Priscilla (30:08):
Yeah.
That's what I was just about tosay is that it's like two
different languages.
You're in support and you'respeaking one language, and the
product is speaking anotherlanguage.
And what you have to figure outhow to do as the support
professional who wants thatconnection is you have to figure
out how to speak theirlanguage.

Coach Rios (30:23):
Yep.

Priscilla (30:23):
Because otherwise you're not going to be able to
communicate.

Coach Rios (30:26):
And it's all of it too, right?
Because you know, sales has afinding the motivation is then
equal to the language you'regoing to speak with them.
Right.
I think so you kind of findthat one ally in each department
that you can understand what'sgoing on under the hood, have
those candid conversations,whether it's um, that's where
you get to then understandthings like, hey, we can't do
that because we're we're limitedin the hardware chip.

(30:49):
That's why.
Where they wouldn't tell youthat just naturally, right?
But as you're havingconversations saying this is
what's happening, customerswant, and they can be, well, let
me tell you why that's notgoing to happen.
And then you can understand,go, ah, that alone, being able
to go back to the support teamand give an answer, a reason,
lifts everything up as well andhelps drive that change, and

(31:11):
then start to have that level ofrespect at the table and say,
you know what, we want to hear.
We want to hear from that fieldtesting team.
And I think what happened wasthe second year we were invited
to participate in thedevelopment planning process,
right?
And I think what was greatthere is I'll say it like this
too.
We knew our place, right?
We knew we had one.
So that was something tocelebrate, right?

(31:32):
That was the win.
And said, okay, we're here.
We get to see how they designwhat they're going to design the
rest of the year, how they cometo that.
This is a big win team.
So telling my leaders at theteam then, let's embrace it,
enjoy it.
Okay, now let's learn from it.
Like, what's the one thingwe're so and and I would always
tell them now that we're at thetable and we have an action, we

(31:53):
can't miss it.

Priscilla (31:54):
No.

Coach Rios (31:54):
We need to be on time with it now.
Now that we're here in thisclassroom, don't be late with
your homework, right?
Um, so that's how you continueto build it.
So then when you're invited in,they let you stay.

Priscilla (32:04):
And then they see the value of you being there.

Coach Rios (32:07):
Yep.

Priscilla (32:07):
When you're entering in in the conversations or when
you're bringing the valuableinsight from the support inbox
into those conversations, theystart to go, oh, wait, I'm
really glad Rios and his teamare here because they've given
me some information I didn'thave before and I didn't know I
didn't have before.

Coach Rios (32:22):
I think it's also sharing too what you're building
with the customerscommunication-wise, that's gonna
help in the future.
Right.
As you're launching a newproduct, maybe, right?
You want to have a pipeline forimmediate escalations and
feedback.
So you kind of take that, like,okay, I want to get you
feedback.
Let's call it something else.
Hey, as this product launches,we're gonna have a Tiger team

(32:43):
where I'm gonna have a dedicatedgroup of agents, like you speak
them.
Oh, really?
Yeah, we're gonna give youinsights.
We're gonna give you a dailyreport, just a one pager of what
we're seeing in the call centerand the at the front of that
launch.
Marketing sales people, theylove that, right?
More data, more this.
And then what happens is theystart to call you out as they're
talking, right?
So now at that next all handsor that next QBR or that next

(33:05):
meeting, oh, and I want to thankthe support team.
They were sharing theseinsights.
They've been sharing theseinsights weekly, and we've done
the following with it.
Or we've altered our test planto include that use case that we
had never thought of before.
That's a win, right?
And I think you got to set thestage too.
You gotta not be afraid.
You have to be confident.
You know, think about that asconfident in what you're doing,

(33:27):
how you're doing it.
So when you talk to your peerin another department, you say,
Look, this is what'll happendown the road.
I promise you that, becauseyou've done it before, you've
seen it, and you speak to themin that way that's like, oh,
okay, let's listen to them orher.

Priscilla (33:43):
So, what advice would you give a customer support
leader or manager who isn't atthe table, isn't in the room,
and wants to get in the room?
What would you recommend theysay to the person who's making
the decision about who's in theroom in order to get them in the
room?
How would you approach thatconversation?

Coach Rios (34:00):
You know, approaching it with why would
they not want me in the room?
Right?
Why would they not want supportin the room?
And sometimes I've been in someworlds where they don't want
support in the room.
They look at it as you justanswer the calls and the emails,
make sure our CEO doesn't getescalations.
We could do that.
We could do that.
So, kind of thinking that, theother thing, the way I'll answer

(34:20):
that is share the reportingthat you use to manage your team
and lead your team and makedecisions and highlight how
those impact other businessunits.

Priscilla (34:31):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (34:32):
And don't be afraid to just share with hopefully
your boss is supporting you.
But also if you know, and thisis something I've done before,
if you know there's gonna be anoff-site QBR with the leadership
team, right?
You know that because your bossis going there.
Get ahead of it and share aninsight or a takeaway.
Hey, I would like for you toshare this.
This is if I was there, here'swhat I would talk about and want

(34:53):
that one.
If I had five minutes, here'sone thing I would talk about
with the team there.
That, and then just share itand tie it to some team and what
they're trying to achieve anddo.

Priscilla (35:07):
Yeah.
And you know what?
You can also look at theconversations that are happening
in the support team and wherethat friction is.
So maybe it's something new hasbeen launched and there's some
friction around the support teamunderstanding this new feature.
And so that's trickled down tothe customer not understanding
the new feature.
And then it ends up gettingback to that person in
development.
You can point those things outand say, hey, if we could meet

(35:31):
with you before a productlaunches, we can iron these
things out and then you neverhave to think about it again.
And you're not gonna have todeal with this friction.
We can handle that and give acustomer a better experience.
I think sometimes being reallyclear and intentional about
those conversations of, I knowthis was not a comfortable
situation that just happened.
A way that we could solve thatis getting ahead of it and

(35:52):
including us in thisconversation before we get to
that point.
Yeah.
Sometimes having some of thosethings happen can be a really
good strategy for showing thevalue you can bring.
Let's just try it one time whenyou keep you clue us in before
a launch and see how that launchgoes compared to the last one
when we didn't know somethingwas changing.

Coach Rios (36:12):
That's a new product introduction, right?
One of the most importantthings the customer supports.
So thanks for bringing that upright there, is one of the most
important roles a customersupport team can play.
And I think the other the whatleads to that is you you touched
on a little bit is not saying Itold you so, right?
Not being the team that says, Itold you so, I told you if you
would have.
And I I I use the analogy inand went through that at Cisco,

(36:36):
which is we had a learningexperience.
Hey, we just had a learningexperience.
We got caught off guard.
We didn't know about that thatfeature.
We didn't know that you knowthe Wi-Fi didn't perform the way
it was supposed to, right?
Had we had the opportunity tojust do a little beta testing
with it, usability.
And then I would say, and I Ialways say, don't use words that

(36:58):
another that the team will getscared about.
So no testing.
We just did a little bit ofusability from the customer
standpoint for just one day,right?
We might have been able to pickthat up.
So here's what I propose nexttime.
And I took this from thedirector at the time there.
Allow my support engineer to bea fly on the wall through the
conversations throughout.
And I and I said this to theteam too.

(37:20):
I was like, she will not talk.
She will listen to everymeeting.
She wants one opportunity atthe end to present her findings
in this templated format.
Can we agree on just that looseprocess to try it?

Priscilla (37:33):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (37:33):
They did, right?
And we would coach through tojust listen to what they're
saying, listen to how they'retesting it.
So when you get it, you knowthe use cases in which you're
gonna test it, out-of-boxtesting, right?
Out-of-box review, right?
You know, customer experiencetesting.
And then from the agentperspective, what are the top
things we might have to dealwith in this new product?
And then share it in thislittle format in a positive way.

(37:55):
That changed kind ofeverything, and then rinse,
wash, repeat with that, and showthem that you have this flow.
Then what'll happen, and Ipromise you this, they'll ask
you to test more.
They'll say, Hey, uh, can youcan we give it to you with you
know a class A board with noframe and just test it that way?
Go, oh, we can, because themore we know earlier, the

(38:18):
better.
And now you've kind ofingrained yourself into that
process.
So I guess a new productintroduction, right?
Find a way to help out.

Priscilla (38:26):
Well, and one thing you mentioned a little while ago
was your support report, whichis one of the first things I
think that's what that talk wason at the conference that I
where I met you.
But yeah, can you talk a littlebit more about that strategy,
your support report, what it is,what it includes, and how
you've seen that transform thatconnection between support and

(38:46):
the rest of the company and theproduct?

Coach Rios (38:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
I always say it's based on aprinciple, right?
It's um, what are the facts?
What do they mean?
What are we gonna do about it?
And then the support reporttells kind of three stories how
we're supporting the customer,how we're servicing them, and
then how the team is doing.
So it's the metrics.
What was our volume and what'sthe trend?

(39:09):
Right.
So that's the standard stuffthat we all see.
Then it becomes, well, how arewe servicing them?
Are we hitting our internalKPI, right?
What kind of experience are weoffering them?
Are we morphing into?
Are we elevating, right?
And then the team behind it.
What is the team doing tocontinue to deliver that
experience?

(39:29):
And I think in thatpresentation, one of the ones I
did on the the my example forthat talk was I always opened it
up with personal, right?
I'm not just gonna starthitting you in numbers right
away.
97% CSA, average handle time,this, volume, this.
It's like, hey, true story, wewant to celebrate John's
two-year anniversary.
Also, on his two-year-old workanniversary here, his yoga ball

(39:49):
broke.
And we want to, you know, andit was that kind of tying it
together because we all sat onyoga balls.
We were remote workers, we allkind of that was our thing.

Priscilla (39:57):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (39:57):
Um, and tying that in, and then going into also
John this week and supportingour new launch of the electric
motor here, discovered thefollowing uh bug and is now
working with engineering on afix for this, right?
Started with a story that getspeople kind of captivated and
then leaded to kind of what'shappening, but then also the
why.
Yeah, right.
We saw volume increase thisweek based on the product

(40:20):
launch.
We're trending in thisdirection.
You might see this go up, butwhat you're gonna see down below
is another factor go down,another metric go down, and
that's because of the following.
And always letting the teamtake a part in that, right?
It's the team report.
As you first start to build itout, this is yours, this is
ours, right?
It's it's numbers, it tells uswhat we're doing.

(40:43):
Now we're gonna tell people howwe're doing it.
And then this is where Icelebrate things: anniversaries,
process improvement, right?
It's not just the metric wentup or down, but maybe we
introduced a process that tookfive clicks away that improved
the quality experience, or maybea feature finally went live
that helped the customers andreduced a hundred contacts now.

Priscilla (41:03):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (41:03):
Right.
So kind of those things.

Priscilla (41:05):
So you send this as an email, right?

Coach Rios (41:07):
Yeah.
Yeah.

Priscilla (41:08):
It's asynchronous.
And does it go to the wholecompany, or how does that work?

Coach Rios (41:12):
So it's a progression, right?
I think the goal is to get itto the whole company.
So we're where we're at now atCityside, you know, we send a
daily report out from theoperation side and customer
experience.
My team, the concierge team inthere.
We I talk on Tuesday.
So today we send out our weeklymetrics and we call it the
concierge playback.
And we talk about the week, theprevious week's activities.
So you'll have the volume,you'll have the metrics, and

(41:35):
you'll have some key indicators,whether it's outbound calls,
you know, order scheduled,circuits activated.
And then on, and it's aone-page PDF built in Excel,
right?
And then on the one column,it'll just be call-outs,
highlights.
Like example, we're rolling outthree new processes on
Wednesday.
So we're letting the companyknow, hey, and that goes to the
whole company.

Priscilla (41:54):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (41:55):
Right?
It's a section in there.
So it's it's weekly, but italso starts sometimes, it starts
within your department first,right?
You got to kind of slow rollit.
I always say start within yourdepartment.
Everybody gets it, theyunderstand the, you know, so
they can speak to it.
Because it's one thing to sendit out.
What you also need is the teamwhen they're talking to their
peers, that they're able to talkto the report as well.

(42:15):
They know what it means aswell, and they're having
conversations with it, but alsowhat it means as they're talking
to the customers as well.
So then you just ripple it upfrom there.
And I do like to give a headsup to you know, department
leaders.
This is something that we'regonna start sending out, and
it's gonna be truth, facts, andwe will call out things.

(42:36):
Um, I always have a section forbugs, oldest bug, how many
bugs, how many we closed.
Yep.
But it's just pure facts.
How many customers are impactedby those bugs and what that
impact means?
So in a previous life, it was,you know, because we have this
product defect, every time acustomer returns that product,
they get the refund plus twoadditional products based on

(43:00):
that.
Here's how many, and here's howwe're trending.
And we won't, we're not gonnasee this decrease until the new
product fix rolls out, which ishere.
And it's kind of like thatstamp here, everybody's aware,
we're good.
All right, now we're gonna moveon to the next one.
Because what it what I find itreally is, and again, it's not
about I told you so, but whensomeone says, Wow, I didn't know
that, I like to look and go,Why didn't you know that?

(43:23):
And I mean that in a why didn'tyou know?
If we emailed it, we sent it inTeams, it's in our single
source of truth, right?
Like it's very accessible inmany different ways.
Why didn't you know it?
And if it's because, oh,there's this way, oh, oh, sure,
no problem.
We got it now a new way.
Most of the time it's, oh, Ididn't read that.

(43:43):
No problem.
I've been toying around, andactually, this is something we
did at a smaller startup inBerkeley a long time ago.
It was um an audio message thatrang everyone's phones on
Monday that talked about theprevious week.

Priscilla (43:59):
Oh, interesting.

Coach Rios (44:00):
So I would on Friday, I would record a message
in our PBX phone system oldschool and then send it off on
Monday morning and it would ringeveryone's phones and they
would just go to their voicemailbox and it would just be a
voicemail in that talked abouthey, we activated two small
businesses last week and Panol,and we're also working this week
on a big project to activate300 more.

(44:22):
Also, so-and-so is on PTO.
Uh, we have two remote visitsscheduled this week and blank.
Please let me know if you needany more.
Andrew Reales.

Priscilla (44:30):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (44:30):
I was been toying with going back to that too, but
we'll see.

Priscilla (44:33):
Well, I think one of the hard things is getting
people to actually read it, youknow, or listen to the voicemail
or whatever it is, gettingpeople to actually, you know,
take the time to read throughit.
I mean, you can write it up andsend it out, and that's great.
And I mean, it sounds like it'sgot lots of great information,
but if someone doesn't read it,then it's not gonna serve its
purpose.
And that I think goes back tothe idea of making sure your

(44:56):
team knows the value of yoursupport team.
It's like a chicken or the eggthing, you know, you start doing
the support report and then youhave to figure out ways to get
people to read it and to take itseriously and to show them how
reading that and understandingthose metrics is gonna help them
do their job better when theyknow what's going on in the

(45:16):
support world.
And so there's, I would guessthat there's kind of a little
bit of like you send that outand it's coupled with reaching
out to people and saying, hey,this is why this is important.
Please like encourage yourdepartment to read that.
Do you find that when youstarted doing this, it was hard
to get people on board to readit and to interact with it?

Coach Rios (45:36):
Yeah, yeah.
It is that's that's it'snatural, right?
Nobody wants another email,nobody wants another report.
What does this mean to me?
So I really found was one page,one page, be consistent, top
three, right?
Don't bury them with metricsthat they don't care about,
right?
Keep it very high level andthen tie it to the big, you

(45:56):
know.
Um, this was our contact toship, right?
Or this was our activation tosales ratio.
So always tie, oh, you got thatsupport volume.
Oh, that was 13% of our userbase this week, right?
Or we took 5%.
I think, and then the evenmore, and I always say this is
when you talk about it with yourteam, you know, the support
engineer, the operations person,the frontline person, the QA

(46:18):
person, what what that means tothem and who they want to talk
to about that.
And I'll sometimes say, like,hey, Jordan, section three, go
ahead and talk to marketing andin the Tuesday meeting about
that.
Remind them that we got thatinsight.
Or, you know, if we're doingthe NPS follow-ups, hey, let's
put a little section in thisweek's report that talks about
the NPS follow-up.
So it's kind of like planningalmost the year of reports too,

(46:42):
because every week, but that'sthe that's the hard part is
getting it out every week.
Yeah, the the the the fun partis planning for the future,
right?
Oh, sales kickoffs then.
So that week we'll talk aboutthis.
Or three new hires just cameout of onboarding.
What does that mean?
That means we're gonna havethree more people taking care of
emails for us, which is gonnamean the following, right?

(47:03):
Yeah, also, you know, I'll giveone that I did, you know, for
this week's was you know, we'reum we're a little understaffed
right now and we have someunprecedented demand, right?
So it's awesome.
So what I highlighted wasbecause the metrics are gonna
show, wow, they're they're alittle bit behind right now.
Yep.
Support, guess what?
Sometimes we are behind.

Priscilla (47:19):
Yep, that happens.

Coach Rios (47:21):
But this is what we did last week.
We made X amount of outboundsand we scheduled X amount, even
though we were here.
So this week, this is our goal.
And then I share this is theweekly um challenge for the
team.
And if they achieve it, they'regonna get the following.
Yeah.
Right.
So I like to highlight thatkind of stuff and then celebrate

(47:42):
it when you catch up, right?
When you have that spike, wedid it, right?
We had that earlier in theyear, which is look, look at the
line, it's flat.
That's where we want to see it.
Here's what got us there, andhere's what we're doing to
hopefully not get there again.
And that's where it's not justhere's what we're doing, the
team, it's here's what we'redoing with marketing in

(48:02):
collaboration with brand inorder to change the messaging
here.
Just telling how you'recollaborating, making that the
report.
Because I find that sometimesin other reports from other
teams, departments, it isn't somuch this is what we're doing
with everyone, it's this is whatwe're doing, right?
What sales is doing, thepipeline, the funnel, boom.

(48:23):
Right.
But in the support, you get anopportunity to really tell that
whole story.
And I think when I talk tosupport leaders, work with them,
work with different people, Isay, yeah, embrace that.
When you embrace that, theneverything is going to start
sprouting up.
Your team's gonna get fired upabout it, and you'll start to
see that momentum.

Priscilla (48:39):
And as a support professional, you know, you can
connect these dots for otherdepartments to help show that
value.
You know, some otherdepartments that don't kind of
have this same situation wherethey feel isolated might not
need to do the connecting of thedots as much.
Yep.
But as support professionals,we want people to see the
connection.
And if they're not seeing it,sometimes it does take being a

(49:00):
little bit more overt andconnecting those for you know
the other departments.
I think it's a very coolstrategy, especially when you're
looking at bigger companieswhere there's a lot of
separation between departments.
To have something like thisthat's consistent that puts
support in front of these otherdepartments, even if they don't

(49:21):
read it every time, even if it'snot, you know, top of mind all
the time for everyone, itreminds them support is here and
we're doing good work.
And I think if you're listeningto this going, okay, but I do
not have time to write up asupport report every single week
and send that every singleFriday, it might be something
that you start doing once amonth.
Yes.
Maybe you do a monthly thing,or maybe you do it quarterly.

(49:42):
Yep.
Or whatever it is that issomething that's, you know,
manageable to work into yourworkflow.
But doing something in aconsistent manner that gets
support in front of the teamwill eventually lead to those
conversations about how do I getat the table now?
You've seen that this value ishere.
You see the work that thesupport team is doing.

(50:04):
So now I'm gonna go to thisleader on this department or
this person on the product teamand see, okay, now how can we
make sure the next launch goessmoother than the last one that
we talked about in that supportreport?
Can we get someone in on theseproduct meetings for this next
launch?
Because that's what's going tostart that ball rolling.
And so if you're listening tothis and you're going, I don't

(50:24):
think I can send out a weeklything and people are gonna read
it.
Well, they might not.
But if you send out a monthlyor if you can send out a
quarterly, just something to getthe ball rolling, that's gonna
help you down the line.
It's not gonna be an overnightfix.
That's never what's gonnahappen.

Coach Rios (50:39):
Never.
And and I always say the earlypro tips I always show people,
don't worry about aestheticallywhat it looks like.
Don't worry about that.
Number two, use what youalready have.
You're using some sort of toolthat hopefully has some sort of
reporting.
Start with that, right?
Right.
Um, some of the early, my earlydays, or even when I, you know,
new position, new everything,it's I start with an email.
Here's an email, here's a fewnumbers, and we're gonna evolve

(51:02):
this over time.
And I think quarterly, greatway to start.
I always say this when they sayyou don't have time, it's your
history book as well, right?
It's kind of why I like weeklyreports for my direct reports.
Like, what's your weeklyreport?
And it's like, I don't havetime to send a weekly report.
Yeah, you do.
It's gonna be your history.
So when you look back, what didI do the last six months?
Oh, I can go back to my weeklyreport to see that.

(51:22):
Same thing as a support teamleader.
How did we do the last fourmonths?
Oh, let's just go back andremind ourselves because, and I
see this all the time, we're inthe trenches so much, we forget
about all the things that we'vedone to improve little processes
here and there.
So if we just document them,yeah, not worry about how it is,

(51:42):
that gets us there.
And then over time, you know,I've been sitting aside two
years, the report in over twoyears has finally gotten over
the last eight months into aweekly here's the format, here's
this, but it's evolved.
It's gone from an email toPowerPoint slides to less
PowerPoint slides to just achart to now this.
Now it's a nice PDF with wordsand formatting.

(52:04):
That was always the vision, butto lead with that was not gonna
get the impact or the belief orthe folks surrounding the
report and developing it versusbuilding that village from
scratch.

Priscilla (52:17):
Right.
And you can, as you are sendingthese things out, as you're
creating these, you can look athow it's being received and you
can adjust to speak in the otherlanguages.
Yep.
If you like PowerPoint, but youfind that development team
doesn't want to click through aPowerPoint, then maybe you want
to do a PDF or whatever it is,being open to adjusting it as it
goes so that it's bringing themost value because what you

(52:38):
don't want to do is put all thistime into something that's not
bringing the value.
So, how is that value comingacross to the other departments?
Okay, I feel like I have a lotmore questions for you.
So I'm gonna kind of go into alittle bit of like a rapid fire
thing.
The first question I have foryou is how do you encourage your
team that might not be feelingvalued by the company?

(52:59):
How do you encourage them tofeel pride for the work that
they're doing?

Coach Rios (53:03):
Customer feedbacks, right?
So share what customers aresaying online and in your
surveys.
If you're hopefully we'resending some survey out, and
make them accessible to them.
Two, compliment them on thingsyou're hearing throughout the
day in the center, right?
The tone that might have, orhey, it sounded like that
conversation was a difficultone, but I love the way you

(53:23):
handled it.
I love the way you ended it.
It's that be out there and saythose things often in the
one-on-ones, too, in yourweekly, bi-weekly, monthly
one-on-one.
You know, talk about the goodwork you've seen the individual
do, right?
Specific examples, really,really specific.
This is one too for like, don'tbe afraid to ask.
How are you feeling?
Yeah.
What could make you feel bettertomorrow, right?

(53:45):
What can make you have astronger end of the day?
Like, don't be afraid to ask.
Best if you're feelingsomething, don't be afraid to
ask.
We hear this a lot too, Ithink, when we're talking to our
team members or other teammembers in the organization.
They'll talk about how, oh,Priscilla's so awesome, you
know, Jordan's so awesome, Chrisis so great, they did this,
blah, blah, blah.
Go tell them.

Priscilla (54:03):
Yes.

Coach Rios (54:03):
Go tell them.
And I'll encourage them ifsomeone suits me a team's
message or an email, rather thanjust forward it off.
And this actually happened twoweeks ago.
One of the field techs reachedout to me, sent me a nice
message.
Hey, I just want to let youknow Ben has done such a
tremendous job on the weekends.
He's always there to help me,blah, blah, blah.
And that's why I hired Ben.
I knew he would do that.
I, you know, I knew thatalready.

(54:24):
And I replied back to him, hey,this is great feedback.
Thank you so much for sharingit.
We have a process over herecalled the Duck promo, so the
whole thing we do for employees.
Would you mind shooting thisover to the Duck email and
sending this directly to Ben?
I'm sure he'd love to hear it.
And then I got another one fromanother team member of mine,
Amanda.
And I encourage those teammembers, go publicly share that,

(54:45):
please.
Go tell them it'll make moreimpact if they hear it from you
than me saying, Jordan told meabout you.
Now I'm gonna do it too.
Don't get me wrong.
That's gonna happen.
But encourage other people todo that.
And I always say that too, andI've done this a lot more
recently in my career, is like,encourage other leaders to call
out support.

(55:05):
If we're going to an all handsmeeting and I see the agenda and
someone in marketing's talkingor someone in in sales is
talking, I might go to thatperson and go, hey, remember
when Doria did this for you onthat?
It'd be nice if you if youmentioned her there.

Priscilla (55:17):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (55:17):
Don't be afraid to sell and promote your employees
like that, right?

Priscilla (55:20):
Yeah.
What is the most importantmetric customer support teams
should measure?

Coach Rios (55:25):
Employee satisfaction.

Priscilla (55:27):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (55:27):
Your team member's satisfaction because that's
gonna dictate how they'reperforming every day, right?
They got to be satisfied atwork.

Priscilla (55:33):
Yeah.

Coach Rios (55:34):
All right.
They have to be.
And what and what doessatisfied mean for them as a
team, as individuals?
That's the most important one.

Priscilla (55:40):
Yep.
And it's not focused on nearlyenough.
And when your employees aresatisfied and they're doing work
they're proud of, that's gonnatrickle down into your customers
and your customers are gonnafeel it.

Coach Rios (55:49):
Yep.

Priscilla (55:50):
Okay, we've kind of talked about this one a little
bit, but how often do you sharecustomer insights outside of the
support team?

Coach Rios (55:56):
Um, so it's weekly, and then it's anytime anyone
asks.
So one of the things that Ilike to do, and and I've been
doing the smile career, I givecredit to Pei Wang from Cisco,
who who taught me this aboutthat, is she says build
reporting for the future.
Build your database, yourstructure, so that you're
prepared to answer questions inthe future that might not come
now, but they're going to come.
So that's what I'll always say.

Priscilla (56:18):
All right, what makes a great teammate in sports and
in support?

Coach Rios (56:23):
Oh, we talked about one is coachability.
They want to be a foreverlearner.
That's right there.
Yep.
Next, and something that isnot, you know, skill-based, but
mindset, they come with thementality um to give 100% effort
every day, right?
They're gonna be 100% focusedevery day on that craft, on that
experience they're delivering.
And they're they're hustling.

(56:44):
They want to be better.
Those kind of things together,if everybody brings that
together, they're gonna continueto uplift each other.

Priscilla (56:50):
Yeah.
And I like that you said it's amindset because it really, it's
a decision to act a certainway.
It's a decision to takeownership, it's a decision to
strive for mastering the thingyou're working on.
And it's not necessarily apersonality trait always.
It is something you cancontrol.
Yeah.
And so I think I think that's areally important thing for

(57:13):
people to hear.
And especially when you're in aplace where it's like, oh man,
I don't know about this.
Like you have control over it.
You can make the decision thatyou're going to be dedicated,
that you're going to strive forsomething better, or you're
going to work hard, or you'regoing to be focused, those
things.
You can really choose to leaninto that mindset.
Yes.

(57:33):
Um, okay, last thing.
What is one thing that supportleaders don't do enough of?

Coach Rios (57:39):
Sell and market their teams.
And I use those termsdeliberately.
And just walking the hallwaysin the conversations with the
examples.
There's victories and winsevery day in support teams.
Yeah.
Right.
So there's every day there's anopportunity to sell or market
them, whether it's to your boss,to your peers, to, you know, I
talked to my buddy Raul at work,the knock manager.

(57:59):
I'm always talking to him aboutwhat the team's working on, how
they're handling escalations,what they're learning.
So sell and marketing theteams.
And, and this is something thatI I love doing, encourage
support leaders to do, encouragesupport folks to branch out
into other parts of theorganization or challenge them
with other types of roles.
I think sometimes we lock intoa great support person.

(58:19):
We want to keep them.
Not everybody's gonna be, youknow, like us, these 25-year
lifers in support.
Yeah.
Some of this is a transition,this is a learning experience.
This is gonna be where theylearn and grow.
So we got to sell, we got tomarket, we got to promote.
Yeah, we got to sell, market,and promote our team members and
team.

Priscilla (58:36):
Well, that's a great note to end on.
Thank you so much for beinghere today.
You always bring such a goodenergy.
I mean, thank you when you'rearound.
And so thank you for bringingthat energy to Happy to Help.
It's been great to have youhere.
Yeah.
For anyone who's listening tothis and wants to get in touch
with you or learn more about youand what you do, um, how can
they get in touch with you?

Coach Rios (58:57):
Yeah, you know, um, I do a little bit of posting on
LinkedIn once in a while.
So connect with me on LinkedIn.
That's a great place.
Um, I like to share kind ofsome pro tips, both from
coaching the adults and thekids.
And then I have some, once youget to that profile, if we want
to connect a little bit more,feel free to click on those
links.
And I'd love to talk toanybody.
I call them um walk and talks.

(59:18):
I love just to walk and talkwith anybody out there.
15 minutes.
Let's just talk aboutleadership, coaching, team
building, sharing pro tips.
I know I can always use somehelp myself.
So would love to chat withanybody out there.
And thank you for having me on.
I think two, three, four yearslater from that talk.
It's it's honored that youremembered it.
I'm grateful for that, and I'mgrateful for this opportunity to

(59:40):
chat with you.
Big fan of yours.
So thank you.

Priscilla (59:43):
Right back at you.
Thank you so much for beinghere, Coach Rios.
It really was great to have youon the pod.
If you have any questions or atopic that you would like us to
cover in a future episode, youcan shoot us a text using the
send us a text link in thisepisode description, and we will
try to create an episode foryou answering your question
directly.
As always, if you like thisepisode, please share it with

(01:00:06):
someone who works in customersupport or leave a review on
Apple Podcasts.
Thank you again to Coach Riosfor joining us on today's
episode.
Thank you all for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.