July 9, 2024 • 48 mins
Cara Pacetti from Buzzsprout's success team joins us to discuss how to seamlessly integrate after-hours customer support into your business without hiring more employees or burning out your team!
From expanding support hours to include weekends and evenings, managing the unique challenges of small teams, and how rotating responsibilities can prevent burnout and foster teamwork, this episode breaks down everything you need to know about extending customer support! Check it out, and let us know what you think!
We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!
To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com.
Thanks for listening!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Priscilla (00:00):
Welcome to Happy to Help.
A podcast about customersupport from the people at
Buzzsprout.
I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke.
Today we're talking aboutafter-hours support coverage.
We'll chat in-depth aboutafter-hours support, whether
it's important for you to offer,how to make the transition into
after-hours coverage and sometips on expanding your coverage
as a team.
Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into it.
(00:21):
As always, we are joined by ourpodcast producer, Jordan.
Hi.
A couple episodes ago we hadKevin Finn on to talk about the
evolution of Buzzsprout supportand during that conversation we
talked for a quick second aboutAfter Hours support and how we
started expanding our coverageinto After Hours support.
So I thought it was a greattime for us to kind of have a
(00:44):
full episode to talk about this,to dive into some of our
thought processes when we movedfrom standard working hour
support into after hour supportand then what that looked like
and some tips that we might havefor other small support teams
that are looking to expand thatcoverage.
Before we get into that, we dohave a special guest.
Cara Pacetti is joining ustoday.
(01:06):
She is one of the neweradditions to the Buzzsprout
support team.
She joined us about a year agoand she, like, hit the ground
running and has quickly become ahuge part of our team.
She has a background working ineducation and administration,
but everything she does, I think, kind of revolves around her
love for people, and that's likesuch a good quality to have
(01:26):
when you're working in support.
We've talked about it a bunch,but she just loves people.
Her job description in heremail signature is literal ray
of sunshine, which is when shestarts talking.
You will understand.
It is so, Cara, like she is aliteral ray of sunshine, and so
it's just so much fun.
All of our customers see thatthrough her emails, just how
(01:48):
positive and uplifting she is,and so she has had the
opportunity to do a lot of afterhours support for us over the
last year, and so I thoughtshe'd be a really great person
to come in and talk with usabout this, since she has a ton
of firsthand experience workingafter hours.
So thanks for being here, Cara.
Cara (02:05):
Well, thank you.
Wow, that was quite an introand I'm flattered.
I'm happy to be here.
Jordan (02:13):
I'm really excited.
I feel like our listeners aregoing to have a little bit of an
understanding of who you are,because I think this is the
third time we've mentioned youon this podcast.
Priscilla (02:21):
That's probably true, Like in different episodes.
Jordan (02:24):
So I think it's yeah, I think it's true, and so you know
, our listeners finally get toknow you a little bit.
Cara (02:30):
I'm so excited and, like Priscilla said, I do love people
and I love our podcasters andare happy to help listeners.
Priscilla (02:35):
So I'm excited.
Yeah, all right, before we jumpin, I want to float a question.
So at the end of every episodehere on Happy to Help, we
usually sign off with go andmake someone's day, and the idea
behind that is that, you know,in support we have the ability
to make someone's day better,and so we kind of want that to
be an encouragement.
You know, go into your workrecognizing that you have a
(02:58):
pretty cool opportunity to makesomeone's day better, and so I
thought it'd be cool to ask Carato share a time, maybe in the
last week, that someone's madeyour day.
Cara (03:07):
I think that's a great idea.
I actually have a really goodexample of this.
So we recently moved and we didnot have a mailbox because, as
Priscilla knows, where I live,we can't have mailboxes outside.
We have to have, like, alockbox at the end of our road,
and so the post office has toinstall that.
So here we are, we're movedinto our new home.
(03:27):
We requested them to add alockbox and it was taking months
and it was just a delay ontheir side, not quite sure what
was going on, but I ended upstopping a gentleman at the
lockboxes and his name was Joeand he works for USPS.
And his name was Joe and heworks for USPS.
Jordan (03:49):
He took complete ownership of my request and
worked on it for months.
Cara (03:51):
Like he would call me with updates and I was.
I mean, no one asked him to dothat.
That is not in his jobdescription to like make sure
you know.
He actually wasn't even afull-time USPS employee.
He just was brought in to helpand at one point he called me
and goes it's still not done.
But I just wanted to leave youwith one last update because I'm
no longer going to be there andwas like giving me an update.
And then recently this week hecalled and was like I'm back and
(04:15):
we got it and it's beinginstalled.
Jordan (04:16):
And now it is.
Cara (04:17):
That's amazing.
But the fact that he took suchownership in getting this
mailbox and it was completelyjust his like own ambition, like
his own it wasn't.
For me, it was just becausethat was the job, that he was
given the task, and he justwanted to see it through, and
that just totally made my day.
I mean, I just thought that wasso cool and like what cool work
ethic and I don't know.
(04:38):
Yeah, so go, joe, so happy,that's great.
And now I have a box.
That's such a good story.
It was awesome.
Priscilla (04:46):
I love that.
Well, thanks for sharing that,Cara.
I think you know it's reallyfun to focus on the positive
things, and so I encourageanyone who is listening, if you
think of like a story on yourend where someone made your day,
text the show and let us know alittle bit about that story,
and then maybe I'll share themon future episodes and encourage
all of us to be that positivityto other people too.
(05:06):
So let's jump into it.
After hours support people whoare listening to this, some of
you might be pumped about italready offering after hours
support, and this is reallyexciting for you.
And then I'm sure there aresome people who are listening to
this and are overwhelmed justby the idea of trying to offer
support outside of regularworking hours.
(05:27):
The good news is thatafter-hours support does not
have to be overwhelming.
It can be a small change or aseries of small changes that
have a big impact on yourcustomers, and so you know, I
thought we'd talk about todaywhere we were when we started
moving into after-hours support,and then some tips for people
who are considering thattransition and how to make those
(05:48):
after-hours the most effectivethat they can be.
So first I want to kind ofclarify what I'm talking about.
When I'm saying after-hourssupport, I'm not talking about
providing support 24-7.
I'm not talking about someonealways being available around
the clock type of a thing.
It's more the idea of havingthe ability to get in touch with
someone outside of traditionalworking hours, and so in the US
(06:12):
traditionally that's around 8 amto 5.30 pm on Monday through
Friday.
So when I'm talking aboutafter-hours support, I'm really
talking about kind of weekendhours and then Saturdays and
Sundays.
Jordan (06:23):
Yeah.
Priscilla (06:24):
But not like that 24 hour coverage thing.
So as we talk about this, Ijust want to be in the same
context for that.
That.
I'm not promoting that you hiresomeone to stay up all night
and be working all night.
That's not.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
So I think the first questionto ask yourself when you're
trying to decide if you're goingto do after hours support is do
(06:45):
your customers need it?
Is this something that yourproduct needs?
One thing Kevin talked about inthe episode a couple weeks ago
was when we were consideringafter hours support.
One of the reasons we ended upgoing forward with it was
because we have podcasters asour customers, and podcasting is
largely a hobby for people, andso a lot of times they're doing
(07:07):
it in addition to their workinghours, and so that means
they're working on it nights andthey're working on it during
the weekend, and so if we wantto be offering remarkable
support for our customers, weneed to be available when
they're working on it, and sothat's why it was clear to us
that we needed to move intohaving support coverage during
(07:27):
that time.
Now you might have a productwhere people aren't working on
it outside of the normal workinghours, and so it might not be
as imperative that you havesomeone covering Saturdays and
Sundays if people using yourproduct are only using it during
working hours.
Like if you have a timetracking product and people only
track their time during thework week, that kind of a thing.
(07:50):
Another thing that we consideredwhen we were thinking through
expanding our coverage was thisidea of missing a window of
opportunity for new customers.
So when we didn't have supporton Saturday and Sunday, someone
would write in on a Saturdaymorning with a question about
the product.
They weren't an existingcustomer and they wanted to
(08:12):
learn more, and they wouldn'tget a response back until Monday
, and so we would see prettyoften that we would come in on a
Monday morning and there wouldbe emails waiting for us about
the product.
We would respond and give themthe information they need, and
then they would respond and say,oh, we already went with
someone else, and we saw thatpretty often as we were leading
up to making this change andthat was one of the driving
(08:35):
factors was that we felt like wewere missing out on some great
opportunities when we didn'thave anyone covering those hours
.
So that's another thing tothink through.
Like, are your potentialcustomers reaching out during
those after hours?
And if they are, maybe you wantto be offering support at that
time so that you arecapitalizing on that and able to
(08:56):
, like get them the help theyneed so they don't go somewhere
else.
Cara (08:58):
We had a podcaster write in one time and it was a test,
like that's what they were doing, and they said whoever responds
first, or like if we get aresponse like, that's who we're
going with, and so sometimes youknow, admittedly that's what
they're doing and they're likeyou guys pass, we're going to go
with Buzzsprout.
So that was a win.
Priscilla (09:16):
Yeah that's definitely.
I feel like that happens whenpeople will be like either
they'll say it or they won't sayit.
Right, and they'll write in andthey'll say oh I'm curious
about this, I've also emailedtwo of your competitors.
First person to get back to mewins my business and you know it
makes it kind of fun.
Then you can kind of have funwith that response.
But yeah, definitely there arepeople that will kind of, as
they're weighing competitorssupport is a big factor.
Jordan (09:39):
I mean, that's probably where a little bit of like
market research comes in too.
Is you know, when are yourcompetitors doing support, like,
what are their support hours?
Are they doing 24, seven?
Yeah, are they, you know, doingtelephone service, things like
that?
So that could also help you indetermining if you want to, you
know, go a little bit above them.
Priscilla (09:58):
Yeah, I think it's an interesting aspect of it, like
looking at your competition todecide what you're going to do.
I think you kind of want toweigh it a little bit.
You know, it's good to knowwhat your competition is
offering and let that be afactor in your decision making,
maybe, but not drive it, becauseI think sometimes you'll look
at people and you'll say, oh,they're doing chat support, I
(10:19):
have to do chat support, butsometimes chat support isn't the
answer, and so you really doneed to kind of think about what
you value, what's important toyou, how you want to do it.
And knowing the competition,the landscape, that's really
good, but I don't know if thatshould be a driving force.
But it's definitely good toknow what's going on with your
competition and whether they'reavailable or not.
And if everyone is providingafter-hours support, then you
(10:40):
probably do want to be availableas well, or else you might end
up losing customers tocompetition, and that kind of
goes into this idea of yourexisting customers running into
roadblocks during the weekend.
One of the things that we findnow that we're doing after-hours
and weekend support that'sreally been a huge benefit to
(11:02):
our podcasters, our customers isthat when they run into an
issue that our podcasters, ourcustomers, is that when they run
into an issue that they can'tsolve on their own, they don't
have to wait until Monday to getan answer.
Because there's some issuesthat your customers will run
into that they can kind of getaround and it's nice to have an
answer, but they don't need it.
And then there's some issueswhere they can wait a little
while and it doesn't delay theirprogress, but those emails
(11:25):
where they've run into somethingand they're stuck, they can't
move past it.
We kind of refer to those asroadblocks.
They can't get past that.
There's nothing they can do.
Having the ability to supportthose people specifically on the
weekends they don't have towait until Monday is a huge,
huge benefit and really will setyour product apart, especially
if your competition is notproviding weekend support.
(11:46):
So that's another thing to keepin mind.
Cara (11:48):
And even in addition to the weekend, but the after hours
, so the evening hours, ifyou're a worldwide company.
I remember a podcaster wrote infrom Australia and I had
responded to her email.
You know, in normal timeworking the evening hours, and
she's like what, there'ssomebody there.
Oh, this is so nice.
Yeah, Well, can you help me.
And so that was a cool win,Like yeah, I'm here to help.
(12:09):
And she was excited.
Priscilla (12:12):
That's a really good point too is that especially if
you have a team like ours that's, for the most part, in the same
time zone.
We have one person outside ofthe East Coast time zone, but
everyone else really is in theEast Coast time zone, and it is
really something you don't thinkabout as much as you probably
should that you have customersthat are outside of your time
zone and you want to be surethat you're offering support to
(12:35):
them as well, and so you know wehave podcasters in Australia,
and I would assume I've neverbeen to Australia, I've never
lived in Australia, but I wouldassume that if you live in
Australia and you're workingwith a company based out of the
US, you're expecting always atleast a 24-hour turnaround, at a
bare minimum, and so being ableto give those people a quick
turnaround because you haveevening support or early morning
(12:59):
support, I think that can be ahuge benefit as well to your
podcasters and make them feelreally valued and cared for.
Like that woman who wrote infrom Australia, she probably
felt really great because shegot a response back from you
right away and felt like wecared enough about the people
that we have in Australia tomake sure that we are offering
support late into the evening.
(13:19):
So, yeah, I think that's athat's a really good point, Cara
.
Yeah, I think that's a reallygood point, Cara.
So let's talk a little bitabout the transition, then, from
regular hours support intoafter hours support.
And so if you didn't listen tothat episode with Kevin from a
couple weeks ago, I'll give youa quick rundown of kind of where
we were when we startedconsidering after hours support.
(13:41):
At the time, we had twofull-time support specialists on
the team.
That was it, and we weren't inthe process of hiring anyone new
, it was just the two of us.
But we knew that we wanted tohave some kind of a support
coverage on weekends, and weweren't really thinking about
evenings at first.
We were really just thinkingabout weekends, and so we were
trying to figure out how to makesmall changes that would give
(14:04):
us the ability to help thosepodcasters on the weekends.
Our approach to making thiswork was to use trial and error
to not overcommit ourselvesbefore we figured out how we
were going to do it, and then toprioritize focused hours of
work.
So at Buzzsprout, we caredeeply about working 40 hours a
week, and so it was never aquestion that we were going to
(14:27):
say, ok, now we're just going towork 43 hours a week so that we
can have some hours on theweekend.
That was never going to be thesolution and we weren't hiring
anyone new.
So we knew we kind of had 40hours for each of us and we
needed to figure out how to makethose 40 hours of focused work
work for our podcasters as wellon the weekends.
And so for us we decided, sincethere were two of us, to take
(14:51):
two hours during the week andput them on a weekend day.
So one person worked Saturday,one person worked Sunday and we
each had two hours to put inthat day and we kind of just
took them out of a day duringthe week.
So we'd get off at like 430that day, or whatever our
schedule looked like.
We'd work two seven hour days,basically.
And so that's how we started,just the tiniest change.
(15:13):
And you know we tried somedifferent strategies.
I think there was one timewhere Addie was the other person
doing support with us at thetime and she put in both of her
hours in the morning on Sundayso that she'd have the rest of
her Sunday off.
It was great because shecleared the inbox in the morning
, but we found that that didn'twork so great, because then the
people who wrote in after thatfirst two hours didn't get any
(15:37):
responses, didn't have anysupport for those people later,
and so we realized that thatwasn't the best strategy.
So then maybe we tried checkingin every little while and
looking for just those roadblockemails and new customers and
just focusing on them, and thathad benefit because people got
really fast responses.
But it didn't provide us theability to truly detach on a
(15:59):
weekend, and so we wereconstantly checking the inbox,
constantly feeling like ourcomputers had to be with us,
that kind of a thing, and sothat really didn't work for us
as well, and maybe it was greatfor the podcaster, but it didn't
help us with the balance in ourlife, and at the time there
were just two of us.
We were still working a five daywork week, and now we were
tacking on time on a Saturday orSunday, and so it really felt
(16:22):
like you were losing a Sunday ifyou were constantly checking
the inbox, and so that didn'twork out so well, and so what we
ended up doing that worked thebest for us was we'd put in one
hour in the late morning andthen one hour in the evening.
It was a happy middle.
It gave us the ability toanswer all those people that
came in overnight and in themorning and then jump back in in
(16:46):
the evening and answer anyonewho had come in during the day.
So that meant that some peoplehad to wait a couple hours
before they got a response maybefour hours but it allowed us
the ability to detach andactually have our weekend, and
so trial and error is justreally important when you're
trying these new things.
You're not going to get itperfectly off the bat and so
(17:06):
trying to figure out you know,testing different things.
For us it was pretty easybecause we had a small team so
we could be flexible and changethings up week to week, and it
took us a couple months reallyto get the swing of things and
to start seeing where thebenefit really was coming in for
our podcasters and then alsojust for the product itself.
Cara (17:26):
Yeah, you just got to go for it.
Gauge the need because you'llknow after a couple tries you
know if it's a big hit.
Priscilla (17:32):
Yeah, and it's important to check in too.
I mean, if you have a smallteam that's trying to figure out
what after-hours support lookslike, then checking in after
every weekend I mean Addie and Iwould check in with each other
each Monday and say, ok, how wasthe weekend?
Do you feel like you were ableto get a full weekend and relax?
Do you feel like you wereworking all weekend?
Like having those conversationsand checking in is really
(17:53):
important when you're doingtrial and error.
Another thing that we did in thebeginning was we didn't tell
our customers that we were goingto start playing around with
after hours support.
We just kind of started doingit and so we didn't want to
start setting expectationsbefore we knew how we were going
to meet them and so don't feellike you have to share that
(18:13):
right off the bat.
When you're trying to figureout what your after-hours
support is going to look like,you can just start doing it and
you know it's kind of like theunder-promising and
over-delivering strategy.
You know people were so excitedto get weekend support because
they were not expecting weekendsupport.
Even now I think on our helpform it says something along the
(18:34):
lines of fast replies 9 to 530Eastern and delightfully quick
responses all other times, orsomething like that all other
times or something like that, sothat there's not this huge
expectation that you're going toget a response right away.
But you know that you're goingto be happy with the response
time, no matter when you writein, and so there's no need to
over-promise or over-commit tothings until you're at a place
(18:56):
where you know where you want tobe.
And so, for us, it took us aboutthree months to figure out that
after hours was something thatwe really wanted to invest in,
and that's when we decided tobring another person on the team
to kind of help us withcovering that, and so that was.
Another thing to kind of thinkthrough is that you might end up
(19:16):
changing the structure of yourteam.
If you go and lean into afterhours support, you might see a
huge impact on new customerscoming to your product.
You might find that the generalhappiness of your customers
rises a ton just because theyhave the ability to get in touch
with you over the weekend, andso when that happens, just be
(19:37):
open to the possibility you mayhave to hire more people onto
your team to make it sustainable, but testing it out and getting
comfortable with it in thefirst place.
Those small steps can be donewith a small team, and so
there's no need to start big,hire new people before you even
have decided whether that'ssomething that you're going to
really invest in.
Cara (19:56):
Yeah, I think you guys were talking with Kevin on a
Happy to Help episode and he wastalking about customer success
and how we can be proactive inthat.
This is one of those ways, evenjust throwing that weekend
support out there, maybe on aminimal basis at first, but it's
just an easy way to helpproactively instead of react.
Yeah, so, yeah, I think that'sa great, great point.
Priscilla (20:18):
Yeah, that's very true.
Is that this, after our support, definitely falls into that
Podcaster success?
For us it's podcaster successbut customer success.
If that's what you're going forwith your support team, which
you know, hopefully if you'relistening to this podcast, then
you do care a ton about yourcustomer success.
So after-hours support is great.
So I want to transition alittle bit and talk about where
(20:42):
we are now with after hourscoverage, kind of how that's
changed in the last, I guesslike four or five years, since
we kind of started doing theafter hours support, and then
give you some tips on things tothink about when you're dipping
your toe into that.
Where we are right now, we haveweekend support.
We also offer evening supportnow, and so the way that works
(21:05):
is that the people who are noton weekend support are assigned
one evening a week so that wecan cover every evening during
the week, and that allows ourpodcasters like we were talking
about our podcaster in Australiait allows them the ability to
get in touch with us after hourson the weekdays, and so
(21:29):
basically, the way we do that isthat you have two hours to put
in during the evening and youcan figure out where you want to
put those in as long as theyhappen during the evening hours,
and so that's how we do it nowand it works pretty well for us.
It allows us the ability togive support to our customers
who really need it, but it isn'tso much coverage that we feel
like we're losing our ability tocheck out and unwind and not be
(21:50):
connected to work 24-7.
And so it's a good balance forus.
I just wanted to give you alittle bit of that context to
where we are now All right, sosome tips that I want to talk
through on running effectiveafter hours support coverage.
The first one is to betransparent during hiring.
So if you are looking to expandinto after hours coverage, or if
(22:12):
you're already doing afterhours coverage, like we are,
when you're hiring new people onyour team, there is nothing
more important than making surethat they understand that
they're going to be expected todo some after hours coverage.
You know there's nothing worsethan getting someone that you're
really excited about on theteam and then telling them OK,
you're going to be workingSaturdays for these months and
(22:35):
hearing, oh no, I can't do that,that's not going to work with
my schedule, and then having tomake the decision of well, are
they a hire now that we cancontinue working with, or is
this not going to work becauseof the scheduling?
And so we try to be very, very,very intentional about being
transparent with our new hiresabout what hours are going to be
(22:56):
looking like for them andwhat's expected for many new
hires.
I mean, Cara, when you werehired, I think you and I had a
full I don't know, I wouldn'tcall it an interview but we had
a separate conversation that wasjust about hours, because I was
nervous that I wasn't beingclear enough that hey, you're
going to be working weekends,you're going to be working some
nights, and I want to make surethat you're fully on board with
(23:18):
that before we continue movingdown this road 100%.
Cara (23:22):
I remember from the other side, the interviewee yeah, I
heard weekends and I looked atmy husband and he went uh, so I
think I asked Priscilla a lotand so that's just something to
consider.
You know, be completely honestwith the person you're hiring
and give them time to process it.
Like that's a hard interviewquestion, just to say this is it
(23:42):
Cause they might need to kindof look at their schedule and
just really put themselves inthat?
Like that's what I did.
I'm like, okay, I need toreally does this really fit?
And then they can come back andyou can have a little more
confidence with the hiringbecause you know, all right,
they they're ready, they, theyknow what is expected and
they're on board.
And so, yeah, that was a bigpart, yeah.
Priscilla (24:02):
Well, and one thing to keep in mind too you know,
when Cara came to us she camefrom working at a school and so
she was working a pretty I meanpretty traditional hours, maybe
a little bit skewed earlier, butyou know, monday through Friday
, there was no question ofworking on the weekends.
If you're hiring someone who'scoming from a nontraditional
support background, then beingreally upfront about those hours
(24:26):
is really important becauseit's going to be different than
what they're used to.
But you might be hiring someonethat has history or experience
working those crazy kind ofafter hours support.
For example, brian, who we hadon an episode earlier.
He came to us from Chick-fil-A.
We had on an episode earlier.
He came to us from Chick-fil-Aand when I told him about the
hours and had that conversationwith him about the hours, he was
(24:48):
like oh, that's great, becauseI usually start at 4 am with
Chick-fil-A, so I'm happy to notstart at 4 am and to just work
a couple hours on a Saturday,and so you know it's just.
You might have people that it'snot new and it's not going to
be a difficult transition, andthen you might have people that
really need to consider ifthat's going to work for their
lifestyle, because if it doesn'twork for them, the likelihood
(25:11):
that they're going to burn outquickly is high, and so you just
want to make sure that everyoneis aware of what's going on and
what's expected of them asthey're going into that job.
All right, the second tip I hadis to get new hires comfortable
with after-hour coverage early,throw it to the wolves.
Jordan (25:31):
Exactly.
Priscilla (25:32):
So at some point we're going to have an episode
about training and how we dotraining here, but I kind of
want to touch on it a minutejust because it has this
crossover with after hours,because our after hours strategy
is so tied up in our trainingstrategy too.
But typically when we havesomeone new come onto the team
they go through a trainingprocess and when they're done
with that they immediately getput on Saturday or Sunday
(25:55):
support and that can be scary.
Usually they've been on theteam for at least six weeks at
that point.
So they're pretty comfortablewith working in the inbox and
solo and they're familiar withour tone and they know our
communication goals and all ofthat is pretty good.
But they're still kind offinding their legs and so
putting them on Saturday supportcan feel a little nerve
(26:18):
wracking.
Cara laughing Intimidating, yeah, but it's so, so, so good
because it is such a good way tolearn.
When you are the personresponsible for the inbox.
It builds that confidence inyou and that problem-solving
muscle and that's such a bigpart of having remarkable
(26:39):
support is working with someonewho has that drive to figure out
what the problem is.
If you don't have that drive,then it's going to be really
hard for you to enjoy this work.
And so putting someone onweekend support, where they're
more or less on their own,forces them to figure out if
that problem solving is going tobe something that they enjoy or
(27:00):
if it's going to be somethingthat they just have a really
hard time with.
And so we always that's kind oflike.
In that first couple months youend up on weekend support.
So, Cara, let me ask you aquestion.
You started about a year agoand you went through the
training and then youimmediately went to Saturday
support coverage.
How did you feel in that firstmonth or so of doing Saturday
(27:23):
support?
Cara (27:24):
Okay, well, first shift terrified, but also I did feel
prepared.
I joke about being thrown tothe wolves, I mean I definitely
felt like I was given enoughinformation, I knew the
expectations and I also knewthat Priscilla was just one
phone call away if I were to getstuck.
And here at Buzzsprout wealways operate from a place of
(27:48):
calm and so you know, no issue,it can all be handled, it can
all be sorted, you know.
And so just to kind of rememberthat and keep that in
perspective.
But speaking to what you weresaying about problem solving,
like just imagine getting likeenough information to be
effective and then getting touse that skill right away and
like just putting that muscleinto work and like figuring it
(28:11):
out, and someone who's likecompetitive or like driven it
was not draining for me, it waslife-giving because it was yeah,
I was able to like a questionwould come in I'm like, oh gosh,
okay, I remember seeing thatand I mean I'm a little bit old
school and have my notes that Iwrote down.
But, either way, there's so manyresources and it was just fun
(28:31):
to problem solve and to kind ofknow, like when I report back to
Priscilla, or when she comesand checks on the inbox at the
end of this day, like she seesthe work that I put in.
Yeah, you're at the beginningand maybe you're doing it more
for your supervisor and you'renew and you're want to impress,
but it carries over, becauseeven now when podcasters write
in it's for them.
I'm like, okay, I don't knowthe answer to this, but let me,
(28:53):
let me figure this out for you.
Well, let's get this togetherand we'll figure this out and it
just it's very life-giving andsomething about being
independent and just owning theinbox.
Like this is my responsibility,this is on me, Let me do it.
And it's just such a goodtraining method.
But when she told me that I'dbe going to Saturdays in my
first six weeks.
I'm like what?
Priscilla (29:13):
It definitely can feel like you're being thrown to
the wolves, and so we try toset it up in a way that you know
that there's that lifeline.
I'm always going to beavailable during those first
several Saturdays and so you'renever going to really be on your
own.
But it does kind of push you tolean into that problem solving,
into that independence, intothat manager of one that we were
(29:34):
talking about with Marshall.
It really grows that muscle andstrengthens that part of what
we care so much about with newpeople on the team and with
everyone on the team.
So, without getting too muchmore into the training side of
things, that is part of how ourafter hours works is a lot of
times the person who's juststarted will end up doing some
(29:54):
of those after hours, and thenit really sets the tone for what
their expectations are goingforward and what kind of after
hours they're going to beoffering.
All right, so tip number threeis to share the load between the
team.
One of the great things about asupport team is that everyone
leans on each other and we havethis shared camaraderie.
(30:15):
When you have that, you're ableto offer better support for
people because you're able tolean on each other and bring in
different expertise, and so partof that applies to these after
hours support as well.
When we were first looking tohire a person on the team that
was going to help with afterhours support, we had a lot of
(30:36):
conversations about what theirschedule would look like and
whether they would do all theafter hours support and Addie
and I would stay on regularhours, or if it would be shared
more between the three of us,and ultimately we found that
when you share the load betweeneveryone, it helps bring the
team together and it feels a lotmore manageable than if you
(30:59):
have one person who's doing, youknow, every night and Saturdays
and Sundays One.
It makes their quality of lifeworse because they're working on
all of these weird hours, andit also disjoints them from the
team because they're not workingat the same time that the rest
of the team is working.
And so we have found a kind ofrotation method works really
(31:20):
well for our team and so for us.
What that looks like is we dokind of a quarterly rotation
situation, so every three monthswe rotate who's working the
weekends, we rotate who'sworking evenings, and that
allows us to have this sharedcarrying of the load and it also
helps not feel like the bottomof the totem pole are the people
(31:42):
that do weekend support,because you don't want that to
feel like that's the like bottomof the barrel hours.
You know the weekend support.
In some ways it can be reallybeneficial to work weekend
support because you get Fridaysoff and then you have your
Friday to get all your work done, and you also get some time on
Saturdays to get work done toobecause of the way we structure
(32:04):
those days.
Jordan (32:05):
How did you land on quarterly?
Priscilla (32:08):
So for a while the way we did it was we would put
the new hire on a weekend dayand they'd kind of stay there
until we needed to shift theschedule.
For you know, someone on theteam's schedule changed and it
was a little bit flowy and itchanged when it needed to change
.
But there was no real structurethere and we found that in some
cases what would happen is thatperson would be working a
(32:29):
Saturday for six to eight monthsand it was really difficult on
them and they were just takingit and we would kind of miss
that.
It was difficult on them and itjust, you know, kind of over
time it becomes harder andharder and so we found that
really three months is a goodamount of time.
It feels doable.
If you're put on a Saturday towork on a Saturday, you don't
(32:50):
feel like you're doing it forthe entire year, you don't feel
like it's this long.
Nice to be able to see okay,this will be done in three
months.
If I am not loving working, youknow, tuesday nights that's, I
know that it's only for threemonths and so I can kind of work
(33:11):
around, that it just helpsthey're I don't know they're
easier to chew if they're threemonth pieces.
Jordan (33:16):
And it's probably also easier on the person making the
schedule if they don't have tochange it like every week or
every month.
You know the schedule.
If they don't have to change itlike every week or every month,
you know.
Priscilla (33:24):
Like it's, but and there's also, you know it
doesn't offer any consistency ifit's changing every week or
every month.
Oh yeah, Because you can't planin advance.
If you know if you want to takea vacation in August and you're
not sure are you going to beworking Saturdays in August, or
are you going to be workingSundays, or are you going to be
working a Tuesday night, it justmakes it really difficult to
(33:47):
know.
And so, yeah, having threemonths really gives us the
ability to balance thatstructure without having these
like prolonged commitments ofafter hours for one single
person.
Cara (33:56):
And another thing regarding the schedule is
usually you like to havesomebody who isn't assigned a
Saturday.
That is kind of that fillerLike a lot of times it ends up
being you, Priscilla but kind ofhave that person that like,
okay, you can cover if aSaturday is needed to take off,
Because it's harder to fill aSaturday when there's only one
person working.
So that's something to keep inmind for people making that
(34:17):
transition into weekend supportwhen they're starting out.
Priscilla (34:21):
Yeah Well, and it's good too to think about.
Sometimes, when I'm talking topeople about what weekend
support looks like, they'll saydoes that mean I can never take
a Saturday off because I'mworking Saturdays?
Does that mean that I can'ttake PTO on those days?
And that's not the case.
You can take PTO on a Saturdayjust like you would on a Monday.
Now, if you put PTO everySaturday for your three-month
(34:43):
quarter, that would not be great, but you could take PTO on a
Saturday just like you would onany other day.
We, just like Cara was saying,we have typically it's me or we
have someone else on the teamwhose role moves around to fill
in those gaps when PTO is taken,and so that helps us to cover
that weekend support.
(35:05):
Pto is taken and so that helpsus to cover that weekend support
.
That kind of ties into my nextpoint, which is to lead by
example.
As a leader of a team that isdoing after hours support, it is
important that you are alsodoing after hours support.
I think there's probably it'svery frustrating to be on a team
where you're working onSaturdays or you're working in
the evenings and you know thesenior members of the team or
(35:26):
the leaders on the team aren'tdoing after hours support.
It can be very frustrating, canmake you feel like these hours
aren't important because I'mdoing them and the leaders
aren't doing them, and so Iwould recommend, if you're doing
after hours support for supportfor your support team as the
leader, make sure that you arealso covering some after-hours
(35:50):
support, and so that could looklike doing an evening during the
week, but it could also looklike being available to cover
Saturdays when people take PTO,or being available being the
on-call person when you have atrainee who's working on a
Saturday.
Cara (36:02):
Right, absolutely.
Priscilla (36:03):
I agree, all right.
So the next tip is tocommunicate your after hours
goals well to your team.
This one is really importantbecause you're not going to be
the one always doing the afterhours support, and so you need
to make sure that the whole teamis unified on what the goals
are for those hours.
And so that comes back to whydid you add them in the first
(36:25):
place?
Why did you expand to afterhours coverage in the first
place?
So for us, we expanded becausewe wanted to make sure that we
were getting back to thosepotential customers without
making them wait until Monday,and we wanted to make sure we
could clear the roadblocks forour existing podcasters when
they wrote to us and we're stuckand we didn't want to delay
their work.
And so those are the twobiggest parts of after hours
(36:48):
support.
And so when we're talking aboutwhat those goals are as a team,
it's really important to makesure that everyone who's doing
any kind of after hours supportunderstands that the goal is not
a clear inbox.
The goal is not workingstraight from 8 am until 10 pm.
The goal is to help those twovery specific types of customer
(37:11):
and then from there, if you havemore time that you're supposed
to be working.
Then you can move on to other,less quote unquote urgent emails
.
But your goal is not a clearinbox.
Your goal is to make sure thatthe people who need your help
are the ones who are getting iton a Saturday and the ones that
can wait until Monday becausethey don't have an urgent
(37:31):
question or they're curiousabout something.
But it's not you in as a leaderand putting an employee on
Saturday job.
Cara (37:39):
You've got to protect your mind.
You've got to protect your timeand take care of our customers.
Priscilla (38:07):
Yes, but also don't do a disservice to yourself and,
as a leader, you do a reallygood job at reminding and
something important to remindyour hires about Well, I think
that's important too, cara, tokeep in mind that when you have
someone who's working on aweekend day, that you don't want
them to get burned out byoverworking that day.
You know, I said it up top, butwe care a lot about working 40
(38:35):
quality hours a week and notoverworking that.
And if you had someone who'sworking on a Saturday who feels
that they have to have the inboxclear that is the main goal is
to always clear the inboxwhenever they're in it You're
going to end up working way morehours than the six to eight
that you have for that day, andso we try to be really
intentional about notoverworking on the weekends,
because then, if you know thatsomeone else cares about you not
(38:57):
overworking, you're much morelikely to be open to working on
a Saturday when you know thatyour boss doesn't want you to
work more than six hours.
In fact, they really don't wantyou to work more than six hours
, and so I think that's helpfulto make sure that everyone knows
that that's not the goal.
The goal is not for Cara to betied to her computer when she's
working on a Saturday or Sunday.
(39:18):
The goal is for Cara to beavailable to our customers who
need quick help on a Saturdaybut not to completely burn out
within two weeks because she'sworking 10-hour days on a
Saturday.
And then the last thing is totrust your team.
You know whether you have oneperson or five people doing
support after hours.
(39:38):
You always want to berespectful of their time.
We are all about being managersof one at Buzzsprout, and so
that applies to our weekendcoverage.
So when someone is working on aSaturday and they have that
certain number of hours thatthey can put in, they choose
when they are going to workthose hours.
Knowing the goals, knowing thepoint of the after hours
(40:00):
coverage, they can put thosehours where they need to put
them, based on their ownSaturday schedule.
You know, within reason Nowwe've talked about you don't
want to put all the hours at thebeginning of the day because if
you do that then anyone whowrites in after you're done
doesn't get any help.
And so there's finding thatbalance and trusting your team
to find that balance of when amI going to work versus when am I
(40:24):
going to detach from the inbox.
That's really important andsome of that, especially for new
hires, will take time to likelearn that balance.
But once they learn thatbalance, then as a leader, you
really want to step back andtrust them to manage that time
themselves.
Otherwise, they're going tofeel like they're being
micromanaged on a weekend, andso not only now do they have to
work the weekend time themselves, otherwise they're going to
feel like they're beingmicromanaged on a weekend, and
(40:45):
so not only now do they have towork the weekend by themselves,
they're also being told exactlywhen and how to do everything on
the weekend without having theflexibility of saying oh,
someone wants to go to brunch,you know what I can do an hour
of work now, go to brunch andthen come back into the hour,
because I have the freedom to dothat.
(41:15):
No-transcript.
After-hours support doesn'thave to be super overwhelming,
and you don't have to wait untilyou have a big team to offer
after-hours support.
So take the time, understandyour customers' needs, respect
your team members in the processand make small changes, because
those small changes can havehuge impacts on your customers'
happiness, success and loyalty.
(41:36):
Success and loyalty it's timefor Support in Real Life, our
segment where we discuss realsupport experiences from our
listeners.
So what do you have for us thisweek, jordan?
Jordan (41:48):
We have a message from Gwen that says Hello Priscilla.
Sometimes we have to denycustomer requests and I always
feel uncomfortable doing it.
What's the best way to say nowhile still maintaining a
positive relationship with thecustomer?
Priscilla (42:03):
That's a really good question and it's really tough
too.
Yeah, especially if you worklike a service like Buzzsprout
for a product that has theability to have people offer
feature requests and send overrecommendations and you welcome
those.
It can be really hard to figureout one if you're going to move
forward with a request or not,but then also just how to
(42:25):
communicate to a customerwhether you are going to do it
or not.
And if you're not, do you tellthem you're going to do it
anyway?
Do you tell them you're goingto pass it on anyway?
So it's hard.
I think that's a really goodquestion from Gwen.
The first thing I would say isbe as honest as you can be.
People really respecttransparency and so if the
(42:46):
answer is no, be honest andtransparent about that being the
answer.
I think it builds thatrelationship.
If someone recommends a featureand you know it's never going to
happen, to be honest with themand say, hey, I appreciate you
requesting this.
I can see the need for it.
Here's where we stand on it andkind of explaining that, and
(43:07):
it's almost like respecting themand treating them as an adult
and saying here's why that's notgoing to happen, here's why
we're not focused on that rightnow.
I think having that honesty isreally good.
There can be something reallybad about telling someone you'll
pass something along, knowingthat it's never going to happen,
and then having them check inon it months later and saying,
well, where is that thing that Irequested?
(43:28):
And now you have to tell them,oh, it's not going to happen.
But I told you I'd pass it on.
But now I'm kind of backedagainst a wall.
Jordan (43:34):
I think of someone like me who likes to be approved of,
and I really require theapproval of others.
It's so easy for me to slipinto that white lie of like, oh
that's such a great request, Iam totally going to pass that on
and you know, we'll add that tothe list.
And then, yeah, it sometimesdoes get you in hot water later
(43:55):
when they're like hey, did theysay anything about that?
Priscilla (43:59):
You're like, oh yikes , no, they didn't.
Right, yeah, and then you haveto tell them the truth later
anyway, so yeah, and then Ithink another important thing to
keep in mind is to identify theroot of the problem.
So people will often ask forfeature requests because they're
trying to solve a problem, andso you might not be able to give
(44:20):
them the feature requestthey're asking for, but you
might be able to identify whatthe root of their problem is,
that they're trying to solve,and you might come up with
different options to solve that.
So you might find a really greatworkaround, or you might find a
third party that offers whatthey're looking for that they
can use alongside your serviceto get a solution to the problem
(44:40):
they're running into.
And so, part of thattransparency, you know you can
respond and say, hey, we're notgoing to move forward with this
feature request exactly asyou've laid it out right now,
but can you tell me a little bitmore about what you're trying
to accomplish and what roadblockyou're running into, and I'd be
happy to come up with someother solutions that can solve
your problem.
That way you're really buildingthat relationship with your
(45:01):
customer while saying, no, I'mnot going to do this for you, or
this isn't something we'regoing to do.
Henry Ford, where he said youknow, if I listened to what?
Jordan (45:22):
people wanted I would be building a faster horse, you
know, instead of a car.
Priscilla (45:24):
People think that they know exactly how to solve a
solution, and part of our roleis to actually find the best
solution forward, and it mightnot be the same thing that
people are requesting, and so Ithink it's important to be
respectful of people, obviously,who are writing in and
requesting feature updates, andso we, as a team, want to be
(45:44):
respectful of their opinions, ofwhere they're coming from, of
their realities and help them asmuch as possible, but also be
honest with them if it's notsomething that's going to happen
, and not let them throw afeature request into an abyss
that never goes anywhere, butinstead be honest and
transparent about them, whetheryou're going to pass it on and
it might end up somewhere, or ifyou're not going to pass it on
(46:05):
because it's not something thatwe're going to focus on right
now.
Cara (46:08):
And, at the end of the day , as a support team, you're
trying to care for your customerand do what's best by them and,
unfortunately, if that meansthat what you're offering
doesn't fit their need and thatthey might need to look
elsewhere, it sounds like it's afailure because they you know
you may be losing a customer,but at the end of the day, the
goal is to support them.
So, being honest, that couldend up in a good recommendation,
(46:31):
like, yeah, buzzsprout wasn'tmy podcast host, but, man, they
sure directed me here and thatwas really helpful and it's a
win, even though you may havelost a customer and they may
come back if you add thatfeature later.
So that's just something toconsider about.
Being honest, don't just try toget somebody to stay by giving
a false hope that one day we'lldo what they're asking.
Priscilla (46:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's true.
I think that's really good.
I don't remember, was it?
I think it might have been onthat episode with Kevin?
We talked about how yourproduct isn't necessarily going
to be the best fit for everyperson who needs that solution,
and so you might have a customerthat says this is a deal
breaker for me.
I have to have this feature,you guys need to build it, or
I'm leaving, and you might saythat's not something that we're
(47:14):
focused on right now, and so Iwould be happy to help you find
someone who can get you what youneed, and it might be a
competitor.
And if you care about them as aperson which we've talked about
in our empathy episodes thatthat's so important when giving
remarkable customer support.
It might be that you go and youlook up some of your
(47:34):
competition and you find out whooffers that thing they need and
help them move to yourcompetition and maybe in the
future, when they realize theydidn't offers that thing they
need, and help them move to yourcompetition.
And maybe in the future, whenthey realize they didn't need
that thing and they go.
I'd really rather have thesupport from Buzzsprout, because
they cared about me enough toeven tell me that the
competition was the bettersolution.
If that's the thing I needed, Ithink that can be a really
powerful tool.
But of course, you don't wantto send all of your customers to
(48:00):
competition.
But I do think that when you'rereally caring about the
customers, sometimes the answerisn't going to be your product,
and that's OK.
Well, that was a great questionfrom Gwen, so thank you for
sending that in, gwen.
Remember to share your storiesor questions by emailing us at
happytohelp at buzzsproutcom orby using the text, the show link
in our episode description, andthose will both come directly
to us and we will choose one ofthose to share on our episode
(48:27):
next week.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to leave us a review and
follow us on Apple Podcasts oranywhere else where you listen
to podcasts, and find us onInstagram at happy to help pod.
Thanks again for joining ustoday, cara, and thank you to
everyone for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.
Welcome to Happy to Help.
A podcast about customersupport from the people at
Buzzsprout.
I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke.
Today we're talking aboutafter-hours support coverage.
We'll chat in-depth aboutafter-hours support, whether
it's important for you to offer,how to make the transition into
after-hours coverage and sometips on expanding your coverage
as a team.
Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into it.
(00:21):
As always, we are joined by ourpodcast producer, Jordan.
Hi.
A couple episodes ago we hadKevin Finn on to talk about the
evolution of Buzzsprout supportand during that conversation we
talked for a quick second aboutAfter Hours support and how we
started expanding our coverageinto After Hours support.
So I thought it was a greattime for us to kind of have a
(00:44):
full episode to talk about this,to dive into some of our
thought processes when we movedfrom standard working hour
support into after hour supportand then what that looked like
and some tips that we might havefor other small support teams
that are looking to expand thatcoverage.
Before we get into that, we dohave a special guest.
Cara Pacetti is joining ustoday.
(01:06):
She is one of the neweradditions to the Buzzsprout
support team.
She joined us about a year agoand she, like, hit the ground
running and has quickly become ahuge part of our team.
She has a background working ineducation and administration,
but everything she does, I think, kind of revolves around her
love for people, and that's likesuch a good quality to have
(01:26):
when you're working in support.
We've talked about it a bunch,but she just loves people.
Her job description in heremail signature is literal ray
of sunshine, which is when shestarts talking.
You will understand.
It is so, Cara, like she is aliteral ray of sunshine, and so
it's just so much fun.
All of our customers see thatthrough her emails, just how
(01:48):
positive and uplifting she is,and so she has had the
opportunity to do a lot of afterhours support for us over the
last year, and so I thoughtshe'd be a really great person
to come in and talk with usabout this, since she has a ton
of firsthand experience workingafter hours.
So thanks for being here, Cara.
Cara (02:05):
Well, thank you.
Wow, that was quite an introand I'm flattered.
I'm happy to be here.
Jordan (02:13):
I'm really excited.
I feel like our listeners aregoing to have a little bit of an
understanding of who you are,because I think this is the
third time we've mentioned youon this podcast.
Priscilla (02:21):
That's probably true, Like in different episodes.
Jordan (02:24):
So I think it's yeah, I think it's true, and so you know
, our listeners finally get toknow you a little bit.
Cara (02:30):
I'm so excited and, like Priscilla said, I do love people
and I love our podcasters andare happy to help listeners.
Priscilla (02:35):
So I'm excited.
Yeah, all right, before we jumpin, I want to float a question.
So at the end of every episodehere on Happy to Help, we
usually sign off with go andmake someone's day, and the idea
behind that is that, you know,in support we have the ability
to make someone's day better,and so we kind of want that to
be an encouragement.
You know, go into your workrecognizing that you have a
(02:58):
pretty cool opportunity to makesomeone's day better, and so I
thought it'd be cool to ask Carato share a time, maybe in the
last week, that someone's madeyour day.
Cara (03:07):
I think that's a great idea.
I actually have a really goodexample of this.
So we recently moved and we didnot have a mailbox because, as
Priscilla knows, where I live,we can't have mailboxes outside.
We have to have, like, alockbox at the end of our road,
and so the post office has toinstall that.
So here we are, we're movedinto our new home.
(03:27):
We requested them to add alockbox and it was taking months
and it was just a delay ontheir side, not quite sure what
was going on, but I ended upstopping a gentleman at the
lockboxes and his name was Joeand he works for USPS.
And his name was Joe and heworks for USPS.
Jordan (03:49):
He took complete ownership of my request and
worked on it for months.
Cara (03:51):
Like he would call me with updates and I was.
I mean, no one asked him to dothat.
That is not in his jobdescription to like make sure
you know.
He actually wasn't even afull-time USPS employee.
He just was brought in to helpand at one point he called me
and goes it's still not done.
But I just wanted to leave youwith one last update because I'm
no longer going to be there andwas like giving me an update.
And then recently this week hecalled and was like I'm back and
(04:15):
we got it and it's beinginstalled.
Jordan (04:16):
And now it is.
Cara (04:17):
That's amazing.
But the fact that he took suchownership in getting this
mailbox and it was completelyjust his like own ambition, like
his own it wasn't.
For me, it was just becausethat was the job, that he was
given the task, and he justwanted to see it through, and
that just totally made my day.
I mean, I just thought that wasso cool and like what cool work
ethic and I don't know.
(04:38):
Yeah, so go, joe, so happy,that's great.
And now I have a box.
That's such a good story.
It was awesome.
Priscilla (04:46):
I love that.
Well, thanks for sharing that,Cara.
I think you know it's reallyfun to focus on the positive
things, and so I encourageanyone who is listening, if you
think of like a story on yourend where someone made your day,
text the show and let us know alittle bit about that story,
and then maybe I'll share themon future episodes and encourage
all of us to be that positivityto other people too.
(05:06):
So let's jump into it.
After hours support people whoare listening to this, some of
you might be pumped about italready offering after hours
support, and this is reallyexciting for you.
And then I'm sure there aresome people who are listening to
this and are overwhelmed justby the idea of trying to offer
support outside of regularworking hours.
(05:27):
The good news is thatafter-hours support does not
have to be overwhelming.
It can be a small change or aseries of small changes that
have a big impact on yourcustomers, and so you know, I
thought we'd talk about todaywhere we were when we started
moving into after-hours support,and then some tips for people
who are considering thattransition and how to make those
(05:48):
after-hours the most effectivethat they can be.
So first I want to kind ofclarify what I'm talking about.
When I'm saying after-hourssupport, I'm not talking about
providing support 24-7.
I'm not talking about someonealways being available around
the clock type of a thing.
It's more the idea of havingthe ability to get in touch with
someone outside of traditionalworking hours, and so in the US
(06:12):
traditionally that's around 8 amto 5.30 pm on Monday through
Friday.
So when I'm talking aboutafter-hours support, I'm really
talking about kind of weekendhours and then Saturdays and
Sundays.
Jordan (06:23):
Yeah.
Priscilla (06:24):
But not like that 24 hour coverage thing.
So as we talk about this, Ijust want to be in the same
context for that.
That.
I'm not promoting that you hiresomeone to stay up all night
and be working all night.
That's not.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
So I think the first questionto ask yourself when you're
trying to decide if you're goingto do after hours support is do
(06:45):
your customers need it?
Is this something that yourproduct needs?
One thing Kevin talked about inthe episode a couple weeks ago
was when we were consideringafter hours support.
One of the reasons we ended upgoing forward with it was
because we have podcasters asour customers, and podcasting is
largely a hobby for people, andso a lot of times they're doing
(07:07):
it in addition to their workinghours, and so that means
they're working on it nights andthey're working on it during
the weekend, and so if we wantto be offering remarkable
support for our customers, weneed to be available when
they're working on it, and sothat's why it was clear to us
that we needed to move intohaving support coverage during
(07:27):
that time.
Now you might have a productwhere people aren't working on
it outside of the normal workinghours, and so it might not be
as imperative that you havesomeone covering Saturdays and
Sundays if people using yourproduct are only using it during
working hours.
Like if you have a timetracking product and people only
track their time during thework week, that kind of a thing.
(07:50):
Another thing that we consideredwhen we were thinking through
expanding our coverage was thisidea of missing a window of
opportunity for new customers.
So when we didn't have supporton Saturday and Sunday, someone
would write in on a Saturdaymorning with a question about
the product.
They weren't an existingcustomer and they wanted to
(08:12):
learn more, and they wouldn'tget a response back until Monday
, and so we would see prettyoften that we would come in on a
Monday morning and there wouldbe emails waiting for us about
the product.
We would respond and give themthe information they need, and
then they would respond and say,oh, we already went with
someone else, and we saw thatpretty often as we were leading
up to making this change andthat was one of the driving
(08:35):
factors was that we felt like wewere missing out on some great
opportunities when we didn'thave anyone covering those hours
.
So that's another thing tothink through.
Like, are your potentialcustomers reaching out during
those after hours?
And if they are, maybe you wantto be offering support at that
time so that you arecapitalizing on that and able to
(08:56):
, like get them the help theyneed so they don't go somewhere
else.
Cara (08:58):
We had a podcaster write in one time and it was a test,
like that's what they were doing, and they said whoever responds
first, or like if we get aresponse like, that's who we're
going with, and so sometimes youknow, admittedly that's what
they're doing and they're likeyou guys pass, we're going to go
with Buzzsprout.
So that was a win.
Priscilla (09:16):
Yeah that's definitely.
I feel like that happens whenpeople will be like either
they'll say it or they won't sayit.
Right, and they'll write in andthey'll say oh I'm curious
about this, I've also emailedtwo of your competitors.
First person to get back to mewins my business and you know it
makes it kind of fun.
Then you can kind of have funwith that response.
But yeah, definitely there arepeople that will kind of, as
they're weighing competitorssupport is a big factor.
Jordan (09:39):
I mean, that's probably where a little bit of like
market research comes in too.
Is you know, when are yourcompetitors doing support, like,
what are their support hours?
Are they doing 24, seven?
Yeah, are they, you know, doingtelephone service, things like
that?
So that could also help you indetermining if you want to, you
know, go a little bit above them.
Priscilla (09:58):
Yeah, I think it's an interesting aspect of it, like
looking at your competition todecide what you're going to do.
I think you kind of want toweigh it a little bit.
You know, it's good to knowwhat your competition is
offering and let that be afactor in your decision making,
maybe, but not drive it, becauseI think sometimes you'll look
at people and you'll say, oh,they're doing chat support, I
(10:19):
have to do chat support, butsometimes chat support isn't the
answer, and so you really doneed to kind of think about what
you value, what's important toyou, how you want to do it.
And knowing the competition,the landscape, that's really
good, but I don't know if thatshould be a driving force.
But it's definitely good toknow what's going on with your
competition and whether they'reavailable or not.
And if everyone is providingafter-hours support, then you
(10:40):
probably do want to be availableas well, or else you might end
up losing customers tocompetition, and that kind of
goes into this idea of yourexisting customers running into
roadblocks during the weekend.
One of the things that we findnow that we're doing after-hours
and weekend support that'sreally been a huge benefit to
(11:02):
our podcasters, our customers isthat when they run into an
issue that our podcasters, ourcustomers, is that when they run
into an issue that they can'tsolve on their own, they don't
have to wait until Monday to getan answer.
Because there's some issuesthat your customers will run
into that they can kind of getaround and it's nice to have an
answer, but they don't need it.
And then there's some issueswhere they can wait a little
while and it doesn't delay theirprogress, but those emails
(11:25):
where they've run into somethingand they're stuck, they can't
move past it.
We kind of refer to those asroadblocks.
They can't get past that.
There's nothing they can do.
Having the ability to supportthose people specifically on the
weekends they don't have towait until Monday is a huge,
huge benefit and really will setyour product apart, especially
if your competition is notproviding weekend support.
(11:46):
So that's another thing to keepin mind.
Cara (11:48):
And even in addition to the weekend, but the after hours
, so the evening hours, ifyou're a worldwide company.
I remember a podcaster wrote infrom Australia and I had
responded to her email.
You know, in normal timeworking the evening hours, and
she's like what, there'ssomebody there.
Oh, this is so nice.
Yeah, Well, can you help me.
And so that was a cool win,Like yeah, I'm here to help.
(12:09):
And she was excited.
Priscilla (12:12):
That's a really good point too is that especially if
you have a team like ours that's, for the most part, in the same
time zone.
We have one person outside ofthe East Coast time zone, but
everyone else really is in theEast Coast time zone, and it is
really something you don't thinkabout as much as you probably
should that you have customersthat are outside of your time
zone and you want to be surethat you're offering support to
(12:35):
them as well, and so you know wehave podcasters in Australia,
and I would assume I've neverbeen to Australia, I've never
lived in Australia, but I wouldassume that if you live in
Australia and you're workingwith a company based out of the
US, you're expecting always atleast a 24-hour turnaround, at a
bare minimum, and so being ableto give those people a quick
turnaround because you haveevening support or early morning
(12:59):
support, I think that can be ahuge benefit as well to your
podcasters and make them feelreally valued and cared for.
Like that woman who wrote infrom Australia, she probably
felt really great because shegot a response back from you
right away and felt like wecared enough about the people
that we have in Australia tomake sure that we are offering
support late into the evening.
(13:19):
So, yeah, I think that's athat's a really good point, Cara
.
Yeah, I think that's a reallygood point, Cara.
So let's talk a little bitabout the transition, then, from
regular hours support intoafter hours support.
And so if you didn't listen tothat episode with Kevin from a
couple weeks ago, I'll give youa quick rundown of kind of where
we were when we startedconsidering after hours support.
(13:41):
At the time, we had twofull-time support specialists on
the team.
That was it, and we weren't inthe process of hiring anyone new
, it was just the two of us.
But we knew that we wanted tohave some kind of a support
coverage on weekends, and weweren't really thinking about
evenings at first.
We were really just thinkingabout weekends, and so we were
trying to figure out how to makesmall changes that would give
(14:04):
us the ability to help thosepodcasters on the weekends.
Our approach to making thiswork was to use trial and error
to not overcommit ourselvesbefore we figured out how we
were going to do it, and then toprioritize focused hours of
work.
So at Buzzsprout, we caredeeply about working 40 hours a
week, and so it was never aquestion that we were going to
(14:27):
say, ok, now we're just going towork 43 hours a week so that we
can have some hours on theweekend.
That was never going to be thesolution and we weren't hiring
anyone new.
So we knew we kind of had 40hours for each of us and we
needed to figure out how to makethose 40 hours of focused work
work for our podcasters as wellon the weekends.
And so for us we decided, sincethere were two of us, to take
(14:51):
two hours during the week andput them on a weekend day.
So one person worked Saturday,one person worked Sunday and we
each had two hours to put inthat day and we kind of just
took them out of a day duringthe week.
So we'd get off at like 430that day, or whatever our
schedule looked like.
We'd work two seven hour days,basically.
And so that's how we started,just the tiniest change.
(15:13):
And you know we tried somedifferent strategies.
I think there was one timewhere Addie was the other person
doing support with us at thetime and she put in both of her
hours in the morning on Sundayso that she'd have the rest of
her Sunday off.
It was great because shecleared the inbox in the morning
, but we found that that didn'twork so great, because then the
people who wrote in after thatfirst two hours didn't get any
(15:37):
responses, didn't have anysupport for those people later,
and so we realized that thatwasn't the best strategy.
So then maybe we tried checkingin every little while and
looking for just those roadblockemails and new customers and
just focusing on them, and thathad benefit because people got
really fast responses.
But it didn't provide us theability to truly detach on a
(15:59):
weekend, and so we wereconstantly checking the inbox,
constantly feeling like ourcomputers had to be with us,
that kind of a thing, and sothat really didn't work for us
as well, and maybe it was greatfor the podcaster, but it didn't
help us with the balance in ourlife, and at the time there
were just two of us.
We were still working a five daywork week, and now we were
tacking on time on a Saturday orSunday, and so it really felt
(16:22):
like you were losing a Sunday ifyou were constantly checking
the inbox, and so that didn'twork out so well, and so what we
ended up doing that worked thebest for us was we'd put in one
hour in the late morning andthen one hour in the evening.
It was a happy middle.
It gave us the ability toanswer all those people that
came in overnight and in themorning and then jump back in in
(16:46):
the evening and answer anyonewho had come in during the day.
So that meant that some peoplehad to wait a couple hours
before they got a response maybefour hours but it allowed us
the ability to detach andactually have our weekend, and
so trial and error is justreally important when you're
trying these new things.
You're not going to get itperfectly off the bat and so
(17:06):
trying to figure out you know,testing different things.
For us it was pretty easybecause we had a small team so
we could be flexible and changethings up week to week, and it
took us a couple months reallyto get the swing of things and
to start seeing where thebenefit really was coming in for
our podcasters and then alsojust for the product itself.
Cara (17:26):
Yeah, you just got to go for it.
Gauge the need because you'llknow after a couple tries you
know if it's a big hit.
Priscilla (17:32):
Yeah, and it's important to check in too.
I mean, if you have a smallteam that's trying to figure out
what after-hours support lookslike, then checking in after
every weekend I mean Addie and Iwould check in with each other
each Monday and say, ok, how wasthe weekend?
Do you feel like you were ableto get a full weekend and relax?
Do you feel like you wereworking all weekend?
Like having those conversationsand checking in is really
(17:53):
important when you're doingtrial and error.
Another thing that we did in thebeginning was we didn't tell
our customers that we were goingto start playing around with
after hours support.
We just kind of started doingit and so we didn't want to
start setting expectationsbefore we knew how we were going
to meet them and so don't feellike you have to share that
(18:13):
right off the bat.
When you're trying to figureout what your after-hours
support is going to look like,you can just start doing it and
you know it's kind of like theunder-promising and
over-delivering strategy.
You know people were so excitedto get weekend support because
they were not expecting weekendsupport.
Even now I think on our helpform it says something along the
(18:34):
lines of fast replies 9 to 530Eastern and delightfully quick
responses all other times, orsomething like that all other
times or something like that, sothat there's not this huge
expectation that you're going toget a response right away.
But you know that you're goingto be happy with the response
time, no matter when you writein, and so there's no need to
over-promise or over-commit tothings until you're at a place
(18:56):
where you know where you want tobe.
And so, for us, it took us aboutthree months to figure out that
after hours was something thatwe really wanted to invest in,
and that's when we decided tobring another person on the team
to kind of help us withcovering that, and so that was.
Another thing to kind of thinkthrough is that you might end up
(19:16):
changing the structure of yourteam.
If you go and lean into afterhours support, you might see a
huge impact on new customerscoming to your product.
You might find that the generalhappiness of your customers
rises a ton just because theyhave the ability to get in touch
with you over the weekend, andso when that happens, just be
(19:37):
open to the possibility you mayhave to hire more people onto
your team to make it sustainable, but testing it out and getting
comfortable with it in thefirst place.
Those small steps can be donewith a small team, and so
there's no need to start big,hire new people before you even
have decided whether that'ssomething that you're going to
really invest in.
Cara (19:56):
Yeah, I think you guys were talking with Kevin on a
Happy to Help episode and he wastalking about customer success
and how we can be proactive inthat.
This is one of those ways, evenjust throwing that weekend
support out there, maybe on aminimal basis at first, but it's
just an easy way to helpproactively instead of react.
Yeah, so, yeah, I think that'sa great, great point.
Priscilla (20:18):
Yeah, that's very true.
Is that this, after our support, definitely falls into that
Podcaster success?
For us it's podcaster successbut customer success.
If that's what you're going forwith your support team, which
you know, hopefully if you'relistening to this podcast, then
you do care a ton about yourcustomer success.
So after-hours support is great.
So I want to transition alittle bit and talk about where
(20:42):
we are now with after hourscoverage, kind of how that's
changed in the last, I guesslike four or five years, since
we kind of started doing theafter hours support, and then
give you some tips on things tothink about when you're dipping
your toe into that.
Where we are right now, we haveweekend support.
We also offer evening supportnow, and so the way that works
(21:05):
is that the people who are noton weekend support are assigned
one evening a week so that wecan cover every evening during
the week, and that allows ourpodcasters like we were talking
about our podcaster in Australiait allows them the ability to
get in touch with us after hourson the weekdays, and so
(21:29):
basically, the way we do that isthat you have two hours to put
in during the evening and youcan figure out where you want to
put those in as long as theyhappen during the evening hours,
and so that's how we do it nowand it works pretty well for us.
It allows us the ability togive support to our customers
who really need it, but it isn'tso much coverage that we feel
like we're losing our ability tocheck out and unwind and not be
(21:50):
connected to work 24-7.
And so it's a good balance forus.
I just wanted to give you alittle bit of that context to
where we are now All right, sosome tips that I want to talk
through on running effectiveafter hours support coverage.
The first one is to betransparent during hiring.
So if you are looking to expandinto after hours coverage, or if
(22:12):
you're already doing afterhours coverage, like we are,
when you're hiring new people onyour team, there is nothing
more important than making surethat they understand that
they're going to be expected todo some after hours coverage.
You know there's nothing worsethan getting someone that you're
really excited about on theteam and then telling them OK,
you're going to be workingSaturdays for these months and
(22:35):
hearing, oh no, I can't do that,that's not going to work with
my schedule, and then having tomake the decision of well, are
they a hire now that we cancontinue working with, or is
this not going to work becauseof the scheduling?
And so we try to be very, very,very intentional about being
transparent with our new hiresabout what hours are going to be
(22:56):
looking like for them andwhat's expected for many new
hires.
I mean, Cara, when you werehired, I think you and I had a
full I don't know, I wouldn'tcall it an interview but we had
a separate conversation that wasjust about hours, because I was
nervous that I wasn't beingclear enough that hey, you're
going to be working weekends,you're going to be working some
nights, and I want to make surethat you're fully on board with
(23:18):
that before we continue movingdown this road 100%.
Cara (23:22):
I remember from the other side, the interviewee yeah, I
heard weekends and I looked atmy husband and he went uh, so I
think I asked Priscilla a lotand so that's just something to
consider.
You know, be completely honestwith the person you're hiring
and give them time to process it.
Like that's a hard interviewquestion, just to say this is it
(23:42):
Cause they might need to kindof look at their schedule and
just really put themselves inthat?
Like that's what I did.
I'm like, okay, I need toreally does this really fit?
And then they can come back andyou can have a little more
confidence with the hiringbecause you know, all right,
they they're ready, they, theyknow what is expected and
they're on board.
And so, yeah, that was a bigpart, yeah.
Priscilla (24:02):
Well, and one thing to keep in mind too you know,
when Cara came to us she camefrom working at a school and so
she was working a pretty I meanpretty traditional hours, maybe
a little bit skewed earlier, butyou know, monday through Friday
, there was no question ofworking on the weekends.
If you're hiring someone who'scoming from a nontraditional
support background, then beingreally upfront about those hours
(24:26):
is really important becauseit's going to be different than
what they're used to.
But you might be hiring someonethat has history or experience
working those crazy kind ofafter hours support.
For example, brian, who we hadon an episode earlier.
He came to us from Chick-fil-A.
We had on an episode earlier.
He came to us from Chick-fil-Aand when I told him about the
hours and had that conversationwith him about the hours, he was
(24:48):
like oh, that's great, becauseI usually start at 4 am with
Chick-fil-A, so I'm happy to notstart at 4 am and to just work
a couple hours on a Saturday,and so you know it's just.
You might have people that it'snot new and it's not going to
be a difficult transition, andthen you might have people that
really need to consider ifthat's going to work for their
lifestyle, because if it doesn'twork for them, the likelihood
(25:11):
that they're going to burn outquickly is high, and so you just
want to make sure that everyoneis aware of what's going on and
what's expected of them asthey're going into that job.
All right, the second tip I hadis to get new hires comfortable
with after-hour coverage early,throw it to the wolves.
Jordan (25:31):
Exactly.
Priscilla (25:32):
So at some point we're going to have an episode
about training and how we dotraining here, but I kind of
want to touch on it a minutejust because it has this
crossover with after hours,because our after hours strategy
is so tied up in our trainingstrategy too.
But typically when we havesomeone new come onto the team
they go through a trainingprocess and when they're done
with that they immediately getput on Saturday or Sunday
(25:55):
support and that can be scary.
Usually they've been on theteam for at least six weeks at
that point.
So they're pretty comfortablewith working in the inbox and
solo and they're familiar withour tone and they know our
communication goals and all ofthat is pretty good.
But they're still kind offinding their legs and so
putting them on Saturday supportcan feel a little nerve
(26:18):
wracking.
Cara laughing Intimidating, yeah, but it's so, so, so good
because it is such a good way tolearn.
When you are the personresponsible for the inbox.
It builds that confidence inyou and that problem-solving
muscle and that's such a bigpart of having remarkable
(26:39):
support is working with someonewho has that drive to figure out
what the problem is.
If you don't have that drive,then it's going to be really
hard for you to enjoy this work.
And so putting someone onweekend support, where they're
more or less on their own,forces them to figure out if
that problem solving is going tobe something that they enjoy or
(27:00):
if it's going to be somethingthat they just have a really
hard time with.
And so we always that's kind oflike.
In that first couple months youend up on weekend support.
So, Cara, let me ask you aquestion.
You started about a year agoand you went through the
training and then youimmediately went to Saturday
support coverage.
How did you feel in that firstmonth or so of doing Saturday
(27:23):
support?
Cara (27:24):
Okay, well, first shift terrified, but also I did feel
prepared.
I joke about being thrown tothe wolves, I mean I definitely
felt like I was given enoughinformation, I knew the
expectations and I also knewthat Priscilla was just one
phone call away if I were to getstuck.
And here at Buzzsprout wealways operate from a place of
(27:48):
calm and so you know, no issue,it can all be handled, it can
all be sorted, you know.
And so just to kind of rememberthat and keep that in
perspective.
But speaking to what you weresaying about problem solving,
like just imagine getting likeenough information to be
effective and then getting touse that skill right away and
like just putting that muscleinto work and like figuring it
(28:11):
out, and someone who's likecompetitive or like driven it
was not draining for me, it waslife-giving because it was yeah,
I was able to like a questionwould come in I'm like, oh gosh,
okay, I remember seeing thatand I mean I'm a little bit old
school and have my notes that Iwrote down.
But, either way, there's so manyresources and it was just fun
(28:31):
to problem solve and to kind ofknow, like when I report back to
Priscilla, or when she comesand checks on the inbox at the
end of this day, like she seesthe work that I put in.
Yeah, you're at the beginningand maybe you're doing it more
for your supervisor and you'renew and you're want to impress,
but it carries over, becauseeven now when podcasters write
in it's for them.
I'm like, okay, I don't knowthe answer to this, but let me,
(28:53):
let me figure this out for you.
Well, let's get this togetherand we'll figure this out and it
just it's very life-giving andsomething about being
independent and just owning theinbox.
Like this is my responsibility,this is on me, Let me do it.
And it's just such a goodtraining method.
But when she told me that I'dbe going to Saturdays in my
first six weeks.
I'm like what?
Priscilla (29:13):
It definitely can feel like you're being thrown to
the wolves, and so we try toset it up in a way that you know
that there's that lifeline.
I'm always going to beavailable during those first
several Saturdays and so you'renever going to really be on your
own.
But it does kind of push you tolean into that problem solving,
into that independence, intothat manager of one that we were
(29:34):
talking about with Marshall.
It really grows that muscle andstrengthens that part of what
we care so much about with newpeople on the team and with
everyone on the team.
So, without getting too muchmore into the training side of
things, that is part of how ourafter hours works is a lot of
times the person who's juststarted will end up doing some
(29:54):
of those after hours, and thenit really sets the tone for what
their expectations are goingforward and what kind of after
hours they're going to beoffering.
All right, so tip number threeis to share the load between the
team.
One of the great things about asupport team is that everyone
leans on each other and we havethis shared camaraderie.
(30:15):
When you have that, you're ableto offer better support for
people because you're able tolean on each other and bring in
different expertise, and so partof that applies to these after
hours support as well.
When we were first looking tohire a person on the team that
was going to help with afterhours support, we had a lot of
(30:36):
conversations about what theirschedule would look like and
whether they would do all theafter hours support and Addie
and I would stay on regularhours, or if it would be shared
more between the three of us,and ultimately we found that
when you share the load betweeneveryone, it helps bring the
team together and it feels a lotmore manageable than if you
(30:59):
have one person who's doing, youknow, every night and Saturdays
and Sundays One.
It makes their quality of lifeworse because they're working on
all of these weird hours, andit also disjoints them from the
team because they're not workingat the same time that the rest
of the team is working.
And so we have found a kind ofrotation method works really
(31:20):
well for our team and so for us.
What that looks like is we dokind of a quarterly rotation
situation, so every three monthswe rotate who's working the
weekends, we rotate who'sworking evenings, and that
allows us to have this sharedcarrying of the load and it also
helps not feel like the bottomof the totem pole are the people
(31:42):
that do weekend support,because you don't want that to
feel like that's the like bottomof the barrel hours.
You know the weekend support.
In some ways it can be reallybeneficial to work weekend
support because you get Fridaysoff and then you have your
Friday to get all your work done, and you also get some time on
Saturdays to get work done toobecause of the way we structure
(32:04):
those days.
Jordan (32:05):
How did you land on quarterly?
Priscilla (32:08):
So for a while the way we did it was we would put
the new hire on a weekend dayand they'd kind of stay there
until we needed to shift theschedule.
For you know, someone on theteam's schedule changed and it
was a little bit flowy and itchanged when it needed to change
.
But there was no real structurethere and we found that in some
cases what would happen is thatperson would be working a
(32:29):
Saturday for six to eight monthsand it was really difficult on
them and they were just takingit and we would kind of miss
that.
It was difficult on them and itjust, you know, kind of over
time it becomes harder andharder and so we found that
really three months is a goodamount of time.
It feels doable.
If you're put on a Saturday towork on a Saturday, you don't
(32:50):
feel like you're doing it forthe entire year, you don't feel
like it's this long.
Nice to be able to see okay,this will be done in three
months.
If I am not loving working, youknow, tuesday nights that's, I
know that it's only for threemonths and so I can kind of work
(33:11):
around, that it just helpsthey're I don't know they're
easier to chew if they're threemonth pieces.
Jordan (33:16):
And it's probably also easier on the person making the
schedule if they don't have tochange it like every week or
every month.
You know the schedule.
If they don't have to change itlike every week or every month,
you know.
Priscilla (33:24):
Like it's, but and there's also, you know it
doesn't offer any consistency ifit's changing every week or
every month.
Oh yeah, Because you can't planin advance.
If you know if you want to takea vacation in August and you're
not sure are you going to beworking Saturdays in August, or
are you going to be workingSundays, or are you going to be
working a Tuesday night, it justmakes it really difficult to
(33:47):
know.
And so, yeah, having threemonths really gives us the
ability to balance thatstructure without having these
like prolonged commitments ofafter hours for one single
person.
Cara (33:56):
And another thing regarding the schedule is
usually you like to havesomebody who isn't assigned a
Saturday.
That is kind of that fillerLike a lot of times it ends up
being you, Priscilla but kind ofhave that person that like,
okay, you can cover if aSaturday is needed to take off,
Because it's harder to fill aSaturday when there's only one
person working.
So that's something to keep inmind for people making that
(34:17):
transition into weekend supportwhen they're starting out.
Priscilla (34:21):
Yeah Well, and it's good too to think about.
Sometimes, when I'm talking topeople about what weekend
support looks like, they'll saydoes that mean I can never take
a Saturday off because I'mworking Saturdays?
Does that mean that I can'ttake PTO on those days?
And that's not the case.
You can take PTO on a Saturdayjust like you would on a Monday.
Now, if you put PTO everySaturday for your three-month
(34:43):
quarter, that would not be great, but you could take PTO on a
Saturday just like you would onany other day.
We, just like Cara was saying,we have typically it's me or we
have someone else on the teamwhose role moves around to fill
in those gaps when PTO is taken,and so that helps us to cover
that weekend support.
(35:05):
Pto is taken and so that helpsus to cover that weekend support
.
That kind of ties into my nextpoint, which is to lead by
example.
As a leader of a team that isdoing after hours support, it is
important that you are alsodoing after hours support.
I think there's probably it'svery frustrating to be on a team
where you're working onSaturdays or you're working in
the evenings and you know thesenior members of the team or
(35:26):
the leaders on the team aren'tdoing after hours support.
It can be very frustrating, canmake you feel like these hours
aren't important because I'mdoing them and the leaders
aren't doing them, and so Iwould recommend, if you're doing
after hours support for supportfor your support team as the
leader, make sure that you arealso covering some after-hours
(35:50):
support, and so that could looklike doing an evening during the
week, but it could also looklike being available to cover
Saturdays when people take PTO,or being available being the
on-call person when you have atrainee who's working on a
Saturday.
Cara (36:02):
Right, absolutely.
Priscilla (36:03):
I agree, all right.
So the next tip is tocommunicate your after hours
goals well to your team.
This one is really importantbecause you're not going to be
the one always doing the afterhours support, and so you need
to make sure that the whole teamis unified on what the goals
are for those hours.
And so that comes back to whydid you add them in the first
(36:25):
place?
Why did you expand to afterhours coverage in the first
place?
So for us, we expanded becausewe wanted to make sure that we
were getting back to thosepotential customers without
making them wait until Monday,and we wanted to make sure we
could clear the roadblocks forour existing podcasters when
they wrote to us and we're stuckand we didn't want to delay
their work.
And so those are the twobiggest parts of after hours
(36:48):
support.
And so when we're talking aboutwhat those goals are as a team,
it's really important to makesure that everyone who's doing
any kind of after hours supportunderstands that the goal is not
a clear inbox.
The goal is not workingstraight from 8 am until 10 pm.
The goal is to help those twovery specific types of customer
(37:11):
and then from there, if you havemore time that you're supposed
to be working.
Then you can move on to other,less quote unquote urgent emails
.
But your goal is not a clearinbox.
Your goal is to make sure thatthe people who need your help
are the ones who are getting iton a Saturday and the ones that
can wait until Monday becausethey don't have an urgent
(37:31):
question or they're curiousabout something.
But it's not you in as a leaderand putting an employee on
Saturday job.
Cara (37:39):
You've got to protect your mind.
You've got to protect your timeand take care of our customers.
Priscilla (38:07):
Yes, but also don't do a disservice to yourself and,
as a leader, you do a reallygood job at reminding and
something important to remindyour hires about Well, I think
that's important too, cara, tokeep in mind that when you have
someone who's working on aweekend day, that you don't want
them to get burned out byoverworking that day.
You know, I said it up top, butwe care a lot about working 40
(38:35):
quality hours a week and notoverworking that.
And if you had someone who'sworking on a Saturday who feels
that they have to have the inboxclear that is the main goal is
to always clear the inboxwhenever they're in it You're
going to end up working way morehours than the six to eight
that you have for that day, andso we try to be really
intentional about notoverworking on the weekends,
because then, if you know thatsomeone else cares about you not
(38:57):
overworking, you're much morelikely to be open to working on
a Saturday when you know thatyour boss doesn't want you to
work more than six hours.
In fact, they really don't wantyou to work more than six hours
, and so I think that's helpfulto make sure that everyone knows
that that's not the goal.
The goal is not for Cara to betied to her computer when she's
working on a Saturday or Sunday.
(39:18):
The goal is for Cara to beavailable to our customers who
need quick help on a Saturdaybut not to completely burn out
within two weeks because she'sworking 10-hour days on a
Saturday.
And then the last thing is totrust your team.
You know whether you have oneperson or five people doing
support after hours.
(39:38):
You always want to berespectful of their time.
We are all about being managersof one at Buzzsprout, and so
that applies to our weekendcoverage.
So when someone is working on aSaturday and they have that
certain number of hours thatthey can put in, they choose
when they are going to workthose hours.
Knowing the goals, knowing thepoint of the after hours
(40:00):
coverage, they can put thosehours where they need to put
them, based on their ownSaturday schedule.
You know, within reason Nowwe've talked about you don't
want to put all the hours at thebeginning of the day because if
you do that then anyone whowrites in after you're done
doesn't get any help.
And so there's finding thatbalance and trusting your team
to find that balance of when amI going to work versus when am I
(40:24):
going to detach from the inbox.
That's really important andsome of that, especially for new
hires, will take time to likelearn that balance.
But once they learn thatbalance, then as a leader, you
really want to step back andtrust them to manage that time
themselves.
Otherwise, they're going tofeel like they're being
micromanaged on a weekend, andso not only now do they have to
work the weekend time themselves, otherwise they're going to
feel like they're beingmicromanaged on a weekend, and
(40:45):
so not only now do they have towork the weekend by themselves,
they're also being told exactlywhen and how to do everything on
the weekend without having theflexibility of saying oh,
someone wants to go to brunch,you know what I can do an hour
of work now, go to brunch andthen come back into the hour,
because I have the freedom to dothat.
(41:15):
No-transcript.
After-hours support doesn'thave to be super overwhelming,
and you don't have to wait untilyou have a big team to offer
after-hours support.
So take the time, understandyour customers' needs, respect
your team members in the processand make small changes, because
those small changes can havehuge impacts on your customers'
happiness, success and loyalty.
(41:36):
Success and loyalty it's timefor Support in Real Life, our
segment where we discuss realsupport experiences from our
listeners.
So what do you have for us thisweek, jordan?
Jordan (41:48):
We have a message from Gwen that says Hello Priscilla.
Sometimes we have to denycustomer requests and I always
feel uncomfortable doing it.
What's the best way to say nowhile still maintaining a
positive relationship with thecustomer?
Priscilla (42:03):
That's a really good question and it's really tough
too.
Yeah, especially if you worklike a service like Buzzsprout
for a product that has theability to have people offer
feature requests and send overrecommendations and you welcome
those.
It can be really hard to figureout one if you're going to move
forward with a request or not,but then also just how to
(42:25):
communicate to a customerwhether you are going to do it
or not.
And if you're not, do you tellthem you're going to do it
anyway?
Do you tell them you're goingto pass it on anyway?
So it's hard.
I think that's a really goodquestion from Gwen.
The first thing I would say isbe as honest as you can be.
People really respecttransparency and so if the
(42:46):
answer is no, be honest andtransparent about that being the
answer.
I think it builds thatrelationship.
If someone recommends a featureand you know it's never going to
happen, to be honest with themand say, hey, I appreciate you
requesting this.
I can see the need for it.
Here's where we stand on it andkind of explaining that, and
(43:07):
it's almost like respecting themand treating them as an adult
and saying here's why that's notgoing to happen, here's why
we're not focused on that rightnow.
I think having that honesty isreally good.
There can be something reallybad about telling someone you'll
pass something along, knowingthat it's never going to happen,
and then having them check inon it months later and saying,
well, where is that thing that Irequested?
(43:28):
And now you have to tell them,oh, it's not going to happen.
But I told you I'd pass it on.
But now I'm kind of backedagainst a wall.
Jordan (43:34):
I think of someone like me who likes to be approved of,
and I really require theapproval of others.
It's so easy for me to slipinto that white lie of like, oh
that's such a great request, Iam totally going to pass that on
and you know, we'll add that tothe list.
And then, yeah, it sometimesdoes get you in hot water later
(43:55):
when they're like hey, did theysay anything about that?
Priscilla (43:59):
You're like, oh yikes , no, they didn't.
Right, yeah, and then you haveto tell them the truth later
anyway, so yeah, and then Ithink another important thing to
keep in mind is to identify theroot of the problem.
So people will often ask forfeature requests because they're
trying to solve a problem, andso you might not be able to give
(44:20):
them the feature requestthey're asking for, but you
might be able to identify whatthe root of their problem is,
that they're trying to solve,and you might come up with
different options to solve that.
So you might find a really greatworkaround, or you might find a
third party that offers whatthey're looking for that they
can use alongside your serviceto get a solution to the problem
(44:40):
they're running into.
And so, part of thattransparency, you know you can
respond and say, hey, we're notgoing to move forward with this
feature request exactly asyou've laid it out right now,
but can you tell me a little bitmore about what you're trying
to accomplish and what roadblockyou're running into, and I'd be
happy to come up with someother solutions that can solve
your problem.
That way you're really buildingthat relationship with your
(45:01):
customer while saying, no, I'mnot going to do this for you, or
this isn't something we'regoing to do.
Henry Ford, where he said youknow, if I listened to what?
Jordan (45:22):
people wanted I would be building a faster horse, you
know, instead of a car.
Priscilla (45:24):
People think that they know exactly how to solve a
solution, and part of our roleis to actually find the best
solution forward, and it mightnot be the same thing that
people are requesting, and so Ithink it's important to be
respectful of people, obviously,who are writing in and
requesting feature updates, andso we, as a team, want to be
(45:44):
respectful of their opinions, ofwhere they're coming from, of
their realities and help them asmuch as possible, but also be
honest with them if it's notsomething that's going to happen
, and not let them throw afeature request into an abyss
that never goes anywhere, butinstead be honest and
transparent about them, whetheryou're going to pass it on and
it might end up somewhere, or ifyou're not going to pass it on
(46:05):
because it's not something thatwe're going to focus on right
now.
Cara (46:08):
And, at the end of the day , as a support team, you're
trying to care for your customerand do what's best by them and,
unfortunately, if that meansthat what you're offering
doesn't fit their need and thatthey might need to look
elsewhere, it sounds like it's afailure because they you know
you may be losing a customer,but at the end of the day, the
goal is to support them.
So, being honest, that couldend up in a good recommendation,
(46:31):
like, yeah, buzzsprout wasn'tmy podcast host, but, man, they
sure directed me here and thatwas really helpful and it's a
win, even though you may havelost a customer and they may
come back if you add thatfeature later.
So that's just something toconsider about.
Being honest, don't just try toget somebody to stay by giving
a false hope that one day we'lldo what they're asking.
Priscilla (46:51):
Yeah, no, I think that's true.
I think that's really good.
I don't remember, was it?
I think it might have been onthat episode with Kevin?
We talked about how yourproduct isn't necessarily going
to be the best fit for everyperson who needs that solution,
and so you might have a customerthat says this is a deal
breaker for me.
I have to have this feature,you guys need to build it, or
I'm leaving, and you might saythat's not something that we're
(47:14):
focused on right now, and so Iwould be happy to help you find
someone who can get you what youneed, and it might be a
competitor.
And if you care about them as aperson which we've talked about
in our empathy episodes thatthat's so important when giving
remarkable customer support.
It might be that you go and youlook up some of your
(47:34):
competition and you find out whooffers that thing they need and
help them move to yourcompetition and maybe in the
future, when they realize theydidn't offers that thing they
need, and help them move to yourcompetition.
And maybe in the future, whenthey realize they didn't need
that thing and they go.
I'd really rather have thesupport from Buzzsprout, because
they cared about me enough toeven tell me that the
competition was the bettersolution.
If that's the thing I needed, Ithink that can be a really
powerful tool.
But of course, you don't wantto send all of your customers to
(48:00):
competition.
But I do think that when you'rereally caring about the
customers, sometimes the answerisn't going to be your product,
and that's OK.
Well, that was a great questionfrom Gwen, so thank you for
sending that in, gwen.
Remember to share your storiesor questions by emailing us at
happytohelp at buzzsproutcom orby using the text, the show link
in our episode description, andthose will both come directly
to us and we will choose one ofthose to share on our episode
(48:27):
next week.
If you enjoyed this episode, besure to leave us a review and
follow us on Apple Podcasts oranywhere else where you listen
to podcasts, and find us onInstagram at happy to help pod.
Thanks again for joining ustoday, cara, and thank you to
everyone for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.