The Importance of Finding Your Community with Sarah Hatter

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer
support from the people atBuzzsprout.
I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke.
Today's episode is all aboutfinding your community.
We'll talk about the importanceof finding a community in the
support industry and give youinformation on some upcoming
events that will help you growas a customer support
professional.
Thanks for joining us.
Let's get into it.

(00:20):
So I can already tell that thisis going to be a really fun
episode, Jordan, because we havea very special guest.
Sarah Hatter is joining ustoday.
She is the author of theCustomer Support Handbook and
the founder of Elevate CX, whichis a community for customer
experience leaders.
She has been a leading voice inthe customer experience

(00:42):
industry for over a decade andcontinues to pour her expertise
into improving the customer'sexperience across all industries
.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
So welcome to the podcast Sarah, thank you, that
is quite an intro.
It ages me, fills me with pride, but also reminds me.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
You are full of wisdom.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
How long have I been at this game right?
A really long time, it feelslike.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
It's so great, though , and I feel like we have like a
heavy hitter on the podcasttoday, so I'm very excited about
it, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah Well, I'm excited to be here because this
is my lifeblood.
This is what I do.
I want to connect people.
I want to use my time on thisearth to help people you know,
build great, long lastingrelationships, and I think we've
all noticed, at least in thepast four or five years, that
community is something you haveto work at.

(01:31):
It's something that you have tocultivate, finding your people
and finding spaces where you canconsistently meet new people,
build great relationships andthen rely on those relationships
, whether it's for getting a newjob or getting an endorsement.
That's so important and it's sohard to do in a very siloed
industry like customer supportis.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Yeah, I think that's so true.
So we always like to kick offeach episode by highlighting
someone who had a positiveimpact on our lives.
So, Sarah, how has someone madeyour day recently?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Man, I can't believe we're kicking off with this.
I am unprepared.
The very first person who'scoming to mind is truly Taylor
Swift, and that can't be right.
It can't be right, but it isright.
There are no wrong answers.
There are no wrong answers.
You know I'm not joking.
12 years ago, when I startedCoSupport, which is my boutique

(02:26):
consulting firm, I wrote a blogpost about Taylor Swift's
customer experience, and if youhave been around the Swifty
world for long enough, youremember Red, the Red tour, you
remember 1989, you remember,like how deeply invested she was
in her fan base and like all ofthe little things like the
studio sessions that she wouldinvite super fans like starting.
yeah, all of the little thingslike the, the studio sessions
that she would invite super fans, like starting Taylor Nation.

(02:48):
All of these things which sureit looks like marketing but it's
also understanding very, verylike purely the power of
community, the power of peoplewho are coming together over
like a common bond.
And I recently, I've recentlytransitioned one of my best
friends to being a Swifty whowas like he was never into her,

(03:11):
and now he's blasting Augustlike 24, seven and we watched
the Taylor Swift documentaryabout.
you know, scooter Braun, thatthat whole thing and it just
made me sit back and realizelike, wow, somebody has to make
the first move in building amovement right or momentum or
something.
Somebody has to be the one tosay I don't like how this is
going.
She didn't like how albums weremarketed, she didn't like how

(03:33):
tours were marketed.
She didn't like that.
You know, people didn't haveaccess to what she wanted them
to have access to.
So she built that.
And I just had this wholeconversation with my friend last
night after watching this abouthow that parallels so much
about what I see happening inthe Elevate community, where
once you find your people, onceyou find this commonality in
this space, the community itselfcan thrive in so many ways that

(03:57):
you never thought possible ornever thought that you intended
to.
And as I start to release moreand more control, like elevate
to the community and let themkind of run with things, I'm
really proud to see thathappening, seeing people step up
, seeing people want to be moreinvolved and take leadership and
not having to be the onlyperson to do that.
But that comes from a place ofa solid foundation in your

(04:19):
community, a place where you'relike I'm seen, I'm heard If I
speak up.
I won't be laughed at If I wantto take lead on something.
I'm not going to be abandonedhere, and it's amazing.
Like you know again, I was justTaylor Swift is a powerhouse.
She's a juggernaut, but so muchmore than just a pop queen.
Yeah, there's so much businessacumen there to learn, so I was

(04:40):
amped on thinking about hertoday because of that.
So that's what you get from me.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I think that's great.
I mean, if I'm being honest, aday doesn't go by that Taylor
Swift doesn't impact my lifepositively.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
So that's a perfect answer Great, Okay, I remember.
I think it was during her 1989years and I remember on social
media she was posting videos ofherself wrapping Christmas
presents for members of her fanclub.
Do you?
remember this I do, I do and Iremember being like, wow, she is

(05:12):
like the busiest person on theplanet and she is taking the
time to like, buy gifts and wrappresents for her listeners.
And I was just like man, thatis so meaningful.
She treated them like humans.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, and you want to becynical and be like, oh, it is
so meaningful.
She treated them like humans.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
yeah, and you want to be cynical and be like oh, it's
just, she's just doing thatbecause she's on twitter and
then, as soon as the video stops, someone else takes over, right
?
I don't think that's true?

Speaker 1 (05:33):
I don't think so either.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
She's too much of a perfectionist to let somebody
else wrap the present right andas we've all, learned, as we've
all learned from Taylor AllisonSwift jet lag is a, it's a
choice.
If you want to do thingsperfectly and well and show up,
then that's you're choosing todo those things.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, that's so great .
I could talk about Taylor Swiftall day, but I feel like we
should shift back to community,yes.
So before we jump into that,sarah, I want to learn a little
bit about you and how you foundyourself in the customer support
world and what has made youstick around Gosh.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
It's been a long long time In 20, gosh it's not.
I can't even use the 20 partbecause it was 2005 when.
I started working for a startupin the SaaS world, which was
still a very emerging.
You know, cloud-based softwarewas still very new in the early
2000s.
I was the only non-technicalemployee at this company.
I was doing customer supportand you know, over the years

(06:30):
we're charging hundreds ofthousands, if not a million
customers.
I'm the only support person.
I have no technical experience,I'm not a developer, I'm not a
designer and you know, you justfeel very isolated and very,
very undervalued and I alwaysfelt like.
You know maybe this is justinsight into what I think of

(06:51):
myself, but I always thoughtthat I was the most important
person at the company.
Right, I'm the only one, who's?
talking to customers all daylong.
I'm the only one who's gettinginsight into what they think
about features that arelaunching.
I'm the only one who's dealingwith refund requests and
nonprofit pricing requests andthings like that.
Everyone else is just kind ofin their silo building things.
So I started over the yearslike really feeling a sense that

(07:15):
I needed to speak up for myselfwhen it came to the idea of
customer support, and I neededto start by being explicitly
different than what people'sbaggage was about.
Customer support and that'severything from like the return
line at Walmart.
That's everything from like youknow when you dread having to
call Comcast or when you knowyou have to go to the DMV.

(07:37):
That's the baggage that we haveand that's what we call
customer service.
So that was my first thing wasthat I will refuse to be called
customer service.
I refuse to be called customerservice representative.
I am a customer supportprofessional.
I am doing a different breed, adifferent design of support for
our customers, and thatincluded things like really
pushing for client education,customer education the best

(08:00):
customer is an educated customer.
The most loyal customer is aneducated customer Doing videos
and FAQs and responding topeople after they've written us
and said there's a bug andsaying, great, we'll get to it,
and then saying, hey, we got toit, Right, and you think about
all of the stuff that's reallystandard.
Now.
It really wasn't back in 2005,let alone 2000s or whatever.

(08:30):
So in 2009, I was doing mydaily chore of clearing the
Gmail inbox and I got an emailfrom someone I replied to and he
brought me back and said thisis a really good reply.
And this might come off reallyweird, but I live in Australia
and I do your job in Australiafor a company that's like your
company, and I've never metsomebody who did my job before
and it was the spark that justlit everything on fire for me.

(08:52):
I was seen suddenly by my ownpeople.
Right, yeah, and I wrote himback.
We became friends.
That guy is Matt Patterson, whois now at Help Scout, who most
of us know in the CS world.
OK yeah, two years after thatevent, matt and I both ended up
at South by Southwest and we gottogether for some in person.
We sat at a little tiny tableat a coffee shop that was just

(09:14):
full of people.
I remember like Tony Hsieh fromZappos was like knocking his
backpack into me while I'msitting at this thing and
there's like you know, it's likeSouth by the olden days it was,
it was who's who, and Matt andI sat there for hours talking
about our job and writing downlike do you have a good answer
when someone asks you forfeature requests and do you have
a good script about how to tellpeople there's going to be

(09:34):
downtime?
And what do you do ifsomebody's mad that they forgot

(09:56):
to cancel their account for fiveyears?
Right, exactly, yeah, to do so.
I quit that job.
I started my consultancy, Iwrote the book, the Customer
Support Handbook, and I was onthe speaking circuit just going
all over the country at all ofthese tech conferences.
I was usually the only woman onstage, sometimes the only woman
on the audience.
People are talking about codeand people are talking about

(10:18):
this and like cognitive leakswhen it comes to your consumer,
and I'm like you should be nicerin emails, like you should be
happy and act happy and useexclamation points, and like
write better scripts.
And I was the oddball.
But I started to gain tractionwhere it mattered and that was
in these larger scale SaaScompanies like Atlassian and,

(10:40):
you know, automatic, who makesWordPress.
They started listening to meand giving me more of that
platform and then, by 2012,october 2012, I had this idea
let's get everybody who I'veever met, who does my job, in a
room and do a conference andwe'll do just one big show.
It was begging for people toshow up and 200 people showed up
and by the end of the day, itwas what are you going to do the

(11:01):
next one?
And that's just how things haveto start.
Somebody has to get out thereand say you know what?
This doesn't exist.
I think I'm the person to makeit happen.
I think I'm going to loop in abunch of people who are as weird
as me, who want to see ithappen.
If no one's going to listen tous, we're going to listen to
each other and we're going tolisten to each other until we're
loud enough that they can't notlisten to us and to see what

(11:25):
has happened since then in theworld of customer support not
taking the credit for it fully,but I think in our niche world
of tech, saas support you canlook at people like myself and
Matt Patterson and Mercer Smithand Andrew Rios and Erica
Clayton and say we have been theconsistent voice Ben McCormick,
don't wanna forget himConsistent voice for 10 plus
years.
We've not only been theconsistent voice Ben McCormick,
don't want to forget himConsistent voice for 10 plus
years.

(11:45):
We've not only been theconsistent voice, but now we're
raising up more voices andgiving more people that
opportunity that we didn't have.
And it's stunning to look backon like truly the rapid pace
that technology has grown, therapid pace that customer
experience has grown.
We've gone from customerservice to customer support to
customer experience.
Right, it's funny how it justgrows and grows, and grows.

(12:11):
It just grows and grows, butevery single one of those steps
is an indicator that we're moretrusted, that we're given more
authority, that we have a biggervoice, that we're now like a
bigger part of the overallstructure, of what makes a
customer-centric company, yeah,so, yeah, I mean it's been a
long ride.
That's it in a nutshell, andthen, of course, we'll probably
get into this more.
The most recent change in theElevate community is me stepping

(12:32):
back as being the full-time,100% solo leader and making it
community-owned andcommunity-led.
It's been a massive shift forus, but we're at a point where
that's appropriate and necessary, and if we want to continue to
raise up voices, then peoplelike me have to get out of the
way.
And I've built the stage, I'vepolished it up, and now it's
time for someone else to havesomething to say.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Well, I think you're clearlythe best person to come on and
talk about community and theimportance of community and
having one and finding yourcommunity, especially within
customer support, because, likeyou said, it is so siloed
especially depending on thecompany you're in, it can be,
you know, very siloed.
You're one single person doingit by yourself or you're in a
small team.
Yeah, it can be very lonely.

(13:13):
So can you tell me a little bitabout that first conference and
kind of how that experience was, meeting all these people in
person and having that kind ofcommunity for the first time?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah, it's nuts when you're in it, because I think
when you're in your 20s, I meanI was 28.
Was I 28 or 29?
Maybe 30?
I don't know.
I'm so old at this point now Ican't do the math.
You're filled with suchoptimism, right, and you're not

(13:47):
quite at the point in yourcareer, your age, where imposter
syndrome has taken over.
So you're just doing what youthink you should do and you just
have all the confidence in theworld, which I did, and I think
I was spurned on too by meetingpeople like Matt and Ben and
these people who were doing whatI was doing and mirroring my
passion and my energy.
That it makes it easier.
And so the second event that wedid six months after we did our

(14:07):
first event, we did another onein New York, and that was where
it really hit me.
This could be a thing, becausewe're selling tickets Now.
There's people from Uber andVimeo and Google Speaking and
all of the apps that I usePinterest, meetup they're on my
stage telling me about their job.
That's the moment that itreally clicks, like this isn't

(14:28):
just me and my friends hangingout in San Francisco.
This is an opportunity for usto get together, and we were
also really lucky, too, that atthat time, slack was becoming
more ubiquitous, so we juststarted a Slack community and
just put every attendee into ourSlack community.
No joke, didn't even ask forvision, just pulled them right
in, didn't even tell them, justcopied the email list and put

(14:52):
them in the Slack community andit starts with, you know, 300
people and then it starts with400 people and, you know,
sometimes it's really quiet inthere and sometimes you know
you're the one just kind of it'slike crickets and you're trying
to get information from people.
But the more and more and moreI think you continue to be
consistent with your voice andshow up and ask questions maybe
a question of the week orintroduce someone or talk about

(15:14):
the next event you're doing.
Slowly, people start to gainconfidence to participate and
also I mean this is a huge, hugereminder to anybody who's
looking to start a conferenceyou might be the person who
finally has the conference orthe community or the event that
people have been looking for,even if there's one already.
That's like topical right, yeah, right, there's lots of CX

(15:36):
communities out there.
There's lots of CX conferencesout there.
But what if you know if I'mworking at a SaaS company, an AI
startup, in Silicon Valley?
But what if you know if I'mworking at a SaaS company, an AI
startup in Silicon Valley, andI'm a team of two and we know
that we have funding on a rampto expand to a team of 10 in the
next two years.
I'm at a different place thansomeone who's like in CXPA, and
they're the head of globalcustomer experience for Samsung.

(15:59):
Exactly, right, yeah, these aredifferent spaces.
I'm even at a different placeof someone who's going to go to
the Disney Institute for trading, because those are typically
C-suite executives or people onthat track.
So that's where our niche camein.
Was that we were the underdog orthe underserved community, and
I think that's what works reallywell for us.
So, in starting a community,don't be afraid of competition.

(16:20):
Competition proves market valueand it proves need.
Don't be afraid.
Don't think that, oh, there'ssomeone else already doing that
because they may not be doing it.
Well, how many of us havejoined a community or a group on
Facebook and it's just dead.
It's just crickets and spam andadvertising and it's not
relevant, helpful info, right?
So think about what you want toaccomplish, think about who

(16:41):
you're trying to serve, what youneed and fill that need for
yourself.
That's truly what I did is Iwanted to bring together people
who were like me and who I couldlearn from, who I could teach
and who I could also grow with.
So that's always got to be theangle and I truly think that
when you do things with anauthentic self and with an
authentic motive, you're goingto be successful in whatever it

(17:04):
is.
But success looks different toeverybody, right?
Some people might say a300-person Slack channel of
people in the same professionwho are getting together weekly
is a massive success.
Some people might say anythingunder 10,000 is a waste of time.
So it just depends again onyour industry and who you're
trying to serve.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, we work in podcasting, and that's so much
of what we tell podcasters allthe time is.
You know you're measuring yourown success.
However, you're going tomeasure it, and just because
there's another podcast outthere that's similar to yours
doesn't mean that your podcastisn't going to be worthwhile for
who knows how many people, andso it shouldn't stop you from
running after what you want todo.
And if you run after it for acouple of years and then decide,

(17:43):
all right, I've done it, I'mgoing to step back, then that's
not a failure either, but youhave created something that has
really lasted a long time.
I mean, how have you seen theevent evolve over the last 12
years that you've been runningit?

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, this is such a good weird story I think about
all the time because sometimesit takes me.
I'm a little bit stubborn inhow I want to control events and
want to control the wholesystematic approach to events.
I will tell you, when westarted, we were doing massive
events.
We were doing 300 person events, 400 person events.

(18:22):
We did an event in Portlandthat was 450 people.
We've done an event that waseven more than that in San
Francisco, where we had twotracks and I was hosting both
tracks and I put the scheduletogether so that I would
announce one speaker in the CStrack and I would run around the
stage.
I would run like 200 feet tothe other room and announce the
next person in that likecustomer success track or
whatever it was at the time.
I don't remember.
Yeah, and that day I had a guycome up to me, jake Bartlett.

(18:46):
Jake and I go way, way backwhen, before I started the
conference, I used to host a CXbreakfast meetup in Chicago,
where I lived, and he used to goto this.
So this is like 2011.
He came to me and he'd been toevery event that I'd done at
this point maybe four or fiveevents and he was like yeah, you
know, I like the smaller events.
It's really hard to talk topeople at these big events.

(19:06):
There's someone here.
I didn't even know that theywere here until I saw that they
tweeted that they were here andthat's someone that I know, and
it started from there.
So this is probably 2014, 2015,which at that point, we'd done
seven or eight events already,where we just started whittling
down everything that we did andwe started doing smaller
locations.
We started capping our audience.

(19:31):
We moved from doing a one-daystructure where we'd have like
12, 15 speakers in one day, totwo days with the same amount of
speakers, so you have like waymore social time.
Oh yeah, and this is where it'shard for me, because, keep in
mind, when I was doing Elevateas a full-time job, this was
part of my salary.
A big chunk of my salary wasticket sales, sponsorship money
paid for our event fees and thenticket sales was on me.
So whatever I brought in after,that was how I got paid at the

(19:54):
end of the day, and so I wasalways kind of shifty about like
200 people.
That's not very many vacationsfor me to make, and so you start
to kind of get scared aboutthat.
But if the audience likes that,the audience is going to show
up and they're going to buythose 200 tickets right and the
sponsors are going to be happythat people are there.

(20:15):
They're going to fill the room.
But then the weird thinghappened.
After COVID, we come back in2022 to our first event and I
decide I'm going to do a smaller, an even smaller event, the
smallest event I've ever done,which is a hundred people, and
that includes everyone in theroom speakers, sponsors, I think
we.
I think we ended up about 112people.

(20:36):
Oh wow, my sponsors came backto me and told me how much they
like the smaller event and thatblew my mind yeah, I was telling
them like it's going to be lesspeople.
It's not going to be this hugeroom of leads, but I'll give you
the you know email addresses inadvance.
You can start to market to them, start setting up conversations
.
Multiple sponsors came back tome after that saying this is

(20:56):
like the sweet spot, this is thegood number, and I still have
those conversations.
It's the quality over thequantity.
No-transcript, it is.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
That's the point of it.
Right, I know, or meetingpeople Sounds like a retreat.
It is.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
That's the point of it.
Right, we kind of refer to itas like summer camp, because
it's very much structured aroundlike I'm going to get you in
the room with the right peopleand I'm going to give you tools
to interact, and our speakersare going to have 15 minutes on
stage to set a conversationtopic, and then we really want
you all to talk to each other.
We really want you all to meeteach other, to hire each other,

(21:50):
to come in and give talks withsomeone else's team right.
Or consult.
That's the point of thiscommunity.
The point is not staringdead-eyed at someone on stage
talking about the future of AI.
I don't care about the futureof AI, right Like I don't care.
And if I don't care, I'mguessing most people don't care
either.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Yeah, no offense, ai.
We've all gone to thoseconferences that are like four
days and they're jam packed with, you know, talks that are
really great, and then you gofrom one talk to the next, to
the next to the next.
By the end of the day you'rewiped.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
And so the social event that's at the end of the
day You're, and how is yourbrain going to retain anything?
How are you going?
to go back and be like oh, thatone talk I saw on Monday at 11
was okay, but it's too much forthe human brain and as customer
experience professionals, ourbrains are diluted with constant

(22:37):
interference and constantinterruption and constant
problem solving.
So you're getting a group of100 people together who already
have a lot of cognitive fatigueand they already are very burnt
out just physically because ofthe day-to-day job that they do.
If they're people managers ontop of managing CX experience,
they're white.

(22:57):
So our goal is to pour intothem.
Our goal is to show them thatthey're valuable and that
they're important.
But certainly not, you know,I'd never allow someone on stage
to talk for 30 minutes.
I'd never allow that, you know,because it's just going to put
people to sleep and we want themto be engaged enough to have,

(23:18):
you know, something to talkabout in an hour or so.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Yeah, One of the things I loved when I was
looking at the agenda for thiscoming up event is that there's
so much time to have community,but there's also I think you
mentioned somewhere in theagenda that there was like time
to go and check on your supportinbox, which is something that
when I was starting in support,I was the only person doing
support for Buzzsprout and Iwould go to these podcasting

(23:43):
conferences and be the person atthe booth, but then I had this
inbox that I needed to stay ontop of and it was so difficult,
and so I love the fact thatthere's time built in that you
can sneak away and help outwhatever you need to.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
You don't have to sneak away because, yeah, the
way that we structure the eventis it's single trap.
Everyone's in the same room,including our, our sponsors.
So it's a big hotel ballroomwith the stage at one end, round
tables in the middle and oursponsors are set up in the back
around the edge.
I chose round tables with acapacity about five to six
people each so you can sit therewith your computer if you need
to.
You can have it open.

(24:17):
You don't look like the weirdowho's doing work while people
are talking.
We all know that all of us are.
We can multitask, we can listenand learn at the same time right
, but it also the effect that atypical conference sitting in a
chair, theater style, has onyour body all day long adds to
your brain fatigue, and so if Ican give someone just the added

(24:40):
comfort of being able to rest ontheir arms or to rest on, you
know, put their hand on theirchin and kind of ease it up or
stretch, we're already 10%, 20%above what most people's
experiences are going to be at aregular conference.
I'm very anti-junk food, and sothat's another thing that I
kind of force on people is thatyou're going to have a beautiful

(25:01):
, big, healthy meal.
It's going to be plated.
You're going to have waiterservice taking it to your plate
and sitting down.
You're going to have salads.
You're going to have no sodas.
You're going to have, you know,good brain stuff.
We always have, you know, abasket on the table that has
granola bars and beef jerky andsnacks and mints for people to
keep them fueled, because youknow we're investing in people.

(25:21):
We want them to understand thatthat's amazing.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, that's so great .
And I'm a note taker, like Ilove to take notes.
But sitting at a table versussitting stadium seating, when
you're trying to take notes, itchanges the quality of my notes.
It does, and I will alwayschoose a table over sitting like
in a theater.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, and also like, think about theater seats or
think about anything that's likea lecture hall.
They're beautiful, they lookgreat in event photography, they
look phenomenal that big stage,that big screen.
So the more body comfort we cangive to people of all sizes and
all mobilities, the betterexperience they're going to have
.
And these are things that Ireally truly believe that most
event producers don't thinkabout until someone says it out

(26:02):
loud.
They don't think about it untilthey see somebody else doing it
and then they're like oh yeah,I should do that too.
I truly believe that there islike a hierarchy for events,
like there's good events andthen there's great events, and
we see in TV and on Instagramand on YouTube something like

(26:24):
Inbound from HubSpot, where allof the flash and money and
polish has gone on to stagedesign and celebrities.
But the true experience as anattendee is not great.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
It's not memorable.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
It's not thoughtful, it's not.
I don't feel seen and takencare of, I feel lost in the
crowd and I go home exhausted.
So if my whole job is to figureout ways for the exact opposite
experience, I want someone tocome in and be surprised at the
thoughtfulness and go homefeeling energized.
That's why our return rate isso high.
That's why we don't domarketing.

(26:56):
Never have done a Google ad inmy life.
That's why because thecommunity experience is so
strong that that's what we'vebuilt.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
Well, it's getting me so excited for this conference.
Yeah, I know it's your firsttime.
Yeah, it's my first one.
I've never gone before.
I've gone to one other customersupport conference years and
years ago, and so this will bethe first one for Elevate, which
I'm really, really excitedabout.
But I think that just theimportance of having these
communities is, I think it needsto be talked about more.

(27:26):
When I started doing supporteight years ago, I didn't know
anything really and I didn'thave anyone who I knew
personally who was doing support, and I had a really hard time
finding any kind of communityand really didn't find it until
I started hiring people for myteam.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
Really, Then you're sort of like building your own
core people.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah exactly Right.
And then we went to aconference and I started to kind
of get plugged in at that pointback in 2019.
But it really was like it feltvery lonely for a while there,
and so I'm so excited about thisone because we're sharing it
with the people who arelistening to this podcast, who I
guess that means they'vealready found somewhat of a
community because they'relistening to this podcast.

(28:08):
But the excitement of going heyguys, this is a community that
you can get plugged in right nowyes, like you can go online and
get plugged in right now andthere's going to be so much
benefit for you if you do that.
So I kind of want to talk aboutthe benefits of being in that
community a little bit, yeah,outside that.
So I kind of want to talk aboutthe benefits of being in that
community a little bit, yeah,outside of Elevate CX, just
finding the community in generaland we've talked about it a

(28:29):
little bit.
You know, in support you'reworking.
Most of the time you're doingsupport for a company that's in
a different industry.
So you're doing support in thisother world and you can feel
very siloed and especially youknow the size of the company
you're working for, or the typeof company or the type of
service you can feel differentlevels of siloed.

(28:51):
I think I'm lucky that I workin a situation where support is
very incorporated with thedecision-making process
throughout you know, the day,throughout the month.
But some people are not in thatsituation and they can feel
very siloed and so having thatcommunity is so, so important.
How do you feel like you'veseen Elevate CX kind of step in

(29:12):
and have that positive impact onpeople over the years?

Speaker 2 (29:16):
It's such a great question and I love what you're
referencing this idea.
There's a book by Richard Yates.
It's a book of short storiescalled Seven Types of Loneliness
, or Seven Kinds of Loneliness,and I always think about that
because the book is about all ofthese different people in
different situations, but theyall share this common loneliness
.
I am the only person here, andit's not that I'm alone in my

(29:39):
waking life.
It's that I feel unseen and aswe know also, you know, to be
loved is to be seen.
So, community and finding yourpeople this the very most
important human element, thething that drives humanity and
has since the Ice Ages, thecaveman days, is that we find
people we can be with to keep ussafe, to keep us well fed, to

(30:02):
keep our brains growing, to keepus warm at night.
Right, this is it.
That's the human experience.
So when you think aboutwork-related networking which
just makes me gag thinking aboutit, the only time I wish that
we had video on this podcast isyou can see my face when I say
the word networking.
But you think about things fromwhen we were kids, like the

(30:22):
Rotary Club or you know whatever.
We remember all that stuff, butthat's not how our generation
of employees and our generationof people really think about
community.
We are online beasts.
We are people who are seekingout communities in different
ways and we need anemployment-type driven type,
driven, industry drivencommunity to mimic that.
So online communities have anincredible opportunity to find

(30:46):
people in that space, whetherit's Slack or Discord or even
like Facebook groups, becausewe're already there, right, we
are already seeking that out.
What makes Elevate thrive is acouple of things.
One, we don't have a lot ofstructure around how the
community interacts with eachother.
There are like hundreds ofprivate channels.
I'm not even in in our Slackcommunity.

(31:08):
Like there's other stuff too,and I just tell people like,
yeah, like someone will come tome and say do you think that
people would want to do Dungeonsand Dragons through Elevate?
And I'm like I don't know, tryit and ask, see if it works.
And what do you know?
There's 25 people in thatchannel.
Right, you have to allow peopleto find what they need
organically and if it's notthere, let them build it, let
them run with it.
There's a lot of communitiesthat have people that are very.

(31:31):
They have a lot of structuredcontrol about who can speak and
who can post and who can join,and for us, the only requirement
is that you work in customerexperience, whatever that means,
because that's what we do.
I think the other thing that'sreally, like I said, made us
thrive is that we have anoversight committee of people
who have been in the last fewyears is resources for job loss.

(31:52):
We have a fund, the communityfund, where anybody can donate
to the community fund andanybody can ask for assistance
for the community fund, and wegive out cash $500 to people who
are looking for help.

(32:12):
The caveat is you have to payit forward in the community.
You have to go through, youknow, a coaching session with
someone who's going to go overyour resume or we've got to go
through join our jobs channeland be a part of that, but we
will still help you in that way.
We have a freelance andconsulting group now that meets
as a peer group on Zoom once amonth.
That is people who are in CXthat want to consult or have

(32:34):
lost their jobs and want tolearn how to fill that time, and
it's people like myself orJennifer Yoder, ashley Hazlett,
who are full-time consultantstelling people how to do it, how
to create a marketing funnel,how to create a, you know,
contract, those things.
The more resources you takefrom the community and feed it
back to the community, I thinkthe more engagement you're going
to get like hands down.

(32:54):
But you also can't be rigidabout what your community is
meant to be and how it'ssupposed to look.
There is one community that I'mendlessly fascinated with
because this is one of those.
Like if it were a country club,they wouldn't let me in kind of
situations Like you have totake tests on what like MPS
scoring.
Ok, I'm not joking, you have totake tests to prove that you

(33:18):
know industry knowledge.
You have to take tests to provethat you know industry
knowledge and if you don't passthe test, they offer to sell you
their test prep book.
That's created by theircommunity so that you can take
the test again and then get inRight.
And I'm just like no sure.
Sure For someone, sure, great,awesome, do it.
But for us it's more, like youknow, our job has brought us

(33:40):
together, but our community isbased around the people, the
people and their needs, and wesaw that especially during COVID
, having our community thriveand grow when people were going
through the worst time in recenthistory.
They're not sitting theretalking about their close rates
or first touch resolution.
They're talking about I'venever worked from home before.

(34:01):
What do I do?
That's the important thing isto let people have that space,
and I'll also allow yourcommunity members to step up and
I play hardball with people.
If there's someone who has beento one of my events three times,
I will walk over to them at thetable and say okay, next time's
your turn on stage, it's yourturn to talk.
Got to start giving back, andsometimes all they need is that

(34:23):
little bit of a nudge and forsomeone like me to say I'll
coach you, I'll help you withthe slides, I'll help you get up
there.
But everybody has to give back.
Everybody has to be in in thatconstant.
You know they have to have theconstant nudge of you can't just
be here and lurk or just absorb, right, you have to give back
to people.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Right, and I think you said something earlier about
you know, having the freedom toask questions and bounce things
off of people and not feelnervous for getting judged or
feeling like your questions aresilly.
That's something that in theearly years that I was doing
support.
If I had something like that, Ifeel like it would have helped
me to just grow that much faster.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Being able to bounce those ideas off of people 100%.
I look at the community thatyou have and some other online
communities that are in thatsame vein and it just makes me
so happy to see all these peoplethrowing out questions, getting
ideas back, because you don'thave to reinvent the wheel every
time.
You don't.
It can be inspiration fromsomeone else.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, when you start to talk about tool sets, for
instance, that's one of thebiggest areas of conversation on
Elevate, we have a wholechannel that's dedicated to
Zendesk.
We have a whole channel that'sdedicated to Codef, who's one of
our sponsors.
They build this awesome no-codeAI tool.
We have a whole channel that'sdedicated.
That's just.
I need help and people are intheir daily saying does anybody
know what this means in Zendesk?

(35:41):
Does anybody know how to dothis?
Or has anybody worked with aBPO before?
We're thinking of offshoringand then someone from Hire, a
Ratio, who's one of our sponsorsas a BPO.
They're like I can tell youanything you need to know.
How can I help you?
Right, and there's no judgment.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
There's no judgment.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, and there's no pressure, even from our sponsors
.
They're not there to sell,they're just there to support
the community.
We make that very clear andvery explicit, like this is not
a place for you to do quick wins.
This is a place for you to showyour investment in the community
by sharing your knowledge andsharing what your app can do,
and they abide by that becausethey respect the community right
?
I think that that's one of thehardest things about running a

(36:22):
community especially when yourmembers get into the thousands
is that the bigger the communityyou have, the fewer people are
going to introduce themselveswhen they join.
The fewer people are going toask a question, especially when
they're new.
The fewer people are going tosay did you guys see this cool
article?
Because there's weird shame andembarrassment about that.
Did you guys see this coolarticle?

(36:42):
Because there's weird shame andembarrassment about that.
And so my thing for our leadersand our oversight committee and
myself is that I always startthe conversation.
I encourage them to alwaysstart the conversation.
I encourage them to watch forthose people who are posting for
the first time and amp them upand DM them.
And we know, when you joinElevate you get a little greet
bot thing that says pleaseintroduce yourself.

(37:02):
And if that person has joinedand they haven't introduced
yourselves in a week, usuallythey get a DM from one of us
saying, hey, how's it goingRight?
So we're really encouraging theengagement and hoping to set
the tone that you can talk about.
You know, someone posted anInstagram today of like this
horrible tech conference eventthat was so embarrassing and
then we're just talking about it.
There's a music channel Talkabout Oasis coming back on.

(37:23):
Yeah, those things unfurl intoconversations about your work
life and what you need.
Help with Yep and thoserelationships that you build
through talking about dumb stuffonline.
Those are valuable when youneed a job.
Those are valuable when you'relooking to hire someone and
you're like I've tapped out ofevery resume, I need a job.
Those are valuable.
When you're looking to hiresomeone and you're like I've
tapped out of every resume, Ineed a direct hire fast.

(37:45):
So it's hard because youdefinitely like who wouldn't
want to just like have theRotary Club and people pay a
membership fee and they're veryeveryone's very proper and
everyone does their job right,like that's not how it happens.
That's not how communityorganically happens.
Community organically thrivesthrough humanity first.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah Well, and you know, earlier you were talking
about how you saw people askingquestions about how to work
remotely and during COVID itreally started to grow.
I think that that is such agood example of a question that
you really don't have a ton ofpeople to ask about that's.
You know, we all went remoteand for some people that was
very foreign, for some people itwasn't and they had worked

(38:24):
remote.
But for some people it was sodifferent and they didn't know
how to do it.
And being a developer andworking remotely is different
than being a supportprofessional and working
remotely.
And so you might ask adeveloper oh my gosh, like in
your own company, how do I workremotely?
What are some of the things youuse?

(38:44):
And some of that might beapplicable, but asking another
support professional how they'reworking remotely and what their
strategies are is going to bejust a completely different
experience.

Speaker 2 (38:49):
So this is a great segue into how our community has
transitioned since COVID, sincethe COVID times, because I am
very well known in the customerexperience world.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
I'm you know, someone the other day called me a
LinkedIn influencer and I had toshut the computer down and walk
away from it.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
I believe it though, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
I was just like what does that even mean?
That's your portfolio.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
I think I come up, I think, when someone's like
searching for CX professionalsor something like, I'm up there
and that's just.
I need to like reevaluate mylife choices, right.
But this is one of those areaswhere I was not equipped to be
the best source of truth.
I was not equipped to be thebest source of wisdom because I
haven't worked in an office in25 years.

(39:31):
I'm a consultant first and anevent planner second.
I don't have a staff.
I don't have a direct team ofpeople.
Certainly I don't have a directteam of people.
Certainly I don't have a directteam of ICs who are working for
their first company like theirfirst job and have just had
their world ripped out fromunder them and then they have to
show up to work every day as ifnothing's happening at home.

(39:52):
I didn't have that.
I don't have that experience,but people in my community did.
People in my community had theexperience of transitioning to
work from home before COVID andthey could, you know, step it
out.
People in my community wereintroverted I am not, I don't
have that wisdom right and sothey could step up and say
here's my experience.
We had an isolation channel, Ithink, during COVID, where I

(40:14):
just encouraged people likeshare your.
This is where we vent, this iswhere we cry, this is where we
support each other.
It's okay to talk about whateveryou need to talk about, and
from that we're seeing, thenconnections being made to people
who are taking stuff offlineand having their own meetups and
having their own Zoom calls orwhatever it would be.
Or specifically like doing aZoom call meetup where they talk

(40:35):
about transitioning your teamto work from home, right, so
that's, I can only be the expertas much as I have expertise.
Yeah, if I don't have expertise, I tell people this all the
time Like, when you think aboutbuilding a community, you have
to have the expertise that thecommunity needs, at least in
like the core of what you'redoing.
Right, I'm a CX professional,so I should be.

(40:56):
I'm, you know, that's what I dofor a living, that's what I've
done for a living, so I'mappropriate as a leader for a CS
community.
A developer or someone who's asoftware engineer is not an
appropriate leader for acustomer support community,
right?

Speaker 1 (41:10):
Nor is somebody who works at an oil rig, nor is
somebody Just like yeah, right,just like I wouldn't be able to
tell a developer how to writecode.
No.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
I can't tell you that you need to be thoughtful about
that.
It's like where am I investingmy time?
Is it in somebody who wastrying to make a buck off of me
taking their NPS test?
Or somebody who saw an openingto become a popular, you know,
event or community becausethey're a software developer?
And then they knew someperipheral CX people and decided
to do this Like no, that's not,that's not the best way to do
it.
So I think it's like reallyimportant that you create your

(41:44):
community around whatever it islike your interest or whatever
it is you do for a living, butyou also recognize that there
are other people who have thatwisdom and encourage them to
share it.
Encourage people to askquestions, but encourage others
to answer.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
And there's so much you know, humility and
authenticity in that too.
There's nothing worse thanlistening to someone talk to you
about something that you knowthat they don't know what
they're talking about andthey're talking as if they do,
and you're like I know this isnot your area of expertise.
And there's something soauthentic about asking someone a
question and them sayingactually, I don't know the best
strategy for that, but I knowthis person and they've gone

(42:18):
through that and they can walkyou through it.
That for that, but I know thisperson and they've gone through
that and they can walk youthrough it.
That's just so refreshing andit makes that bond so much
stronger between you and theperson.
And then the third personyou've brought in, yeah, and so
it just makes thoserelationships better in the end.
And you know, we, as supportprofessionals, spend so much of
our days pouring out andsupporting customers, and then

(42:39):
you turn around and, for somepeople, go home and make dinner
for the family.
For some people, you go homeand you're on your own or you go
to a social event, but youdon't get that same kind of
pouring into you that you'vebeen doing to other people.
And so having this community,especially when it comes to
customer support professionals,is so important, because then
you're getting that poured backinto you and you can feel that

(43:01):
support that you've been givingout.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I think it's profound that you point that out.
You know, one of the thingsthat I concern myself with a lot
when it comes to the world ofcustomer experience
professionals is the idea of theemotional labor that we put
into our jobs.
You know teachers,psychologists, people who work
in CX right, we have a deeplyemotionally invested job and to

(43:26):
say that we can just work foreight hours and close our
computer and run off into thesunset and be happy is a
falsehood.
It's never going to happen.
And to say that we have thinskin because we take that, you
know, we internalize things thatare going on with our products
or our customers reaction tothem.
I want to internalize what I'mdoing because I want to have

(43:47):
passion for what I'm doing.
I want to be invested in everysingle email that comes across
my desk.
I want to be invested ingetting the right answer to the
right person, monty Williams,who used to be the head of CX at
Away Luggage.
If you Google his name, you'llget an incredible article about
Away Luggage and why he left,because he was like this
environment is so toxic tocustomer service.
People like I will not be apart of it.

(44:08):
Yeah, he always talks to meabout how the importance is
trying to change one person'sday.
We have the power to do that incustomer experience.
Yeah, we have the power to dothat in multiple ways either in
preventing friction forconsumers, in creating an easy
in, easy out solution, inbecoming a product that's a
habitual part of their day.

(44:29):
If we're building software, wecan influence how that product
is built.
But if they have a problem or aquestion, and the way that we
respond to them, the timeliness,the information, the tone that
can alter somebody's day.
And if we think about it in thatterms, then the emotional labor
has an investment quality to it.
It's not just wasted, right.

(44:49):
And then we go back to ourfamilies.
We think about it in parallel,but we can also talk about our
work as I'm a fixer, I'm ahelper, I'm a wisdom sharer.
I'm a fixer, I'm a helper, I'ma wisdom sharer, I'm a giver,
and it really helps to soothesort of that burnout if you kind
of flip your perspective on it.
But we know this as supportpeople.

(45:09):
I know this as someone who runsa support community and is so
invested in people's emotional,intellectual well-being.
The people who need tounderstand it is our bosses and
our boards right and ourinvestors and our CEOs.
They need to understand thatwe're not transactional
employees who are just answeringa call, getting off a call.

(45:30):
Answering a call, getting off acall.
We're not just sitting theretagging emails under a certain
taxonomy and hoping that in ayear we fix the problem.
That's not who we are.
So you know, I think that thereare very few places for people
in our industry to feel seen andheard, to feel loved, to feel
respected and invested in.

(45:51):
That is my purpose on thisplanet.
I think I'm doing it okay.
You know, we're 14 years in.
Maybe there'll be another 14more, but if my goal at the end
of the day at every conference Ido, or every day, at the end of
every Slack day, if one personmessages me and said that they
had a wonderful time or theyfelt so good or they met someone

(46:12):
who helped them, that's it.
That's the point of it all.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Yeah, yeah, I remember those early, like
really months of starting workin this role, in a customer
service role, because at thetime it was customer service,
that's what you know, that's howI referred to it and people
would say, oh, what's your newjob?
I'd say, oh, customer service.
And then I always felt like Ineeded to say, well, but it's

(46:36):
kind of more elevated than that,it's like a tech company.
And you know we're sorry.
Yeah, right, and you just feelthis level of like.
Oh, I already know that peopleare going to look down on this
role.
Right, and I have felt verystrongly over the last several
years of changing the way thatpeople view customer support
within a company, how importantit is to the success of the

(46:59):
company.
And I mean I said earlier, weare lucky I am lucky to work for
a company that values customersupport and pours into it and
cares about customerrelationships and really is
customer focused.
But so many people who work incustomer support do not have
that experience and so coming toan event like Elevate, cx or

(47:20):
being part of the communityonline can have huge impacts on
the way that they see their ownwork, like you were talking
about, and like pouring intocustomers and having that, you
know I can make someone's daybetter Like that kind of impact
is important and gets me soexcited to like think about that
and people changing the waythey view their own work and
changing the way customerservice is viewed.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Exactly Like you have this experience so you know how
important it is for your directreports to feel that they are
being invested in, that you careabout them, that your
one-on-ones are consistent, thatthey're getting good knowledge.
I'm the same way.
I was at a startup, the onlycustomer experience person again
, the only non-technicalemployee who was told.
When we're talking about workand this stuff, I was always

(48:04):
told that your job's not apriority.
I was always told that that'snot a priority for us.
I was told when we decided todo Fridays off in the summer.
I'm the only person in theentire company that doesn't get
the Friday off because I have tobe there for customers and I'm
the one who has to tell acustomer on Friday morning
you're not going to get ananswer until Monday afternoon
because everybody's off for thesummer.

(48:25):
That would never happen.
Now, hopefully, because we'velearned from those mistakes.
We've learned the value ofsupport people.
At least I think we're tryingto.
I hope we are.
But, also because of people likeyou who had the experience of
not having that understanding.
Here's what I need to give tothe people who are coming up and
I think that, especially intech, we've lived in a very

(48:46):
engineer, developer,designer-centric world that in
the past let's say five years,especially since COVID people
are really re-understanding andre-imagining what nucleus of
their company should be centricright, we're seeing more and
more that it's customerexperience and that's including
marketing and product and peoplewho are actually answering
emails.

(49:06):
So that's a huge win.
Until you've been in it, youcan't prescribe the medicine for
it, but I think we have enoughpeople doing that now and
speaking up and enough peoplethat have been empowered through
Elevate and other conferencesand other communities that the
voices are strong.
So I'm very optimistic for thefuture of customer experience.
I'm very optimistic for theleadership that we have in this

(49:28):
industry and I'm excited to seewhat happens next.
What's the next bigbreakthrough?

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Yeah, so okay.
So the event is in Denver, it'scoming up, it's a month from
today, I think.

Speaker 2 (49:39):
It is, it is which is so exciting.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
No pressure.
For anyone listening, it'll bea little less than a month.
For anyone listening, it'll bea little less than a month.
But what can people expect fromthis conference?
Specifically, like, what kindof talks are going to be there?
If you're trying to sell it tosomeone who's trying to decide
whether to come or not, I'm theworst at selling things.

Speaker 2 (49:59):
Let's just be honest Like.
I just really am, so maybepeople can just reach out to me
or join our Slack to beconvinced.
But I will say not only are wedoing our Denver event at the
end of September, we're alsodoing a London event, so I'm
going to talk about both eventscoming up.
Denver is what we call ourflagship event.
We choose Denver because it'sequidistant to most people in
North America.
It's easy to get to.
We have a great relationshipwith the venue there.

(50:21):
This is two full days of talksthat are tactical, that are
purposeful.
We also, at the end of thefirst day this is the second
time we've done this Suneet Bhat, who used to be at Help, scout
and Boulder and now he'steaching at Rutgers University.
He leads a workshop about yourpersonal journey, your personal

(50:41):
happiness journey, your personalcontentedness journey.
This is one of those things forme where I say you know what?
Let's stop talking about CX fora minute and talk about the
people and the humans behind thework.
Yeah, so he leads this for us,this discussion for us.
We're super stoked about it.
We're doing peer groups on daytwo, in addition to, like I said
, all that curated social timeand our working brunches, yoga

(51:03):
in the morning.
Most of it is just meetingpeople in your industry, getting
to know each other.
There's no MPS scores allowed.
I really want to talk aboutpeople's personal experience in
the customer journey thatthey're creating.
So sometimes that's aboutpeople management.
So sometimes that's aboutpeople management and sometimes
that's about understanding thelimits and boundaries of empathy

(51:24):
that we give to customers.
If you go to elevate CXco andclick on the Denver link, you
actually will see all thespeakers, summaries of their
talks.
You can just click on theirnames.
So we're we're stoked about it.
We love bringing everyone toDenver.
We're also taking a big groupof people to Casa Bonita for
dinner.
So if you want to come, pleasecome.
But then our London event,which is the.

(51:46):
We haven't been to London since2019.
I'm stoked to get back toLondon.
I love the UK, I love visiting,so this is always an excuse for
me to go.
But because of our amazingsponsors, intercom and Horatio,
we are able to make this a freeevent and this is our very first
free event.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
I just saw that on the website and I was like what?
Yeah, no way.

Speaker 2 (52:06):
Yeah, we're very blessed.
We're very blessed by Intercomand Horatio.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
Lunch and drinks included.
That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (52:13):
Oh yeah, we feed people, don't worry, come on.
So this is the future of what Ithink our community and our
events are going to look like,especially, like I said, because
we're moving into beingcommunity led.
We can come to sponsors and saywe want to maximize the
experience that people have, andwe know that this is a very
underfunded market right now.
People just aren't paying forevents like they used to.

(52:35):
They don't have budget and theydon't have travel budget.
So if we can come to them andwe can make it accessible and we
can say, just show up at 10,you'll get a sandwich at noon, I
feel like it's going to be.
That's the future that I wantto see for people.
I never want people to not beable to go to an event because
their work won't pay for it,especially when I know how

(52:55):
impactful they are.
So, we are really working tomake as many of our events
subsidized or free as possible.
Our Denver event, codif ourpremier sponsor has been giving
away tickets.
They've been purchasing ticketsfor people and we have a few
more of those.
So if you are unable to pay foryour ticket and you really
wanna come, or if you're local,please reach out to us.
We can get you a seat, keepingin mind that the community is

(53:19):
also bearing the weight for that.
When somebody from thecommunity pays, that ticket
covers two people, so we areable to kind of like give away
more seats and get more peoplein the room.
You know, again, this isn't aprofit center for us.
This is not my full-time job orsalary.
So we have a lot of room tohelp our community grow and I'm
excited for that.
I'm really excited for London,because London is such a grab

(53:41):
bag when it comes to the word CX.
It means so many things topeople there.
But yeah, all of those talksare going to be thematic and get
about the customer journey.
We have a lot of locals.
We've got speakers fromIntercom, from PagerDuty, from
TuneCore lots of great attendeesalready.
So it's going to be fun.
We have fun stuff coming up andthen we hope in 2025, you know
we'll continue our virtualcontent.

(54:02):
We do masterclasses live everyother Friday on various topics.
Again, if you are someone whois in the CX world and you want
to get involved in that, joinour Slack.
Go to the website.
Join our Slack, join the fun.

Speaker 1 (54:13):
Yeah Well, that's what I was going to say.
For anyone who can't physicallyget out to one of these events.
What do you?
What kind of talk?
A little bit more about thoseonline resources that you have
for people to learn and growwhen they can't go in person.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Definitely part of our expansion when we pushed
into being community-led.
A big caveat for this was thatI cannot do all things by myself
anymore, and I certainly can'tdo them and stretch myself so
that I'm only giving 10% to eachthing.
If I want to give 80% tosomething or 60% to something, I
have to have everything elseoff my plate, and that was why

(54:48):
we never did virtual content inthe past.
Number one the other people aredoing it and they're doing it
great, right?
Well, that's also like my ownbad advice that I'm taking now.
The other thing was is yeah,it's limiting when people can't
travel to a big event andthey're missing out or, you know
, they just don't get that.
They don't get the sameexperience.
So we started doing these.
We call them masterclasses.

(55:08):
I hate the word webinar, sothat's the branded language I
use.
They are just hour longconversations about a topic with
an expert from our communityand it's all over thematically,
it's all over the place.
We just did one about fromKaren.
The CEO of Bullseye did a deepdive into resume rewriting to

(55:29):
you know accelerate your jobsearch.
Yeah, we've done one beforethat's about learning how to
enforce boundaries, create andenforce boundaries with your
customers and with your teams.
We've done one on peoplemanaging what makes a good
people manager?
If this is your first timemanaging, what are the basics
behind it?
So not just pure CXconversations.
It's really based on what we'reseeing in the community and

(55:50):
what our community members aresaying.
I want to come on and talkabout this specific subject so
that we are really really luckythat we have sponsors who are
helping us pull that off.
That's again every other Fridayat 11 am PST.
We just took a break for thesummer, but you can go to the
masterclass tag.
What is it called?
The link?
Yeah, the link on our websiteand you can see our past videos,

(56:12):
their evergreen content.
So we keep them up for anyoneto see.
You can see the schedule ofwhat's coming up next.
We are actually doing a live.
Anyone to see?
You can see the schedule ofwhat's coming up next.
We are actually doing a livemasterclass at our Denver event
and you know this is just partof the experiment.
Who knows?
So fun, who knows?
I think it's going to be great,but we're excited about it.
So, yeah, that's our virtualcontent.
Again, I mean, I hate to pushit, but join the community, join

(56:33):
our Slack channel.
You'll get updates and you getto participate as well.
There's no like leadershipboard that only they get to be
on stage or talk.
We really open it up to anybodywho has something freely that
they want to share, withoutjudgment, without shame.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Well, I'll push it for you.
I think you know it's so great.
I just am new to joining theSlack, I'm new to kind of
pushing myself into thiscommunity.
But even you know, in the lastcouple of months of starting to
interact and lurking a littlebit and commenting every now and
then, it's been reallyencouraging just to see the free
sharing of knowledge andinformation and support and

(57:07):
encouragement.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
It's invaluable.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
It really is, it really is.
It's so, so wonderful to see itand it makes me excited to get
my team in there and I, you knowI can't wait to go to the
conference later this month.
It's going to be a lot of funit's going to be great.
Do you have any tips for peoplewho are listening to this and
like really want to come?
Yeah, and you've alreadymentioned that they can reach
out to you about some freetickets but maybe there's not a

(57:30):
free ticket for them.
Do you have any tips for thosepeople about kind of selling
their bosses on the importanceof this?

Speaker 2 (57:40):
This is one of those areas again I'm ill-equipped,
right.
Yeah, there are so many peoplein our community, including
Mercer Smith, who's even wroteus like a manifesto about this,
like there's a document that youcan like sign and give to your
boss, saying here's what I need.
I think you need to reallystress the importance of what is
your boss's future plans foryour team and for what you do,
whether it's reducing touchpoints or whether it's reducing

(58:02):
first touch resolution orreducing, you know, whatever
friction amongst customers Does.
Your boss want to see you assomeone who grows in to have
this really great, definedrelationship with your product
team, where support is informingproduct versus the other way
around.
Those are things that you onlylearn through these kind of pool

(58:23):
set experiences and this is howyou access that wisdom and that
training.
There are things like theDisney Institute, right where I
talked about that.
I don't even know if they'rereally still doing that anymore,
but that is kind of like one ofthe only places that you can go
.
Or you can go to ZingermanAcademy in Michigan and talk
about how they do customerexperience with sandwiches, but
that's not really relevant tomost people, whereas this is

(58:45):
Using our masterclasses andusing the community is a great
way of proof of concept sayinglook at these people who are in
these stellar roles, these namesthat you recognize or that you
see on LinkedIn, that aresharing great stuff.
They came from the Elevatecommunity.
I want to be like that.
I want to learn how to push ourorganization forward and reduce
churn and increase retentionthrough support-driven growth,

(59:08):
those kinds of things.
But I have to learn the toolsto do that.
I have to be given expertise.
It's nothing that I can learnon the job.
We can hack our way through onthe job and we can ask questions
of the job from people, but youonly get direct experience and
direct knowledge from somebodyelse who's been there before, an
expert who's sharing that withyou, and I think that's the
number one thing, and I also I'm.

(59:29):
You know, maybe this is aradical opinion, but if your
boss isn't investing in thefuture of your employment, you
should find another boss.
Yeah, like truly every singleboss.
Fernando Duarte, who works forOdyssey, was on our masterclass
about people management and hehas the lowest churn rate of
employees I've ever heard.
It's something like in 20 yearshe's lost one employee to like
quit right Unbelievable.

(59:51):
And so I was like I need to getyou in front of a camera and a
microphone and you need to tellus how.
And it's so silly when youlisten to what he talks about.
Like, yeah, I invest in mypeople and I help them out and I
let them lead the one-on-onetimes and I find out what areas
in their career they want togrow and I support them when
they grow.
I support them going to classesand learning new skills.
That is invaluable for peopleto understand.

(01:00:13):
Like, that's the kind of boss Ineed.
That's the kind of manager Ineed, someone who advocates for
my growth, someone who advocatesfor this person wants to be a
manager.
Let's give them the tools howto do that.
So I think that's something tokeep in mind.
I know that the job world isscary right now.
I know that the employmentworld for CX people is also kind
of on a knife edge because wedon't know when AI is going to

(01:00:35):
fail and we're all going to getjobs again, right, we're kind of
waiting for that to happen.
We're waiting for the crash,but in the meantime, we still
have to do our jobs well andeffectively and we still have to
prove our value to our bosses.
So I just tell people, tellthem that you're looking for
wisdom.
Tell them that you're lookingfor expertise.
Tell them that this is a deepdive, two-day concentrated

(01:00:58):
opportunity for you to get thatdownload from like experienced
leaders in your industry.
Right, and you know, if youhave to like.
I always also encourage peopleto look up the prices for the
last conference your boss wentto.
Yeah, look up the prices forthe conference that your
developers go to every year.
RailsConf is like twenty twohundred bucks.
Yeah, if you work in e-com orD2C or if you're in that kind of

(01:01:21):
world, those conferences are$1,400, sometimes a pop, and
that's just to walk aroundbooths where people are selling
chewing gum.
So think about them over andunder.
We're offering you know, I dothis all the time with people.
I help them do the math Twonights at the Curtis Hotel in
Denver is $622, including tax.
I'll get you a free ticket.
Just show up.
We'll make it happen, Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Yeah, I think when you're talking about these
things too, it can be very itcan be hard to go to your bosses
and say, hey, I want to do this, I want you to pay for me to do
this.
It can be difficult to advocatefor yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
They should pay for you to do this.
They should pay for a $300conference ticket.
Something else is wrong withthat company.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
And I think so much of the gap there is knowledge is
they don't understand theimpact your role is having on
customers and how much of animpact this can have on you to
make that experience so muchbetter.
And so bring that information,explain it to your bosses how
much this is going to impact howyou do your job and how that is

(01:02:20):
going to impact your customersand the relationship you have
with your customers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Yeah, A few years ago we had a community member,
Stefan, who did a whole talk andwe actually ended up doing like
a webinar about it too, wherehe brought out the spreadsheet
that he had built.
That was a cost per ticketanalysis of how to quantify how
much every ticket that comesthrough costs us as a company.
That's with an all-in, fullyloaded staff, that's with all

(01:02:44):
the apps that we use, that'swith categorizing what type of
ticket it is.
And he did this by hand, andpeople in our community did that
by hand with his spreadsheettemplate for years until
Idiomatic came out and saidwe're going to automate this and
create an app for you to do thesame thing, Whether you're
doing it by hand or you're usinga tool like Idiomatic.
I really urge anybody to figureout the cost of tickets, because

(01:03:09):
you can take data to your bossand say if we want to make this
better and more efficient.
The answer is not a chatbotthat's got to make it worse.
The answer is equipping thepeople who answer these emails
and write our knowledge base andkeep our website up to date and
follow up with customers.
That's the answer.
The only way to do that is byyou know learning how to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
You got to be somewhere where you're learning
how to do it, being intentionalabout learning it, and community
is such a good way to do that.
Well, I really appreciate youcoming, sarah.
You know we've said it before,but it's so easy to get stuck in
that silo.
It's so easy, when you'reworking with people all day, to
get burned out of pouring intoother people, and so I hope that
people hear this and areencouraged to go join a

(01:03:51):
community or, if they're alreadyin a community, to plug
themselves in even more, andhopefully they'll reach out to
you and show up to the event inDenver and London.
I think that's just.
It's so great.

Speaker 2 (01:04:05):
So thank you so much for doing that and being here
and sharing all of that with ourlisteners.
Thank you.
This conversation went in wilddirections but yeah, that's what
we do.
That's I think it's great.
I really appreciate you takingthe time to focus on communities
as a service, if you will, assomething that's like essential
to who we are as people andespecially who we are as support
people.
It's my passion and it's alwaysgreat to meet more people who

(01:04:26):
understand it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Yep, and our goal is always to make the experience
more remarkable.
That is, with this show.
That is our goal.
Let's make the experience moreremarkable, and a way to do that
is by supporting the people whoare in control of molding the
experience Absolutely.
So now we're going to jump intoour support in real life
segment, and Sarah is going tostick around for that.

(01:04:52):
This is our segment where wediscuss real life support
experiences and questions.
So, jordan, what do you havefor us today?

Speaker 3 (01:04:56):
All right.
So we have a question that isfound on Reddit.
In my new job, I help the teamsupporting our customers about
technical issues.
Do you have any book advicethat could help me not only to
improve my writing, but alsowrite good emails to our
customers and be polite, directand clear?
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:14):
This is a good one.
This is a good question becauseI feel like Sarah is.
Oh, you literally wrote thehandbook on customer support.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
So I feel like I got to tell you yes, I were supposed
to write a follow up to thisbook and I didn't, and I should
have.
This book that I wrote in 2014feels so old.
It feels like an old, dustyspell book that people kind of
like have to like.
You know they shake off likecobwebs on it, but I am

(01:05:42):
astounded at how many peoplestill use this book as a
reference, and that's what it'smeant to be it's a reference
tool.
In the back of this book.
The last half of this book isall scripts and they're all
based on scenarios Like how do Irespond to someone who needs
this or what should I say, andit's examples, for here's three
examples.
If you're having downtime,here's three examples.
If you've made a mistake,here's three examples for

(01:06:03):
someone asking for refunds andhow you should handle that
scenario.
It is still applicable toanybody who's starting out in
this and just needs an extrasort of jumpstart.
Now, this was way back in theday when people were using Gmail
inboxes, right and like.
Now we have macros and now,like Help Scout will help, they
have an AI tool that will helpyou write your macros or write

(01:06:24):
your scripts.
I say, lean into that.
I also think that you need tothink about who your audience is
.
Mimic the tone that they areemailing you with right.
If it's a more buttoned down,conservative kind of audience,
like that is your core customer,that's your ICP then you should
be writing to them respectfullyand with as many links as

(01:06:45):
possible to your knowledge base.
Teach them how to do things sothat they're not asking you
questions.
If it's more casual, then bemore casual.
Be human, show your humanity.
One thing that people need tounderstand when they are
training teams who areemail-based particularly, or
text-based in any way, is thatall of us, as consumers, are

(01:07:05):
suspicious that we're nottalking to a person.
We are all suspicious and wedon't trust AI enough to give us
the correct answer or theanswer that we want.
We've got to prove that to them.
We've got to prove our humanity.
I had one of the best customerexperiences recently with Urban
Stems.
Oddly enough, their manager andhead of CX actually spoke at

(01:07:27):
one of our events a few yearsago, so I was really proud of
her team.
This was solved quickly.
They were friendly.
They were like fun, used theexclamation point in a couple of
times, did exactly what Ineeded to them in, I swear, like
30 seconds, wow.
So, but I knew it was a humanbeing.
I could tell it was a humanbeing talking to me.
It was not just a chat bot.

(01:07:47):
I think that's one of the mostimportant things is to use your
own voice, make sure that it'sappropriate for your audience,
but to not be afraid of soundingcasual or human or.
The other thing, too, is thatpeople are very afraid of like
redundancies and someone comingback and say, yeah, I need more
information, I need more help.
So make sure that you'reguiding them to the help center,

(01:08:08):
but don't be afraid to say letme know if you need anything
else.
Let me know if this answersyour question.
Don't be afraid if they comeback and say it didn't.
I need more help Like that'swhat we do, that's our job.
Yeah, that's what we're doingfor a living, right, yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
And I would say don't get so caught up in being
perfect when it comes to yourwriting and grammar and all of
that, because there's so muchhumanity in a misplaced comma.
There really is.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
And you know it's so funny I use grammarly.
I'm like ride or die forgrammarly.
Sometimes, I Grammarly stop.

Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
No, you don't know what I'm trying to say Exactly
Same thing.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
Stop making me sound like you know I'm a robot, Right
Exactly.
Or that I'm just like applyingto Oxford University and trying
to be like really buttoned down.
I'm not that person, Right theimportance is the clarity.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
That's the importance of the communication.
It's not always that thereisn't a comma splice, it's that
you're being clear and you'reeducating and you're talking at
a level that the person you'reworking with can understand.
And you know, we just recentlyon my team had a little writing
seminar where we talked throughsome writing techniques that we
can use to help with thatclarity, and so it may end up

(01:09:16):
being an episode on this podcastin the future.
But there's so much.
I think it's just different tothink about the idea that you're
not trying to be the mostperfect writer, you're not
applying to a college.
No, you're not trying to beperfect, you're trying to
communicate clearly.
That's the importance.

Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
And you're also representing the brand that
you're responding to, and soyou're representing the brand
truths in a lot of ways, or thebrand persona.
So if you have a marketingdepartment that has created
personas for your customers, youneed to get with them and say
this is not who's emailing us atall, like these are not the
people who are actual customers.

(01:09:52):
I know our customers better.
Don't be afraid to assert thatsort of leadership and those
rules Absolutely.
And also like, really thinkabout old school, old language
ways.
This is also in my book.
I'm very known for it the factthat I hate the word feedback.
I never use it.
I never use it in my daily life.
I think feedback, as you know,is that horrible retin sound

(01:10:12):
that microphones make whenthey're too close to a speaker.
We shouldn't be equating anycustomer's information that
they're sharing with us as thatword.
So think about ways that youcan splice in.
Instead of saying feedback, wesay thank you for your insight,
thanks for sharing with us,thanks for sharing your
experience, your perspective.
Your perspective is so valuablebecause that tells somebody that
you're listening to them.

(01:10:33):
Sorry for the inconvenience.
That is just a stock answer.
I'm really sorry this happened.
We're working on it.
I want you to know.
I'm really sorry about this.
Oh man, this is so frustrating.
Let me see what I can do yeah,yeah that's what you would say
if you ran into someone andspilled hot coffee on them.
That's what you would say, sorry, for the inconvenience, right,

(01:10:54):
right, you wouldn't do that.
No, that's ridiculous, right?
If I did something in personthat caused you to like just
your whole day is dead because Iunplugged something at the
Starbucks, that you're whereyou're working and you're like I
just lost all my work, I waslike, well, I'm sorry for the
inconvenience Like I would go,like I would be arrested for my

(01:11:16):
response to something like that.
So there's no reason for us tonot think about how would I do
this in real life, or how wouldI say this or what would I want
someone to say to me and that'sprobably the worst thing about
who I am as a person is that Iwill coach CS people like on the
phone all the time Kindly, notlike a Karen, but I will tell

(01:11:37):
people all the time like youknow, what I really wish you'd
say is dot, dot, dot.
Like that would be reallyhelpful for me, because
sometimes, again, this gets backto that If you don't know the
answer, you don't know theanswer until someone gives you
the answer or helps you along orhelps you understand, or gives
you that insight.
It changes things.
So, anyway, you can get my bookfor free If you come into our
community.
I'll give you the PDF.
Please don't spend $3 on it onAmazon, although people still do

(01:12:00):
.
I don't know why.
Another more recent book isMercer Smith's book CXOXO.
It's a whole book about lovingand understanding your customers
and their basic needs.
She has a lot of really greatexamples in there, and that just
came out this year, so it'scurrent, oh great.
Instead of being 10 years old,it's like much more current.
She's also a big member.
She's on our oversightcommittee and a member of our
Slack community, so she's alsoaccessible in there.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
I'm sensing that we need to start like a CS book
club here.
I've got a whole list of booksthat we're going to have in the
show notes.

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
We have a CS book club oh.

Speaker 1 (01:12:31):
I want to join it.
I want to join that book club.
We have a book club.
We're going to Mercer's bookright now, so I agree I love a
good book club.
Well, if you want to share aquestion with us, you can email
us at happy to help atbuzzbroutcom, or you can text
the show using the link in thedescription.
We'll pick one question everyepisode to discuss, and so if
you send in a question or astory, we might discuss it on a

(01:12:54):
future episode.
Sarah, is there anything elsethat you want to share about the
upcoming events where peoplecan buy tickets?
Anything like that, anythingmore.

Speaker 2 (01:13:02):
Just go to our website, elevatecxco.
You'll be able to find anythingthat you need, like I said,
from our past master classes toour future events to buy tickets
.
To get in touch with us I getevery email that comes in.
I check them.
You'll always hear back from me.
There's a link to join ourSlack community, which is gated
because, again, we are justqualifying that people work in

(01:13:23):
CX and they follow our code ofconduct as well.
But I think, yeah, I can justencourage people to join us and
to start poking around in SlackLike you have, priscilla.
You start to see theconversations unfold and you
start to see that you know thisis a really fun place with, like
, really engaging people whowant to be helpful for others.
Yeah, I think that's the thingthat we can say, as all humans

(01:13:45):
like, just seek out the helpfulpeople.
The more that we do that, themore we shine a light on the
people who are helping and thepeople who are sharing wisdom
freely and are really trying tolift others up.
I think we we take away thespotlight on people who are
lifting the ladder up behindthem.
That's what we need less of andwe need less attention given to
those types of people.
We need more attention given topeople who are in the trenches

(01:14:08):
with you wiping your brow, youknow, and making sure you've had
enough water today, and I thinkthat's really what Elevate is
trying to do.

Speaker 1 (01:14:16):
That's just such a wonderful note to end on.
So thank you so much again,sarah, for being here.
Thank you, and thank you toeveryone for listening.
Now go and make someone's day.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Importance of Finding Your Community with Sarah Hatter

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The Importance of Finding Your Community with Sarah Hatter

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