 Thank you everyone and welcome to our talk closing the gap in short We're basically here to tell you how to build a good reputation for customer support when support isn't your main role or your main job So just another little introduction, I'm Pam cokey I've been working at automatic for about two and a half years doing support there Before I worked at automatic I was with a large nonprofit and I've been blogging at the jammy calm Since about 2001 and I live in New Orleans and the mom of eight-year-old triplet boys And I am Erica. I don't have triplets, but I have a dog that he can see I've been at automatic for about five years now and like Pam I was working in nonprofit field before that and also writing so Kind of a mix of customer support in a way in my own kind of mix it up recipe And yeah, we're excited to be here today. This is our first time in Vienna So thank you So before we talk about how to provide great support, we just want to talk about how we do support at automatic So engineering happiness at wordpress.com it happens via three main channels email Public forums and live chat So our teams are divided based on the products So we have wordpress.com support jetpack support WooCommerce support and then the dot org premium services like a kismet involved press Another interesting Okay Another thing we do at automatic that's unique is support rotations So every non-support Automation starts by doing a three-week stint and support whether a developer a theme designer even accountants They all start with two days of training and then they're just they dive into support They do tickets and then in the third week they'll do live chat It's really great for them It helps them learn it ends out to the company and the culture of the company and most all gets to know our users Which is really valuable when they take it back to their Real job and turns out they usually love it or that's what they tell us anyway, so And then that's not the last time they do support Every year each team does a week of support and happiness as well to keep things fresh So why does great support matter? So you've created a plug-in or a theme a new website and your work doesn't end there So you think about all the time you've put into it I mean you want it to be Usable when it's done you've been brainstorming and coding and designing and all this work and now it's time for people real people to use your product and For them, this is just the beginning and for support it is for you too So to answer the question why does good support matter because of your customers? So if you're building a plug-in and it's for free and it's just in the plug-in Repository or if you're working with clients, it doesn't matter at the end of the day You want people to use your product so when people start using your product They're going to use it in ways maybe that you didn't envision or they will come up against a bug or some sort of Incompetibility and they're going to need help and if they reach out to you and the support is subpar or worse yet There's no support at all. You have to ask yourself. What's going to happen? So think back we live in a service oriented world So we've all had good customer support experiences and bad customer support experiences So of course if you can just think in your mind of your worst customer support experience I always think of calling my cell phone provider or internet service provider and just sitting on the phone and You're talking to the automated robot thing that never understands what you're saying And it takes like an hour to get nothing resolved In those circumstances a lot of people will leave you look for a different provider that will provide the service that you need And will help answer your questions and help you do what you need to do Now on the flip side of that We've all had a really great customer support experience and I'm sure it stands out because it seems kind of rare unfortunately In those cases, I think it helps build a sense of loyalty an example I love from the book exceptional service exceptional profit they talk about the Ritz Carlton hotel chain and how Customers who stayed with them they would note down their preferences. So each time that person stayed they would remember okay, this person always had an extra pillow or this person always wanted a late checkout and through that the customers realized that they weren't just a number they were meaningful and They were meaningful to the company and the custom the company valued them as a client and that's what builds loyalty and trust and helps you grow So how do you get in the right frame of mind for great support when you're when sports your background you've been doing support for a long time Like we do it's just instinctual. You just you know how to approach customers You know how to get in that right frame of mind But for people who aren't as used to doing support It's helpful to talk about how to get into the proper mindset for helping people with technology So we've come up with three ways to put yourself in the shoes of your clients and get into the right frame of Mind to really help people and get a sense for what they need So do a little audience participation by a show of hands How many of you either when you first got started or maybe maybe recently ran into an issue with a WordPress site that you didn't know How to fix no, but that is never so at some point you've probably Ran into something new you've turned to the forums to documentation for some help We've all been there, you know, you can only know so much as you learn So when you're working on your own support philosophy Remember that you made your product for a reason whether you started freelancing whether you made a theme There was a reason you got started why it was interesting wise why it was exciting for you And as you approach the questions that your customers come to you with try to keep that in mind Remember that they're trying to learn to and remember that feeling that you had when you learned how to overcome it So you can approach your customers with that same sense of curiosity and excitement and I think number two So I think a lot of us think of support as like kind of a call center where you're sitting at a desk nine to five And it's not very exciting and you're answering the same questions over and over But that doesn't have to be the case we can certainly say that that's not necessarily the case If you are a developer or any other role that's not directly involved in support all the time We encourage you to find what works best for you So consistently carve out time during your day that works well for you when you're going to come to your Customers questions and issues with a sense of curiosity and clarity Whether that's in the morning if you're a morning person or at night when you've finished your other work Just do so consistently and experiment with whatever works best for you. You don't have to be chained down in that sense and Lastly whether it's just you or if you're working with others make sure that everyone who's supporting your product is actually empowered to help I think If you were to go to the mall or something or a store and you need to return something you get in your car You bring the item you drive all the way to the store and you go up to the desk And you tell the person I need to return this if they were to tell you you went to the wrong spot Or you have to drive somewhere else or give like ten reasons for why you want to give it back You'd be frustrated because you already went out of your way. You're already unhappy It's the same when you're approaching your own customers You want everyone in your company to be able to help from start to finish So that might mean providing tools so they can debug certain issues or even just giving them the power to provide refunds or credits So that they don't have your customers don't have to be shuffled around in order to get one thing fixed And it's much more efficient that way as well So as Erica just mentioned get it so you mentioned how to get in the right frame set The right mindset to do great support as so How do you do that and we know you need to so we have seven tips that'll help you get on track and Make sport easy and painless doesn't have to be hard and help you build a reputation for excellent support, which is key So an example I like to start with is that when I first started at automatic I came across a ticket with a user who she was she had just activated a new theme on her site And it just wasn't displaying right and she had gone back and forth with a few of us happiness engineers trying to help out And we couldn't quite get to the root of the issue So the more we went back and forth the more frustrated she was getting which is understandable because she had an issue that we weren't resolving And at some point in her email history I just I had a hunch that she had resized her browser, but didn't know so I sent a screenshot of how to resize the browser She clicked on it She figured out how to do it and that solved everything and to us it was really simple We assumed that of course everyone would know how to resize their browser but for her it was completely new and for us at some point everyone in this room it was new at some point so we had made this Assumption and because we weren't stepping back to see what assumptions we might be making it took that much longer and she was frustrated so Bottom line be very generous with basic knowledge and try to meet your users at the level that they're at So that they can start with that solid foundation A Second thing you would want to answer the actual question that the user is asking you not the literal question Something we get a lot at WordPress comm is you'll get a user saying I want I want to put these links on my site So you think okay? I want to add a URL to their you know their post or whatever And then you go look at their site and they already have your you know links in their posts So they know how to do that Well, 99% of the time it means they want to create a menu a custom menu They just don't know the words or the you know terminology So before you you know just suit over a support doc for you know creating links read between the lines You know do ask cleric find questions if you have to if you can on live chat. That's really easy Look at their site if they don't have a menu set up, you know, you know, that's probably what they're asking And so as like Eric was saying think back to the time when you didn't know all the lingo and you didn't know all you know the things that we take for granted and That will make their a lot less frustrated Make the support interaction a lot smoother So along the same time same lines sometimes you get big questions Intentionally or unintentionally where it's like how do I add those links? Take the time to go above and beyond in every support interaction. So if it is a big question Go with the information that you have if it's how do I add those links? Offer information on how to add links to a post or a page and also offer information on how to create a custom menu Or maybe a widget based on the context But once you've done that so once you've given all the accurate information that you do have based on the information That is available to you think ahead to what you're going to need next as well So asking questions about what browser what browser are you using? Are you seeing an error message? So that way when the user replies you have all of that information ready and it cuts down on the back and forth Which again is going to make them happier And if you do find a truly tricky issue because we will always find bugs at some point give yourself enough time to work on it It's really easy to want to be optimistic and say I'll get back to you tomorrow I'll fix that up in a few hours But sometimes it just takes longer and don't put that pressure on yourself Set your expectations accordingly with your customers We like to say under promise and over deliver So if you tell someone it's going to take a week, but you get back in two days That's a much much different experience than saying it's going to take a day and then getting back to them in a week Next you want to respond promptly to your customers questions You know we we try to always answer questions in the order we get them You know when tickets and everything but sometimes there are issues that take priority So you want to consider a triaging issues you see coming in for WordPress comm support a lot will see issues in the public forums and Twitter first and Those are the issues that might be affecting thousands or even millions of users So those we have to handle immediately and we put those fires out And then we can go back to the users who are trying to add menus to their sites This is my general life advice to you We often ask for feedback at work. You know we always want to get better We always want to improve whether it's a side project that you're working on or if it's your main business it's important to always be improving and Your customers are essentially giving you feedback either for free or they may even be paying you for it So it's important to appreciate that and recognize that relationship for what it is and when someone asks for something It can be tempting to give a brush-off answer like you know, I'll pass your feedback along or maybe someday We'll add that to the roadmap. I'm not sure But that builds a poor expectation and you want to be consistently improving and building that trust with your customers in order to Have that wow customer support experience So it's important to find a system that works for you, especially if support isn't your main job If you're a developer or a designer, it's easy for those things to fall through the cracks because you're human So find what works and experiment and make sure you follow up on those issues and along the same lines If you can't pick something don't promise to It's your users are a human on the other side of the screen, too They're reasonable people if you're reasonable with them So it's important to be honest and respectful of them So again setting that foundation for trust and then once you say that's that's not really possible You're putting yourself in a position to help them find an alternative which again goes back to that great customer support experience Next you want to meet your users where they are so Are they on Twitter? Are they in the public forums? You need to know where they are and likewise they need to know where you are. So don't hide or anything you might For instance, it automatically had a bit jetpack beta group Actively reaching out to users to find out what they need and their opinions and influence the product cycle So they can have a direct result, you know with your product So don't hide from your users. Don't make it hard to find the help Your email address or your live chat link or whatever it is. However, you're gonna provide support be proactive and Another part about meeting your users where they are is not just physically meeting the where you are But you know using the language that they understand And again jumping off Pam's point of meeting your users where they are and finding out what works best for communicating with them Again in life, it's very easy to get stuck in your comfort zone And you know you've always done support via email or always done support via forums and that's what you're used to But that's not necessarily the best way to do it either for your customers or for you You might find that you like something else An example that I think not a lot of people know of at wordpress.com for a while a large part of our support is about domains expiring and We wanted to make sure that users weren't accidentally losing their custom domains that they had registered through us So we started calling them manually to let them know as a courtesy call that their domain was about to expire And we saw that we had a lot fewer domains that were lost people were renewing more so we were we we were able to Fix what we saw as a problem and then as we did that and the more we called people the more we realized that in 2016 or 2015 at the time no one really uses their phone for phone calls So we were primarily leaving voicemails, which meant that we were able to experiment with Automated voicemails, so we recorded a courtesy call that we sent out automatically and we found that it was about the same as when we called Manually versus automatically, so we switched to the automated one. So we were able to Try something new experiment analyze the data and iterate on that Which freed up more time for our happiness engineers to do other kinds of support and meet support needs in other areas as well So you can apply the same thing to your own work Whether you try Twitter for a week for support the forums for a week for support, whatever you think might work better and see how your users respond Along the same lines of getting out of your comfort zone It's some don't box yourself in if you have customers that who've been really loyal or you just really love working with them You could surprise them you can send them a handwritten thank you note or Credits or something like just some swag to kind of let them know that you really appreciate their business with you people in general very I think we're used to being loyal to brands like being a WordPress evangelist, but We don't really expect the same in return So you can always Kind of flip that around and really make an exceptional experience for any of your customers or clients All right, so what we want you to take out of the whole talk is if you don't do anything else respond to your users Just be there for them. It doesn't have to be perfect We know you have a lot going on just take a little time out of your day to help your users They'll appreciate it and you're gonna get great feedback in return and have fun because it is fun