If you like cat gifs, you're going to want to read on...
Kendall Burke and the team at Acuity Scheduling want to change people's mind about contacting Customer Support. While support interactions can, at times, be a downer, Kendall is working to make every interaction at Acuity human and fun.
And if achieving that happiness means sending a customer some vegan cookies, or cat gifs, then gosh darnit that's what the Acuity team will do, AND YOU CAN'T STOP THEM.
Since Kendall tweets to Olark on the reg, I thought it'd be fun to sit down and have a chat with her - a live chat, if you will - and learn more about what her days look like, how their distributed team is organized, and what the difference between Customer Support and Customer Happiness really is.
You can listen to my interview with Kendall here:
Key Takeaways:
- There are six team members on the Acuity Scheduling Customer Happiness team, and they all work remote. Kendall's work-from-home day starts when she transitions from her sleep onesie to her work onesie.
- Kendall spends approximately 2.5 hours helping customers on live chat, and approximately 4 hours answering support emails. After that she spends time working on other side projects, but nearly every hour of the day has some sort of customer interaction, which leaves her feeling #blessed.
[READ MORE: Want your own company to offer live chat? Learn how the top 10 best live chat software solutions compare in this article from Accu Web Hosting.]
- If you're a lean team, try to maintain coverage for the majority of your customers. Acuity has a teammmate in Scotland, some team in Chicago, and another teammate on the West Coast to cover the bulk of its customers' business hours.
- The Acuity Support stack is comprised of Olark Live Chat, Slack for internal communication, Helpscout for email, and (Olark customer) HelpJuice for storing and maintaining help center docs. They do not provide phone support.
- Kendall says loving your job is paramount. She's even presenting on this topic at Elevate Summit. People should find their soulmate job, and feel empowered to go out and get their dream job if the job they currently have isn't something they love.
- Whether you love your job or not, there is always something to be learned. In her previous role with a very "Corporate America" type company, Kendall says she learned how to be a good employee - to manage herself, and others, and how to have patience. Since coming to Acuity, she's had to relearn what it means to be human in dealing with customers.
- There are no macro responses at Acuity. Everyone takes time to inject a human tone and voice into customer interactions.
- When dealing with customers, especially unhappy customers, you don't have to apologize for everything. Don't be sorry for something that doesn't require being sorry for.
- The three most important traits for Customer Support pros are: 1.) Be Human; 2.) Be Confident; 3.) Be Creative.
- Be 'human' in how you interact with customers. Take time to ask them questions about their lives.
- Be 'confident' in what you know about your product and how you deliver answers to customers.
- Be 'creative' in how you respond to customers - find new and genuine ways to inject your personality, and your company's personality, into each interaction.
- The difference between Customer Support and Customer Happiness is how proactive you are in helping customers. Go beyond simply answerng the customer's question - take time to look at their account and see if they have something that could be improved on that will make their lives better in the future.
If you have more questions for Kendall, you can tweet to her at @AcuityKendall
Looking for online appointment scheduling software? Check out Acuity Scheduling.
