Hiring for Tech Skills and Human Skills

WEBVTT 1 00:00:06.140 --> 00:00:09.360 if it's right for the customer. If it's right for the team and if it's right 2 00:00:09.360 --> 00:00:13.950 for the company, do it. You don't need to ask questions. You're perfectly 3 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:20.090 empowered. You're able to do that thing if you want to create and deliver 4 00:00:20.090 --> 00:00:24.690 better experiences for your customers, and you should thing you want to make 5 00:00:24.690 --> 00:00:28.990 sure that your customer facing employees in particular have soft 6 00:00:28.990 --> 00:00:33.360 skills, human skills, the ability to connect, communicate, empathize, 7 00:00:33.370 --> 00:00:39.340 Theobald ity, above all, to make your customers feel like they matter. But if 8 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:43.510 you've got a complex sale or a technical product or service, you're in 9 00:00:43.510 --> 00:00:48.450 a bit of a pinch. How do you balance those text skills with the human skills? 10 00:00:48.460 --> 00:00:53.270 My name is Ethan Butte, host of the Sea X. Siri's here on B two b Growth, host 11 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:57.770 of the customer experience podcast and co author of the book Re Humanize Your 12 00:00:57.770 --> 00:01:02.570 Business. My guest in this conversation today, Rick Myers of Lin Owed has 13 00:01:02.570 --> 00:01:06.870 solved this problem with an internal training program. He's got tons of 14 00:01:06.870 --> 00:01:11.370 great tips, and I know you'll enjoy them. Here's the conversation with Rick 15 00:01:11.940 --> 00:01:18.700 Theo. Good news. Your customer base is growing fast faster than your hiring 16 00:01:18.700 --> 00:01:23.500 into your customer support team. The not so good news all of these new 17 00:01:23.500 --> 00:01:27.780 customers still needs some support and self service support Options aren't 18 00:01:27.780 --> 00:01:32.920 much slowing down the ticket. Q Plus your customers are highly technical, so 19 00:01:32.920 --> 00:01:37.720 hiring and ramping people to support them can be a challenge. And one of 20 00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:43.010 your competitors is Amazon, so the entire customer experience must be 21 00:01:43.010 --> 00:01:47.520 excellent. Today's guest faced this problem, and he's here to share with us 22 00:01:47.530 --> 00:01:52.470 his solution. He spent nearly a decade with Lynn Owed, the largest independent 23 00:01:52.480 --> 00:01:56.480 open cloud provider. They make cloud computing simple, affordable and 24 00:01:56.480 --> 00:02:00.880 accessible toe everyone toe, help foster innovation and to help people 25 00:02:00.880 --> 00:02:04.880 build cool stuff. My favorite thing about his tenure with Lynn owed is that 26 00:02:04.880 --> 00:02:09.110 he spent it in six different roles, progressing from a frontline customer 27 00:02:09.110 --> 00:02:13.900 support specialist to currently vice president of customer support and 28 00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:18.660 customer success. Rick Myers. Welcome to the customer experience podcast. 29 00:02:19.140 --> 00:02:22.580 Thanks to you. Thanks for having me. It's really exciting. Yeah, I'm really 30 00:02:22.580 --> 00:02:26.340 excited to get into your story before we do it. We're recording this in mid 31 00:02:26.340 --> 00:02:29.900 May. It's not gonna release until sometime in the summer, but I'm in 32 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:33.990 Colorado. You're in Philadelphia. What's the situation there with regard 33 00:02:33.990 --> 00:02:37.840 to the coronavirus pandemic? How's it affecting you or your team or your 34 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:42.520 customers? Just kind of Give me a quick pass on what's going on for you. Sure, 35 00:02:42.530 --> 00:02:47.450 we're already partially remote. So from a place perspective and from a remote 36 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:51.400 working from home perspective, that hasn't been too much of a change for us. 37 00:02:51.410 --> 00:02:55.370 We just kind of transitioned into complete work from home. There's been 38 00:02:55.370 --> 00:03:00.500 challenges around that, I think mostly kind of socially or just not being able 39 00:03:00.500 --> 00:03:04.530 to see people and that's happening in your personal life is well, so it z 40 00:03:04.530 --> 00:03:08.610 even harder what you wouldn't get from working in the office. You would 41 00:03:08.610 --> 00:03:11.680 usually get with your friends with your family, and you're not getting that 42 00:03:11.690 --> 00:03:16.730 either. So e think it's tough, but I think that there's a lot of positivity 43 00:03:16.730 --> 00:03:21.500 coming out of it, too. In terms of making sure that your colleagues, your 44 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:25.220 friends, your family are doing well and kind of checking in on people a little 45 00:03:25.220 --> 00:03:29.140 bit more often and making more of an effort which has been nice for our 46 00:03:29.140 --> 00:03:33.830 customers. That kind of runs the gamut. Some people are seeing kind of a boost 47 00:03:33.830 --> 00:03:37.690 and what they need because we provide infrastructure for people some people 48 00:03:37.690 --> 00:03:40.540 need with some more infrastructure, and some people are getting hit. Heart 49 00:03:40.550 --> 00:03:46.000 still kind of depends on what you're doing. Overall, it's just very weird. 50 00:03:46.010 --> 00:03:50.640 It's very strange, and I think the easiest or the most healthy thing, at 51 00:03:50.640 --> 00:03:56.140 least for me, is just to take one day at a time, try to stay off news or or 52 00:03:56.150 --> 00:04:00.490 lewd. The amount of news is that you're watching really, really good call. 53 00:04:00.490 --> 00:04:04.150 Thank you for sharing that, and I agree. Tap the bottom with it. We just did a 54 00:04:04.150 --> 00:04:08.250 survey of our team members that bomb bomb, and they're like 78% of people 55 00:04:08.250 --> 00:04:12.580 gave it the most favorable rating, like they love working from home. But the in 56 00:04:12.580 --> 00:04:15.810 the verbatim feedback, the themes are exactly what you talked about. But I 57 00:04:15.810 --> 00:04:19.170 had not thought about, you know, we all miss our team members. We missed the 58 00:04:19.170 --> 00:04:23.020 spontaneous conversations that kind of in the hallway stuff or like the, you 59 00:04:23.020 --> 00:04:26.570 know, conversations you didn't plan in your day that just make it either more 60 00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:30.670 fun or you get a new insight or these kinds of things that we all miss. I had 61 00:04:30.670 --> 00:04:33.870 not thought about the complicating factor of less exposure. Of course, the 62 00:04:33.880 --> 00:04:38.410 other people who could potentially fill that need for you and like you are 63 00:04:38.410 --> 00:04:41.800 customers are of all kinds, and they're all affected differently. Some of them 64 00:04:41.800 --> 00:04:45.650 are doing better than before. Some are doing worse than before. And so anyway, 65 00:04:45.650 --> 00:04:49.390 thank you for sharing that. What? When I say customer experience to you, Rick, 66 00:04:49.400 --> 00:04:52.170 what comes to mind? What do you think about when you think about customer 67 00:04:52.170 --> 00:04:56.950 experience? I think that's a really good question, and it's almost 68 00:04:56.960 --> 00:05:01.280 indefensible. But when something's been defined herbal, I think that sometimes 69 00:05:01.280 --> 00:05:04.720 it helps to frame that. It's like a feeling on. I think that that kind of 70 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:09.770 sums it up. Your customer experience is kind of a feeling that customers have 71 00:05:09.780 --> 00:05:13.500 when they're interacting with you or when they're just thinking about you 72 00:05:13.500 --> 00:05:18.570 are considering you. I think that experience and they're feeling comes 73 00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:26.170 down generally to how easy or or or pleasant it is to deal with your 74 00:05:26.170 --> 00:05:31.270 company and easy an effort are kind of the same thing to me. So one thing that 75 00:05:31.270 --> 00:05:35.620 we focus on a lot of winnowed is his customer effort. We measure customer 76 00:05:35.620 --> 00:05:40.120 effort. That's that's how we measure our interactions with our customer base. 77 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:44.760 That makes a lot of sense to us. People are more likely to have a good 78 00:05:44.760 --> 00:05:51.870 experience and be more likely toe want to reach out and become promoters. If 79 00:05:52.540 --> 00:05:56.650 when they have a problem or or they need something or they need to find 80 00:05:56.650 --> 00:06:03.010 something, it's easy for them. That effort is very low on. I think that the 81 00:06:03.020 --> 00:06:08.800 one of the other neat parts about measuring effort, or it is, is that it 82 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:14.520 works everywhere in the customer life cycle, from presales to purchasing toe, 83 00:06:14.530 --> 00:06:19.850 on boarding, using the product, getting support, there's there's things you can 84 00:06:19.850 --> 00:06:25.430 do in every part of that that help lower customer effort and create more 85 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:31.150 effortless experiences. So when I think about customer experience, it zits 86 00:06:31.150 --> 00:06:36.500 really about how easy it is thio. Use or consume your product or your support 87 00:06:36.510 --> 00:06:42.150 for your companies. Your companies offerings love it at the two layers. 88 00:06:42.150 --> 00:06:46.100 They're they're super super critical and they've both been themes. That's 89 00:06:46.100 --> 00:06:48.940 why I always like asking people from different disciplines. The same 90 00:06:48.940 --> 00:06:54.460 question is ah frictionless or ease, and then the feeling like that. The 91 00:06:54.460 --> 00:06:59.060 experience itself leaves you with a feeling on. That is the foundation for 92 00:06:59.060 --> 00:07:02.570 all the things that that happened from there. Do I? How do I think about it? 93 00:07:02.740 --> 00:07:06.550 What decision do I repurchased? Do I renew? Do I expand? Do I refer all 94 00:07:06.550 --> 00:07:09.290 those other things that all starts with the feeling that you leave people with 95 00:07:09.290 --> 00:07:14.560 So one observation there Talk about measuring effort. How do you measure 96 00:07:14.560 --> 00:07:20.260 effort? Yeah, we use a customer effort. Score, which is sort of a competitor, 97 00:07:20.260 --> 00:07:27.400 or sometimes a used side by side with MPs or C sat just is a measure of just 98 00:07:27.400 --> 00:07:32.070 another customer satisfaction metrics. So the way that we do that with 99 00:07:32.140 --> 00:07:35.890 customer effort is just surveying customers after interaction and 100 00:07:35.900 --> 00:07:41.520 literally asking the question How how easy was it to solve your problem? And 101 00:07:41.530 --> 00:07:45.580 I think the problem with every customer satisfaction methodology is is the 102 00:07:45.580 --> 00:07:49.810 question. So some of them better than others, some of them better than others 103 00:07:49.810 --> 00:07:54.400 just in design, like MPs asking whether or not you prefer ah friend or a 104 00:07:54.400 --> 00:07:57.780 colleague to use the service or customer effort, asking how easy it 105 00:07:57.780 --> 00:08:03.780 really depends on someone literally answering that question, as opposed to 106 00:08:03.790 --> 00:08:07.830 the maybe the default feeling where I just wanna answer how happy I am right 107 00:08:07.830 --> 00:08:12.580 now. So it's really important that that actual question gets answered to be 108 00:08:12.580 --> 00:08:18.130 able to measure it. And when you dig into the comments when you dig into the 109 00:08:18.130 --> 00:08:21.960 ticket that it came from the phone call that came from, you can kind of get and 110 00:08:22.040 --> 00:08:26.270 you can kind of get a feeling of like, Okay, this this was really answering a 111 00:08:26.280 --> 00:08:31.170 question of effort. Or maybe it was just more like, I'm I'm upset or angry 112 00:08:31.170 --> 00:08:35.200 or what have you? Something that may or may not be within your control, but 113 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:39.309 yeah, surveying through tickets that air closed, we also side by side 114 00:08:39.320 --> 00:08:43.169 measure C sat, and we do that. We do that for a different reason. We use 115 00:08:43.169 --> 00:08:48.440 that for it. Each update and that ticket so we can identify issues early 116 00:08:48.450 --> 00:08:53.920 in a conversation and kind of intervene and right the ship before the tickets 117 00:08:53.920 --> 00:08:58.620 close so the phone call gets answered. Or what have you what, in your opinion 118 00:08:58.630 --> 00:09:06.040 or experience, what is the relationship between C. X and C s I think that CS 119 00:09:06.040 --> 00:09:12.320 has a big responsibility ensuring that you're having an appropriate customer 120 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:17.130 experience. There's a lot of it that's within our control. It's how you talk 121 00:09:17.130 --> 00:09:21.940 to customers, how you solve problems, how easy it is to solve problems, how 122 00:09:21.940 --> 00:09:27.100 quick you answer our customers phone call and stuff like that. But there's a 123 00:09:27.100 --> 00:09:32.890 huge chunk of it, which is just in taking information that a customer 124 00:09:32.890 --> 00:09:38.270 support team may not have control over collecting feedback, putting it in the 125 00:09:38.270 --> 00:09:44.160 right place, getting it to the right people and then closing the feedback 126 00:09:44.160 --> 00:09:49.570 loop afterwards, too. So it Z kind of unique the responsibility. CS has 127 00:09:49.570 --> 00:09:54.430 oversee X because there is a chunk that we can take care of. But being the team 128 00:09:54.440 --> 00:09:59.630 or one of several teams that talk to customers, there's a much bigger 129 00:09:59.630 --> 00:10:05.420 responsibility to customer experience to just being the liaison between the 130 00:10:05.420 --> 00:10:09.610 customer and the teams that can change the experience. Yeah, really good in 131 00:10:09.610 --> 00:10:13.280 those last two steps there, getting the information to the right people in 132 00:10:13.280 --> 00:10:18.460 closing that feedback loop is really we're so much value could be, I guess, 133 00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:22.570 retained rather than just like wash out of the organization because we're all 134 00:10:22.570 --> 00:10:26.990 collecting this information. But the collection is not nearly as useful as 135 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:30.290 as doing something with it. That was really good. Um, for folks who aren't 136 00:10:30.290 --> 00:10:33.510 familiar before we go farther, just give me a quick take on Lynn owed. You 137 00:10:33.510 --> 00:10:37.670 know who are your customers generally, and And what do you do for them? What 138 00:10:37.670 --> 00:10:42.360 do you solve for them? Yeah, I know is cloud computing companies. So we 139 00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:47.860 provide infrastructure. Our customers kind of run the gamut. We give you the 140 00:10:47.870 --> 00:10:53.520 primitives to build things on. And what our customers do with it is everything 141 00:10:53.520 --> 00:10:57.750 from just running on the website or running a mail server, a game server 142 00:10:57.750 --> 00:11:02.710 all the way up. Thio being the complete infrastructure, back end and front end 143 00:11:02.710 --> 00:11:08.290 to a very large web application or or appliance or something else. Eso It 144 00:11:08.290 --> 00:11:13.020 really does run the gamut from the smallest to the biggest thing. We like 145 00:11:13.020 --> 00:11:17.570 to think of ourselves as kind of like the utility company. So we give you the 146 00:11:17.540 --> 00:11:21.920 components and then you can build whatever you want. We add a layer on 147 00:11:21.920 --> 00:11:26.160 top of that, get several layers on top of that. But one of those is a support 148 00:11:26.160 --> 00:11:30.630 team that will help you build those things, help you solve problems while 149 00:11:30.630 --> 00:11:35.360 you're you're designing and building things and kind of just being an open 150 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:40.570 ear, at least for a problem solver, at best, for providing guidance and 151 00:11:40.570 --> 00:11:45.580 solutions while you're scaling. Yeah, really good. That tees up the problem 152 00:11:45.580 --> 00:11:49.420 solution scenario, the kind of story we want to tell here and then extract some 153 00:11:49.420 --> 00:11:53.340 takeaways from it. So you have technical customers. Sometimes you go 154 00:11:53.340 --> 00:11:57.250 beyond, and we do the same thing with the way we support our customers. 155 00:11:57.250 --> 00:12:00.070 Sometimes we're solving problems that are not related at all to our own 156 00:12:00.070 --> 00:12:04.300 software, our own offering. But it's somewhere in that in that zone between, 157 00:12:04.440 --> 00:12:07.970 you know, the problem that they have the goal they want to solve. And you 158 00:12:07.970 --> 00:12:10.340 know, if they're on the phone with us, we're gonna help them get there. So 159 00:12:10.350 --> 00:12:13.780 anyway, you need some technical folks. I laid out the situation in the 160 00:12:13.780 --> 00:12:16.810 introduction, but briefly describe it in your own words. Like, what was the 161 00:12:16.810 --> 00:12:21.270 challenge that you're facing when you went down this road of developing an 162 00:12:21.270 --> 00:12:22.560 internal training program? 163 00:12:23.640 --> 00:12:27.980 Yeah, the first steps that we took where to solve sort of a different 164 00:12:27.980 --> 00:12:32.050 problem that we ended up solving. But we ended up solving more than just that 165 00:12:32.050 --> 00:12:36.990 problem, which was just that we didn't have enough people to answer all of our 166 00:12:36.990 --> 00:12:43.490 customers enquiries. So we were in a small town in New Jersey, and the type 167 00:12:43.490 --> 00:12:46.940 of customers that we have, the questions that lend themselves to those 168 00:12:46.940 --> 00:12:51.990 types of customers are super technical, very specific. Sometimes it's not 169 00:12:51.990 --> 00:12:57.750 uncommon for support specialist Atlanta to receive a particular phone call or 170 00:12:58.140 --> 00:13:03.160 about something that they've never even heard of before. But, like you said, we 171 00:13:03.160 --> 00:13:08.070 do set really granted expectations that we don't solve every problem for you, 172 00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:11.230 right? We're not your developer, your systems administrator. But we're at 173 00:13:11.230 --> 00:13:15.460 least going to push you in the right direction and give you something a 174 00:13:15.470 --> 00:13:20.620 jumping off point to get there. So you have to have a really great technical 175 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:24.450 skills to be able to at least know what people are talking about, a t least in 176 00:13:24.450 --> 00:13:27.990 what direction they're going, and then also you have to have all the great 177 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:32.120 support conservative skills you have tow a people person. You have to be in 178 00:13:32.120 --> 00:13:38.200 path and Sometimes those things don't match up with everyone. There's kind of 179 00:13:38.200 --> 00:13:42.440 left brain, right brain things, and not everyone has both of those. So as we 180 00:13:42.440 --> 00:13:47.720 were kind of getting underwater with our wait times, something had to change. 181 00:13:47.730 --> 00:13:54.230 And when we thought about those two very general skill sets, the technical 182 00:13:54.240 --> 00:14:00.460 part and the support part, we thought, Well, one of those things is far more 183 00:14:00.470 --> 00:14:05.600 easily taught than the other. And that's the technical piece. So our 184 00:14:05.610 --> 00:14:10.080 hypothesis was that if we can get people who have great customer support 185 00:14:10.080 --> 00:14:14.600 experience, have great customer service experience and having attitude towards 186 00:14:14.610 --> 00:14:19.070 the technical side of things, well, maybe we can invest in a new internal 187 00:14:19.070 --> 00:14:22.230 training program to get them up to speed there. We don't have to worry 188 00:14:22.230 --> 00:14:25.810 about the other thing that's way harder to teach, and we can increase the 189 00:14:25.810 --> 00:14:30.310 pipeline so much the amount of people who are coming in that we have all 190 00:14:30.310 --> 00:14:34.090 these candidates and we'll be able to hire more people and get back to the 191 00:14:34.090 --> 00:14:38.310 time the first response that our customers come to expect and we want to 192 00:14:38.310 --> 00:14:43.970 deliver. That's what we ended up doing, the results of which have been 193 00:14:44.340 --> 00:14:50.370 astounding. They've been better than we thought it would be. To be honest, I 194 00:14:50.380 --> 00:14:54.010 really like this divide, like you realize that and I've I've encountered 195 00:14:54.010 --> 00:14:56.970 this many times. I've hired a lot of different roles over throughout my 196 00:14:56.970 --> 00:15:01.810 career on and, you know, there's always this trade off. You have to make 197 00:15:01.820 --> 00:15:05.260 typically with a lot of rules, especially, you know, early on when you 198 00:15:05.260 --> 00:15:08.620 need someone that is, ah, a little bit more general. And so you're going to 199 00:15:08.620 --> 00:15:12.990 say like, Well, this person needs to be able to design and develop which skill 200 00:15:12.990 --> 00:15:16.370 Um, I kind of favor in this scenario. So for you, it's the you know, it's all 201 00:15:16.370 --> 00:15:21.610 the natural CS stuff, problem solving, empathy, passion for helping people 202 00:15:21.610 --> 00:15:24.990 etcetera. And then, of course, this deep set of technical skill. So I love 203 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:29.110 that you just walked it down, got honest with yourselves and said, We're 204 00:15:29.110 --> 00:15:33.760 going to favor this side and teach the other side. So take it from there, like 205 00:15:34.240 --> 00:15:39.620 how far away from technical skills were some of these folks and what were what 206 00:15:39.620 --> 00:15:43.410 were some of the first steps to helping bridge that divide so that they could 207 00:15:43.420 --> 00:15:48.030 listen? Talkback ask good follow up questions and instill. This is a really 208 00:15:48.030 --> 00:15:52.730 interesting part of the sea X feeling, in my opinion, is people feeling 209 00:15:52.730 --> 00:15:56.150 confident that you are the right solution for them, obviously is. And 210 00:15:56.150 --> 00:15:59.170 you already established, You know, your team is the frontline team there 211 00:15:59.170 --> 00:16:03.240 someone that the customer directly interacts with. And so you wanna leave 212 00:16:03.240 --> 00:16:06.820 them with This feeling of confidence is well, and so talk about what it takes 213 00:16:06.820 --> 00:16:12.300 to get kind of the raw material you were getting favoring the C s skills or 214 00:16:12.300 --> 00:16:16.720 the or the people skills or the empathic skills. How did you get them? 215 00:16:16.730 --> 00:16:22.670 Technically adept. Yeah, The first thing that we set out to do was to 216 00:16:22.680 --> 00:16:28.840 create a curriculum of what we needed to teach people, which that feels like 217 00:16:28.840 --> 00:16:34.280 a really easy task when you set out to do it and quickly becomes the most 218 00:16:34.280 --> 00:16:39.190 intimidating thing you've ever that you've ever tried to do, because just 219 00:16:39.190 --> 00:16:45.180 the vast wide subject matter that you have to cover, you don't you don't 220 00:16:45.180 --> 00:16:50.230 think about that because when you have the pre prerequisite knowledge, then 221 00:16:50.230 --> 00:16:56.550 that lends itself to figuring out sort of the more obscure or specific things, 222 00:16:56.560 --> 00:17:00.680 but we weren't even starting with that level of knowledge. So we had to go. 223 00:17:00.690 --> 00:17:06.140 Even we had to go layers backwards to be able to teach the things that we 224 00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:10.660 thought you had to know. There was no basis. There's no foundation for for a 225 00:17:10.660 --> 00:17:15.660 curriculum. So we dug back. We created a curriculum that was that's still 226 00:17:15.660 --> 00:17:20.460 evolving today. But we surrounded all around our set of core values that 227 00:17:20.460 --> 00:17:26.740 we've had for a long time, which did something a little bit special in that 228 00:17:26.750 --> 00:17:32.420 it empowered ours. Frontline support agents to not have to know everything, 229 00:17:32.420 --> 00:17:38.300 but it empowered them to be able to know where their resources were and to 230 00:17:38.310 --> 00:17:45.050 ask questions and to split problems. So we knew exactly what we were looking 231 00:17:45.050 --> 00:17:50.770 for. It Z because we had to kind of go a couple layers back. We we started not 232 00:17:50.770 --> 00:17:55.910 with the most technical thing, but really how toe dig, dig all the way 233 00:17:55.910 --> 00:18:01.800 down and then kind of build back up to get to a solution that's still still 234 00:18:01.800 --> 00:18:06.790 evolving. Today. We're still finding holes and opportunities for education 235 00:18:06.790 --> 00:18:11.280 and continuing education. The cool thing about creating a curriculums that 236 00:18:11.290 --> 00:18:16.000 it also lended itself to creating modules so you can kind of take a 237 00:18:16.000 --> 00:18:21.510 module and say, We're talking about Web servers today and you could just teach 238 00:18:21.510 --> 00:18:25.460 that Web server module that day. But that also means that you can pluck that 239 00:18:25.470 --> 00:18:31.480 out of the on boarding curriculum are our six week training, and you can run 240 00:18:31.480 --> 00:18:36.350 everyone on the support team through that module again as a continuing 241 00:18:36.350 --> 00:18:40.400 education class. Because we've identified that, for example, our 242 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:44.950 ticket categories, our tickets that have been categorized as Web server 243 00:18:44.950 --> 00:18:50.750 questions have a very low C SAT score, so we know that those aren't there's 244 00:18:50.760 --> 00:18:54.400 opportunity there. There's a low success for that. There's high time to 245 00:18:54.400 --> 00:18:59.330 first response, or it takes a lot of updates for us to resolve the ticket so 246 00:18:59.330 --> 00:19:04.060 that that was an unforeseen advantage that we had by kind of doing it that 247 00:19:04.070 --> 00:19:07.680 way. Your other question was really interesting the type of people that we 248 00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:13.980 started getting, and we've had what what we have ended up getting are a lot 249 00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:20.620 of career changers. So we have social workers, we have chefs, we've had 250 00:19:20.630 --> 00:19:26.660 roofers. We've had ah, questions all kinds of the people, but their common 251 00:19:26.660 --> 00:19:31.280 thread is that they have had a customer facing experience in one way or another. 252 00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:36.620 We have assessed that they can talk to people and they have that piece. But 253 00:19:36.630 --> 00:19:41.780 maybe when they got done their job roofing or social working, whatever it 254 00:19:41.780 --> 00:19:44.790 was, those were the people who are going home. And they were fiddling 255 00:19:44.790 --> 00:19:48.790 around with the computer. They were messing with servers. They were messing 256 00:19:48.790 --> 00:19:52.540 with Lennox. They were hobbyists. And maybe they were hobbyists for a very 257 00:19:52.540 --> 00:19:57.100 long time. And we could interview to be like to get to the point where, like, 258 00:19:57.100 --> 00:20:01.510 okay, this person has the baseline, let's accelerate them up to where they 259 00:20:01.510 --> 00:20:08.250 could answer our customers problems. And that group of people have have made 260 00:20:08.250 --> 00:20:12.820 our team so much better than what we could have imagined. Just hiring 261 00:20:12.820 --> 00:20:18.200 technical people with some customer service background. So many follow up 262 00:20:18.200 --> 00:20:21.460 questions for you that I'm excited about. And I'll just say them so that 263 00:20:21.460 --> 00:20:24.840 we don't forget. Maybe maybe we hit them all. Maybe we don't want I'm 264 00:20:24.840 --> 00:20:28.520 curious about your core values to I would love to know kind of the shape of 265 00:20:28.520 --> 00:20:31.880 the depth of the curriculum. At this point, I assume you've been You've been 266 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:36.090 undertaking this for a couple of years now. And so you know, what are the pre 267 00:20:36.090 --> 00:20:40.610 RECs and how it like is it in my mind it is fully developed curriculum, and 268 00:20:40.610 --> 00:20:44.520 then the third, The third category I'm interested in is kind of where you just 269 00:20:44.520 --> 00:20:48.840 are there. I mean, you have this diversity of background experience. I 270 00:20:48.840 --> 00:20:54.370 would assume diversity of age, perhaps, and and maybe the values of benefits of 271 00:20:54.380 --> 00:20:59.280 bringing all those people into one team. And how many, maybe unexpected, 272 00:20:59.280 --> 00:21:02.670 positive consequences came from that. So give me a quick pass on your company 273 00:21:02.670 --> 00:21:08.700 core values. Sure. So our core values are sort of a mixed in between a 274 00:21:08.710 --> 00:21:13.820 mission and vision statement and also the how behind the behaviors that 275 00:21:13.820 --> 00:21:20.560 exhibit that mission, vision and values. So they run everywhere from we come to 276 00:21:20.560 --> 00:21:25.180 the work being better than we were the today before, and then that we create 277 00:21:25.180 --> 00:21:29.310 the environment. We wanna work in all the way to very specific things, like 278 00:21:29.320 --> 00:21:34.200 we read a ticket fully and understand it before we answer it. Or that we 279 00:21:34.210 --> 00:21:41.140 answer every individual question in a ticket or that we, uh our mistakes, and 280 00:21:41.140 --> 00:21:43.860 we're honest with our customers and tell them when we might not have an 281 00:21:43.860 --> 00:21:47.950 answer. I think that goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago 282 00:21:47.950 --> 00:21:53.200 about setting expectations and also our scope of support, which it sounds like. 283 00:21:53.210 --> 00:22:00.600 We're both familiar with customers who reach beyond our scope of support, how 284 00:22:00.600 --> 00:22:06.130 to deal with that and how to tell a customer. I am 100% here. Thio start 285 00:22:06.130 --> 00:22:11.080 you off and to lead you in the right direction. But we're not the people who 286 00:22:11.080 --> 00:22:13.790 are gonna be able to answer that question for you, but but here's how 287 00:22:13.790 --> 00:22:19.070 they get started. So our core values, we really do live and die, by the way, 288 00:22:19.070 --> 00:22:24.490 say we hire and fire by them. They are kind of the lifeblood of what we do. 289 00:22:24.500 --> 00:22:31.420 But the core purpose of them is with such a big team and with the wide 290 00:22:31.420 --> 00:22:36.680 variety of issues that we face is you should be able to look at a problem, 291 00:22:37.140 --> 00:22:39.900 whether it's a customer problem, whether it's an internal problem, 292 00:22:39.900 --> 00:22:43.960 whether it's a problem, procedure and policy, and you should be able to say I 293 00:22:43.960 --> 00:22:48.270 don't know where to go with this and then look over our core values and they 294 00:22:48.270 --> 00:22:51.720 will guide you to exactly what you're supposed to do. So one of the most 295 00:22:51.720 --> 00:22:56.680 valuable ones that we have that we that we talk about all the time came from 296 00:22:56.690 --> 00:23:00.420 came from my time at Apple, which is if it's right for the customer. If it's 297 00:23:00.420 --> 00:23:03.630 right for the team and if it's right for the company, do it. You don't need 298 00:23:03.630 --> 00:23:08.680 to ask questions. You're perfectly empowered. You're able to do that thing 299 00:23:08.680 --> 00:23:13.110 if it hits all three of those items. So they really are kind of our guiding 300 00:23:13.110 --> 00:23:17.650 light and drilling them in and remembering them and thinking about 301 00:23:17.650 --> 00:23:22.210 them has been one of the most important things. One of most important tools 302 00:23:22.210 --> 00:23:27.420 we've had to be able to scale. Josh, what do you think is the most 303 00:23:27.430 --> 00:23:31.230 irritating thing for B two B buyers right now, an Logan. I love talking to 304 00:23:31.230 --> 00:23:35.130 you about this. You know that the number one challenge right now is that 305 00:23:35.140 --> 00:23:39.670 many customer facing teams in the B two B space right now are forcing their 306 00:23:39.670 --> 00:23:43.910 potential buyers too, by the way that they want to sell buyers don't wanna 307 00:23:43.910 --> 00:23:48.180 buy that way right now. They want to, by the way they want to buy. We need to 308 00:23:48.190 --> 00:23:52.280 enable those buyers. We call this buyer enablement at sales reach. We need to 309 00:23:52.280 --> 00:23:56.690 enable those buyers to make better decisions quicker in a comfortable 310 00:23:56.690 --> 00:23:59.920 environment that's more personalized for them to move forward with that 311 00:23:59.920 --> 00:24:03.510 process. Dude, that's awesome. I couldn't agree more. Since I've been 312 00:24:03.510 --> 00:24:07.330 using sales reach in my own sales process, it's allowed me to really 313 00:24:07.340 --> 00:24:11.720 enable the buyer to move more quickly in really two ways. One, they don't 314 00:24:11.720 --> 00:24:15.390 have to download a bunch of attachments. Aiken send them toe one page with the 315 00:24:15.390 --> 00:24:19.470 proposal. Case studies Different resource is because, let's face it, the 316 00:24:19.470 --> 00:24:23.530 proposal is just one part of the sales conversation and probably on Lee one 317 00:24:23.530 --> 00:24:27.800 sales enablement piece of content that you're sending so it makes it easier on 318 00:24:27.800 --> 00:24:31.250 them. And then the other thing is, you know, we're selling to our champions, 319 00:24:31.250 --> 00:24:34.610 and then we're making them have to re give our pitch to the entire buying 320 00:24:34.610 --> 00:24:38.960 committee. So one thing I do is put a custom 2 to 3 minute video on the top 321 00:24:38.960 --> 00:24:42.490 of my sales reach page. This says, Hey, here's all the resource is tie it back 322 00:24:42.490 --> 00:24:45.250 to the conversation. Here's the proposal. Let me know if you have any 323 00:24:45.250 --> 00:24:49.370 questions, and it allows me to give a little bit of kind of a mini pitch to 324 00:24:49.370 --> 00:24:52.970 the rest of the buying committee. Introduce myself, which helps me build 325 00:24:52.970 --> 00:24:56.440 trust and credibility and helps the buyer not have to repeat the entire 326 00:24:56.440 --> 00:25:00.830 pitch from scratch. So if anybody is looking to do the same thing in their 327 00:25:00.830 --> 00:25:04.280 own sales process, I'd highly suggest they reach out to you and the team over 328 00:25:04.280 --> 00:25:08.790 its sales. Reach for anybody listening. Just go to sales reach dot io to talk 329 00:25:08.790 --> 00:25:15.060 to Josh and the team. I like that alignment in particular of customer 330 00:25:15.070 --> 00:25:22.350 team company. It's like a no brainer like, Don't go do it so good. Um, give 331 00:25:22.350 --> 00:25:27.200 me a pass on kind of how this curriculum shaped up and I'll just tee 332 00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:31.050 it up a little bit more. I'm gonna assume that this is above and beyond 333 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:36.330 the on boarding itself. And how are you delivering it? How much of it is? You 334 00:25:36.330 --> 00:25:42.240 know, these are maybe on an internal website or these are training videos or 335 00:25:42.240 --> 00:25:48.130 these are in person sessions and we do them once a month. Or like how are you 336 00:25:48.130 --> 00:25:51.310 teaching the material and houses material kind of stacked up for folks 337 00:25:51.310 --> 00:25:55.370 that maybe you want to start imagining, in a more practical sense how they 338 00:25:55.370 --> 00:26:00.720 might do something similar. So our training starts right now. We're doing 339 00:26:00.720 --> 00:26:05.670 a training class A to the on the first Monday of every every other month, so 340 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:11.060 our training class take six weeks. Internally, it's all in person, 8 to 5. 341 00:26:11.220 --> 00:26:17.420 It consists of videos that consists of presentations. It consists of pre tests, 342 00:26:17.420 --> 00:26:21.690 post tests examinations to make sure that people are understanding and 343 00:26:21.690 --> 00:26:27.050 retaining the data. Ah, lot of practical stuff s So we're talking 344 00:26:27.050 --> 00:26:30.870 about Web servers. It's one thing to understand how Web servers work. It's 345 00:26:30.870 --> 00:26:35.050 another to build your own from scratch and toe, have it up and running and for 346 00:26:35.050 --> 00:26:39.910 it to break, and for you to have to fix it so big. Shout out to our training 347 00:26:39.910 --> 00:26:46.360 team who really, really deeply believe in practical training, and now I do, 348 00:26:46.360 --> 00:26:51.680 too. So it's six weeks. We learn everything from the technical stuff to 349 00:26:51.680 --> 00:26:56.060 our core values toe how we interact with customers to more basic things 350 00:26:56.060 --> 00:27:00.910 like, you know, what does the marketing department do and who's in finance? And 351 00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:05.460 how does product communicate with customers? Success And ah, lot of the 352 00:27:05.460 --> 00:27:10.710 inner workings of Lin owed, as well as the support team at the node. It goes 353 00:27:10.710 --> 00:27:14.670 six weeks, and then we move on to a mentor ship. So we have a number of we 354 00:27:14.670 --> 00:27:18.900 have training specialists who are full time trainers. And then we have 355 00:27:18.900 --> 00:27:24.260 training experts who are part time trainers, and they mentor our trainees 356 00:27:24.240 --> 00:27:28.250 for usually around six or eight weeks average on boarding time. Right now, 357 00:27:28.250 --> 00:27:33.070 from the day you start until the day you're on boarded, it's about 72 days 358 00:27:33.080 --> 00:27:36.310 and on boarding. What we expect is that they could take a scheduled by 359 00:27:36.310 --> 00:27:40.430 themselves. Uh, since we're 24 7, we have a rolling schedule. We have people 360 00:27:40.430 --> 00:27:45.150 starting and coming off the schedule every hour. You should be able to take 361 00:27:45.150 --> 00:27:51.520 a schedule, take a shift by yourself and have very minimal need for not for 362 00:27:51.520 --> 00:27:54.240 asking. Questions were not understanding something. You're not 363 00:27:54.250 --> 00:27:57.050 relying your peers, but really not knowing, like I don't know how to do 364 00:27:57.050 --> 00:27:59.760 this You know, I don't know how to do this thing. I don't know how to find 365 00:27:59.760 --> 00:28:04.300 this resource or what have you? Really good. I love that. I love the full 366 00:28:04.300 --> 00:28:08.920 scope of the organization as an element of it. Because that's consistent with 367 00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:12.240 the Is this good for my team? Is this You obviously know if it's good for the 368 00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.990 customer, but like, is this good for the company and or the resourcefulness 369 00:28:15.990 --> 00:28:20.620 required to If it's yes, yes, yes. Go act on that. You know that just a 370 00:28:20.620 --> 00:28:24.690 fuller scope obviously helps people be able to do that. Um, I guess the last 371 00:28:24.690 --> 00:28:27.890 kind of practical question here you mentioned a couple of full time 372 00:28:27.890 --> 00:28:31.290 trainers, a couple part time trainers. How many people are devoted 373 00:28:31.290 --> 00:28:36.470 specifically to this training program? And how did you find those folks? Did 374 00:28:36.470 --> 00:28:41.140 you hire educators or were these already Lynn owed employees who had an 375 00:28:41.140 --> 00:28:45.810 aptitude for this? Like, how did you What is what is just the training 376 00:28:45.820 --> 00:28:52.380 organization sub organization look like And how did you build it? Yeah, So one 377 00:28:52.380 --> 00:28:57.270 of the things that I am most proud of our team for doing since since Leonard 378 00:28:57.280 --> 00:29:02.130 started, we had a commitment to internal promotion. So in the support 379 00:29:02.130 --> 00:29:07.920 team, specifically, we actually make very few outside hires. Almost everyone 380 00:29:07.930 --> 00:29:12.640 has come in as a support specialists and then grown into another role. Ah, 381 00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:15.800 lot of those people have grown into other roles outside of the support 382 00:29:15.800 --> 00:29:20.080 organization into other roles, such as product development or marketing and 383 00:29:20.080 --> 00:29:23.470 documentation, all kinds of stuff. And and that's something that we're super 384 00:29:23.470 --> 00:29:27.750 committed Thio. That's true within the department as well. All of our trainers. 385 00:29:27.750 --> 00:29:32.200 We have a training team lead and we have three full time trainers. I think 386 00:29:32.200 --> 00:29:36.000 we have six training experts. All of those people started this support 387 00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:39.790 specialists and have grown into that role. Some of them have backgrounds in 388 00:29:39.790 --> 00:29:44.710 education or training. Our training team lead was a trainer at Apple. Ah, 389 00:29:44.710 --> 00:29:49.210 lot of are a lot of our team came from Apple Way. Take a lot of we take a lot 390 00:29:49.210 --> 00:29:53.650 of liberty and taking things from from an apple that because they do customer 391 00:29:53.650 --> 00:29:57.760 support so well, obviously. But all of our trainers were in the support 392 00:29:57.760 --> 00:30:02.730 organization. They went through the training program. They experienced 393 00:30:02.730 --> 00:30:07.150 training themselves, found opportunities and then in time as they 394 00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:11.430 developed those competencies for training and education, they were 395 00:30:11.430 --> 00:30:16.620 promoted into training rules. Really good. I guess the last element that 396 00:30:16.620 --> 00:30:20.390 that I would like to double back on is again. You're hiring people from a wide 397 00:30:20.390 --> 00:30:25.360 variety of backgrounds based on the core set of skills that you want to see. 398 00:30:25.360 --> 00:30:29.400 And then obviously, using this, uh, the core foundation, I'm sure these 399 00:30:29.400 --> 00:30:32.850 trainers air continuing to build modules and update modules and those 400 00:30:32.850 --> 00:30:36.800 types of things, um, talk about the benefits of getting people from a 401 00:30:36.800 --> 00:30:40.600 variety of backgrounds. I mean, I would assume that there are some you know, 402 00:30:40.610 --> 00:30:43.630 it's probably a little bit more fun, a little bit more interesting, and 403 00:30:43.630 --> 00:30:49.290 there's probably some benefits to the rest of the team. Yeah, when we started 404 00:30:49.290 --> 00:30:53.120 this training program, we were looking to get more people. But what we ended 405 00:30:53.120 --> 00:31:00.750 up getting were people from backgrounds and careers that we would have never 406 00:31:00.750 --> 00:31:07.000 considered before. The diversity of backgrounds and diversity of thought 407 00:31:07.010 --> 00:31:11.520 has manifested manifested itself and by far the best team we've ever had, 408 00:31:11.530 --> 00:31:17.560 because there's no needs to explain why these things are good. But when you see 409 00:31:17.560 --> 00:31:23.660 it in action, and you see that someone came from a career where they did 410 00:31:23.660 --> 00:31:27.620 something tangentially similar. But they had kind of a different take on it 411 00:31:27.630 --> 00:31:32.590 because off that industry, or because of that there needs or what have you 412 00:31:32.590 --> 00:31:36.380 that you would have never even considered. And they can come in and 413 00:31:36.390 --> 00:31:43.220 have those conversations and and in part, those experiences on us where 414 00:31:43.230 --> 00:31:47.060 we're so much greater than the sum of our parts now because we're not all the 415 00:31:47.060 --> 00:31:52.910 same, we don't all have. We didn't all come up doing SAS support or what have 416 00:31:52.910 --> 00:31:57.710 you? We didn't expect that we didn't necessarily shoot for that toe happen 417 00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:02.550 Way knew that we would get a more diverse candidate pool. Um, but the 418 00:32:02.550 --> 00:32:07.690 effects of those things just can't be, can't be described. It's unbelievably 419 00:32:07.700 --> 00:32:14.030 beneficial for us. Toe. Have this this really unique support team. I don't 420 00:32:14.030 --> 00:32:19.070 think a lot of other support teams look like that. That's good. Ours. Ours is 421 00:32:19.070 --> 00:32:23.460 not. We have a diverse set, and like you, there's so much kinship here. So 422 00:32:23.470 --> 00:32:27.910 for folks who are listening, if you know someone who fits some of these 423 00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:32.630 softer side skills, the human skills and they're out of work right now, and 424 00:32:32.630 --> 00:32:36.710 there are a lot of people out of work. There are a lot of SAS companies that 425 00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:41.980 are successful even in this environment that are growing. And, you know, while 426 00:32:41.980 --> 00:32:47.090 you're program is absolutely unique, I know that there are opportunities for 427 00:32:47.090 --> 00:32:51.460 people that listeners may know to engage in a company that may not be as 428 00:32:51.460 --> 00:32:55.300 good at it is. You all are. It may not be as formal or well developed, but 429 00:32:55.300 --> 00:32:59.530 people are looking for good people. And I think good hiring managers, good 430 00:32:59.530 --> 00:33:04.470 managers and effective business builders recognize what they can train 431 00:33:04.480 --> 00:33:09.570 and what really needs to be inherent in the person from the get go. And so 432 00:33:09.580 --> 00:33:12.950 there might be opportunities for you or people. You know, if you're listening 433 00:33:12.950 --> 00:33:16.560 to this that were maybe unexpected before, I don't want that to be a 434 00:33:16.560 --> 00:33:20.190 missed opportunity. Like you. We have hired out of Apple. I'm thinking of a 435 00:33:20.190 --> 00:33:24.320 couple employees at Bom Bom that we hired out of Apple and they have great 436 00:33:24.320 --> 00:33:27.980 on boarding and training, and so, you know, you're getting a you know, just 437 00:33:27.980 --> 00:33:31.200 some really good habits that are built. Another place we've hired well out of 438 00:33:31.200 --> 00:33:37.020 in support and elsewhere. Um, it's Starbucks. Starbucks is very, very 439 00:33:37.020 --> 00:33:41.090 formal and highly repetitive. And so some of these customer service skills 440 00:33:41.090 --> 00:33:44.650 air good. There's a There's a company out here all over the West called Dutch 441 00:33:44.650 --> 00:33:49.440 Bro's Coffee. I had a couple of their VPs on this show several months back 442 00:33:49.450 --> 00:33:54.540 and the same thing. They have a very aggressive program of building into 443 00:33:54.540 --> 00:34:00.460 people, right, not hiring this role or managing this role, but building into 444 00:34:00.460 --> 00:34:04.300 people. And so there are a lot of opportunities out there on guy. Really 445 00:34:04.300 --> 00:34:09.580 appreciate what you're doing with with your team. I'm glad to hear that A You 446 00:34:09.580 --> 00:34:13.920 were able to overcome the problem that you are facing immediately on B that it 447 00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:17.570 provided so much growth and benefit. I also love you, answered several 448 00:34:17.570 --> 00:34:21.360 questions that I had, um, just kind of in passing it. You know, I just think 449 00:34:21.360 --> 00:34:23.920 it's really cool that you've been in six different roles, and obviously you 450 00:34:23.920 --> 00:34:27.810 spoke to that not necessarily as an explicit core value, but is a 451 00:34:27.820 --> 00:34:32.580 definitely a deep natural way of operating within Lha. Note is like we 452 00:34:32.580 --> 00:34:36.239 want to do internal growth and you're obviously a great example of that. I 453 00:34:36.239 --> 00:34:40.389 was always gonna ask about being a Mac genius, and it sounds like you've got 454 00:34:40.389 --> 00:34:44.770 several of them in house. So, um, before we move on a little bit, is 455 00:34:44.770 --> 00:34:47.630 there anything else you want to share about that program? Anything. I missed 456 00:34:47.630 --> 00:34:51.560 anything I failed to ask her or something really interesting that you 457 00:34:51.560 --> 00:34:54.090 learned or surprising, that you learn that you think might be helpful for 458 00:34:54.090 --> 00:34:59.270 folks, whether they're in CS or sales or marketing or elsewhere. Yeah, I 459 00:34:59.270 --> 00:35:05.310 think the only other thing to touch on is I think this needs to be a 460 00:35:05.310 --> 00:35:10.150 commitment through the three year department beyond on boarding and 461 00:35:10.150 --> 00:35:14.530 training and continuing education. I think there's a lot of value and 462 00:35:14.540 --> 00:35:19.640 creating levels and what we call expert roles. So we have a number of expert 463 00:35:19.640 --> 00:35:23.810 roles. The support you can actually consists of support, trust and safety, 464 00:35:23.820 --> 00:35:29.180 community quality, control, training and customer success. And all of those 465 00:35:29.180 --> 00:35:32.710 have full time roles. But they also all have expert roles where you could do 466 00:35:32.710 --> 00:35:37.660 that part time in addition to your support work, and you can move into 467 00:35:37.660 --> 00:35:42.490 full time roles as well. We also have level, so there's support level 1234 468 00:35:42.490 --> 00:35:46.360 There's senior support. Level 12 There's customer support managers. I 469 00:35:46.360 --> 00:35:52.420 know you have to grow toe to be able to justify that number of roles vertically. 470 00:35:52.430 --> 00:35:56.350 But I think there's a lot of opportunity to do this horizontally as 471 00:35:56.350 --> 00:36:01.580 well, with part time expert roles giving people exposure to other parts 472 00:36:01.580 --> 00:36:06.540 of the business. Whether or not it's in your department is another great avenue 473 00:36:06.540 --> 00:36:11.060 for growing people, which we know is good for the company as well as the 474 00:36:11.060 --> 00:36:15.440 individual. So the training organization, if you have one, or if 475 00:36:15.440 --> 00:36:19.800 you're considering building with one there is a that's the launch point is 476 00:36:19.800 --> 00:36:23.860 on boarding. But there's so much more you could do afterwards to to kind of 477 00:36:23.860 --> 00:36:27.700 continue to facilitate that growth vertically, horizontally, in the 478 00:36:27.700 --> 00:36:31.260 apartment outside of the department and contribute to the company as a whole. 479 00:36:31.930 --> 00:36:34.980 Really good. I mean, I thought about several things during the conversation. 480 00:36:34.980 --> 00:36:40.340 I love that ad there at the end, and I was thinking like it would probably be 481 00:36:40.340 --> 00:36:43.940 beneficial for a sales person to go through some of these modules and these 482 00:36:43.940 --> 00:36:49.590 kinds of things, so I love this cross functional exposure. We've had some, so 483 00:36:49.600 --> 00:36:52.900 it sounds like you're doing a lot of things that came naturally to us. But 484 00:36:52.900 --> 00:36:55.800 you're doing them in a much more advanced and developed away and that 485 00:36:55.800 --> 00:36:59.610 your team's probably bigger than ours as well. This is great and in fact, 486 00:36:59.610 --> 00:37:04.030 that that up and down side to side cross department training sounds like 487 00:37:04.030 --> 00:37:07.840 another good conversation we should have here on the show. But we're we're 488 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:12.210 basically kinda at times, so I so I'm gonna let let you get back to your day 489 00:37:12.210 --> 00:37:15.610 and let listeners get back to their dates. This is there's been tons of 490 00:37:15.610 --> 00:37:18.840 great information in here. If you're listening, you've enjoyed this 491 00:37:18.840 --> 00:37:23.500 conversation with Rick. You might also like Episode 32 of the customer 492 00:37:23.500 --> 00:37:27.810 experience podcast on Episode 32. I talkto Luc Cohen, who is the former 493 00:37:27.810 --> 00:37:31.810 director of C Exit Form Stack, and he's currently the principal CS specialist 494 00:37:31.810 --> 00:37:35.720 with sass works, and that one was called meeting Customers. Evolving 495 00:37:35.720 --> 00:37:39.040 Needs with the C X team, and the reason I thought of that one, Is that it? It 496 00:37:39.040 --> 00:37:42.560 really is kind of this. A little bit of blocking and tackling how do we build 497 00:37:42.560 --> 00:37:46.010 the team? How we structure the team and then another one that came to mind is 498 00:37:46.020 --> 00:37:51.750 Episode 51 with Joe Caprio, former VP of sales at chorus dot ai and now a 499 00:37:51.750 --> 00:37:57.150 founder at Re Preys. And that one was called How to Enable Your Sales Team. 500 00:37:57.160 --> 00:38:01.660 Practical Tips for Sales Leaders And there we talked a lot about sales 501 00:38:01.660 --> 00:38:06.760 enablement and sales readiness. And, you know, in talking before we had this 502 00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:10.970 conversation record this this made me think about like, CS enablement. You 503 00:38:10.970 --> 00:38:14.180 know, this is like a kind of a CS enablement layer because that sales 504 00:38:14.180 --> 00:38:19.240 enablement isn't just equipping sales people with great slide decks and PDFs 505 00:38:19.240 --> 00:38:22.340 and other things they can send out. It's really training. There's a 506 00:38:22.340 --> 00:38:26.920 training and development layer to it, feedback loops and building people up 507 00:38:26.920 --> 00:38:30.250 that I think folks might like Joe's perspective on a similar topic, but 508 00:38:30.250 --> 00:38:34.580 more from, ah, sales seat. So Rick again, thank you so much before I let 509 00:38:34.580 --> 00:38:38.260 you go. I love to give you two opportunities. The first one is to give 510 00:38:38.270 --> 00:38:41.640 thanks or mention to someone who's had a positive impact on your life for your 511 00:38:41.640 --> 00:38:46.030 career and the second is to give a shout out or not or mentioned to, ah 512 00:38:46.030 --> 00:38:49.440 brand or a company that you really respect for the way they deliver for 513 00:38:49.440 --> 00:38:50.530 you as a customer. 514 00:38:51.720 --> 00:38:57.940 Yeah, I had thought about this, and one person came came to mind very quickly, 515 00:38:57.940 --> 00:39:03.010 which was my old boss and mentor, Steve Clemons. When I when I started Linux, 516 00:39:03.020 --> 00:39:06.210 like you said, I was a support specialist and I had worked plenty of 517 00:39:06.210 --> 00:39:12.740 retail jobs and support jobs. But Steve was my first boss who took an interest 518 00:39:12.750 --> 00:39:16.930 in helping me learn sort of the business side of things I had not had 519 00:39:16.930 --> 00:39:21.930 experience with, sort of the higher level, considering ah, lot of the stuff 520 00:39:21.930 --> 00:39:26.520 that that the executive level the C suite directors need thio need to think 521 00:39:26.520 --> 00:39:31.090 about. And that was kind of the first time I was exposed to any of that that 522 00:39:31.090 --> 00:39:36.900 stuff, And it's not something that you always get taught or you always have 523 00:39:36.900 --> 00:39:41.230 the opportunity to teach it. I like to think I'd like to tell people when 524 00:39:41.230 --> 00:39:44.290 you're kind of an entry level position, all you have to think about is the 525 00:39:44.290 --> 00:39:49.440 customer, right, and then if you're a CEO are on the board. All you need to 526 00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:52.960 think about is the bottom line. Now this is a huge over exaggeration, and 527 00:39:52.960 --> 00:39:58.460 that's not true. But as you move up in the organization, those kind of ratios 528 00:39:58.460 --> 00:40:04.200 change. And and he was the person who helped me even kick start learning that 529 00:40:04.200 --> 00:40:07.320 side of the the business, which I had never had exposure to. You know, it's 530 00:40:07.320 --> 00:40:11.190 still a great friends, a great mentor, and I just wanted Thio shot him out 531 00:40:11.190 --> 00:40:18.110 because he deserves it. Um, yeah, awesome. How about a company that you 532 00:40:18.110 --> 00:40:22.370 appreciate or a brand or someone that's giving you a great experience as a 533 00:40:22.370 --> 00:40:28.920 customer? The most recent great I live for very customer service experiences 534 00:40:28.930 --> 00:40:33.290 make me so happy. I get so excited when I have one. I have to call that 535 00:40:33.290 --> 00:40:39.370 person's boss and tell them it's absolutely what motivates me Day in the 536 00:40:39.380 --> 00:40:45.310 less When I had was with a company called B NH, they sell on Rio visual 537 00:40:45.310 --> 00:40:51.950 photo equipment, uh, in New York City, and I had ordered a pack of photo 538 00:40:51.950 --> 00:40:58.760 development paper for a gift, and it came on my doorstep before Christmas on 539 00:40:58.760 --> 00:41:05.760 Christmas Eve and it was soaked. So to the bone, I'm sorry was the 23rd and it 540 00:41:05.760 --> 00:41:09.570 was no one's fault. They just got left out in the rain. And I called them and 541 00:41:09.570 --> 00:41:13.100 I said, I really need to have this tomorrow. It was a Christmas present. 542 00:41:13.110 --> 00:41:20.300 No questions asked. No, not no prodding on my part. They said, Okay, this is 543 00:41:20.300 --> 00:41:25.550 how we're gonna do it. They didn't make me. They didn't make me tell them what 544 00:41:25.550 --> 00:41:29.300 I needed. They told me what I needed to dio. And then they went above and 545 00:41:29.300 --> 00:41:32.090 beyond and said, We'll take care of shipping. Don't worry about it. We'll 546 00:41:32.090 --> 00:41:35.190 send you another box. You can send the other one back. Their number one 547 00:41:35.190 --> 00:41:40.860 concern was me having that Christmas present in time and going back to what 548 00:41:40.860 --> 00:41:44.620 we talked about in the very beginning of this conversation. They made it so 549 00:41:44.630 --> 00:41:49.970 easy. It was completely effortless. So that was that was my last great 550 00:41:49.980 --> 00:41:54.750 customers support interaction so awesome. I send people to be an H 551 00:41:54.760 --> 00:41:57.750 regularly when they wanna learn when they want to move beyond, like their 552 00:41:57.750 --> 00:42:02.250 webcam for doing videos and things. Um, I say Amazon is a great place to get 553 00:42:02.250 --> 00:42:05.320 volume reviews. And but when you want to get, like the hardcore reviews, you 554 00:42:05.320 --> 00:42:09.090 go to B. NH. They have a great catalog. It's organized well, and I'm really 555 00:42:09.090 --> 00:42:12.660 happy to hear that story. Um, two things that stand out to me in 556 00:42:12.660 --> 00:42:17.690 particular one is that your goal was their goal. They made their goal, your 557 00:42:17.690 --> 00:42:23.020 goal, get a Christmas gift in great shape before Christmas to the customer. 558 00:42:23.020 --> 00:42:26.920 So, like that, that just being a line there. And then the other thing was, 559 00:42:27.300 --> 00:42:31.330 they didn't. And I see this in so many cases, not just in a support scenario, 560 00:42:31.330 --> 00:42:34.290 but it's like, you know, a lot of people come with this. How can I help 561 00:42:34.290 --> 00:42:39.710 you versus Hey here? A couple ways? I think I might be able to help, right? 562 00:42:39.710 --> 00:42:43.050 Like and again, that's just removal of friction. It's so much easier. It's 563 00:42:43.050 --> 00:42:46.500 like, Are you thinking about this or that? Well, kind of this, but a little 564 00:42:46.500 --> 00:42:49.890 bit more, you know, like walk me down the road like help me a little bit 565 00:42:49.890 --> 00:42:53.240 instead of this wide open. Like, how can I help you? Like, how can we make 566 00:42:53.240 --> 00:42:55.820 this good? They're like, Hey, we're gonna do this. How does that sound to 567 00:42:55.820 --> 00:42:59.380 you, Rick? And like that sounds fantastic. So good. Great story. I 568 00:42:59.380 --> 00:43:02.650 really appreciate it. I really appreciate your time. Congratulations 569 00:43:02.650 --> 00:43:08.600 on your success. Lynn owed is obviously doing things very, very well for their 570 00:43:08.600 --> 00:43:12.340 customers, for your growth. But then also for the team members, for someone 571 00:43:12.340 --> 00:43:16.620 like you who has stuck around for years, continuing to learn and grow, you know, 572 00:43:16.620 --> 00:43:19.890 be a part of initiatives like the one that we talked about at length today. 573 00:43:19.890 --> 00:43:24.080 And it's just awesome. So thank you for sharing that with us. If people want to 574 00:43:24.080 --> 00:43:28.460 follow up with you, Rick or with Lynn owed, where would you send them? My 575 00:43:28.470 --> 00:43:34.780 Twitter is probably best is just Rick at Winnowed Rick 80 Leonard I Reps 576 00:43:34.790 --> 00:43:39.030 Website as well. Richard Myers dot Me linked in. You can find me on there and 577 00:43:39.030 --> 00:43:46.030 leno leno dot com l i n o d e awesome. I will link all that stuff up at bom 578 00:43:46.030 --> 00:43:51.310 bom dot com slash podcast. I will also link a great block post that that Rick 579 00:43:51.310 --> 00:43:55.990 wrote on this topic up there as well and so on any of these episodes. If you 580 00:43:55.990 --> 00:43:58.730 enjoy them and you wanna learn a little bit more. You want to see some video 581 00:43:58.730 --> 00:44:03.620 clips you can always visit. Bom bom dot com slash podcast Thank you so much for 582 00:44:03.620 --> 00:44:07.010 listening and again. Rick, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. 583 00:44:06.990 --> 00:44:12.030 Rick Story there about being age is exactly why I asked that question at 584 00:44:12.040 --> 00:44:17.390 the end of all of these conversations. And it's exactly why we need to focus 585 00:44:17.400 --> 00:44:23.010 on the experiences that we're creating and delivering for our customers. Are 586 00:44:23.010 --> 00:44:26.580 they memorable? Are they remarkable? Are they the kind of thing that would 587 00:44:26.580 --> 00:44:32.130 be top of mind if one of your customers was asked a similar question? For more, 588 00:44:32.130 --> 00:44:37.570 see X stories and see X conversations and insights, visit bom bom dot com 589 00:44:37.580 --> 00:44:45.140 slash podcast b o m b b o m b dot com slash podcast. My name is Ethan Butte, 590 00:44:45.150 --> 00:44:49.040 chief evangelist, A bomb bomb and I appreciate you listening to the c x 591 00:44:49.040 --> 00:44:52.430 Siri's here on B two b Growth with the 592 00:44:54.590 --> 00:44:58.510 is the decision maker for your product of service. Abebe Marketer. Are you 593 00:44:58.510 --> 00:45:02.720 looking to reach those buyers through the medium of podcasting considered 594 00:45:02.720 --> 00:45:07.940 becoming a co host of GDP growth. This show is consistently ranked as a top 595 00:45:07.940 --> 00:45:12.090 100 podcast in the marketing category of Apple podcasts, and this show gets 596 00:45:12.090 --> 00:45:17.670 more than 130,000 downloads each month. We've already done the work of building 597 00:45:17.670 --> 00:45:21.700 the audience so you can focus on delivering incredible content to our 598 00:45:21.700 --> 00:45:27.120 listeners if you're interested. Email Logan at sweet fish media dot com.