Happy to Help | A Customer Support Podcast
If you work in customer support, if you lead a support team, or if you are looking to better the customer experience for your company, then this podcast is for you!
Happy to Help is a podcast about all things customer support brought to you by the people at Buzzsprout. Join us, on the second Tuesday of every month as Buzzsprout's Head of Podcaster Success, Priscilla Brooke dives into the world of customer support to make remarkable support the standard, not the exception!
Happy to Help | A Customer Support Podcast
Crisis Management Tips for Customer Success Teams
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In this episode, special guest Megan Nelson joins us to dive into customer support during a crisis! Whether it’s a sudden server outage or an unexpected system issue, handling customer needs under pressure is a challenge every support team faces. Join us as we share real-life lessons from Buzzsprout’s 2021 DDoS attack, where our team went into overdrive to keep customers informed and reassured.
We’ll cover essential strategies for crisis management, including how to communicate effectively with customers, coordinate with internal teams, and stay resilient as a support team.
Tune in to learn how a solid crisis plan can transform a potentially negative situation into an opportunity for building trust and customer loyalty!
We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!
To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com.
Thanks for listening!
Crisis Management Tips for Customer Success Teams
PriscillaWelcome to Happy to Help , a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout . I'm your host , Priscilla Brooke . Today we're in crisis mode ! Not really , but we're going to discuss how to offer remarkable support even in the middle of a crisis . We'll talk about planning ahead , communicating with your customers and supporting your team when things get crazy . Thanks for joining us . Let's get into it .
Guest Intro: Megan Nelson
PriscillaWe have a special guest with us today . You guys probably remember her from a couple months ago now . Megan Nelson joined us for an episode about angry customers and how to work effectively with angry customers , and now she's back with us to talk about working through crisis situations . Hey , Megan .
MeganHi , thanks so much for having me back . I'm excited .
PriscillaYeah , I'm excited too . When Megan was here the last time , she was on our support team , and now she's no longer on the Buzzsprout support team . What does that mean , megan ? Where are you now ?
MeganI have moved from support to marketing , but I still have a support at heart . Yeah , so she's still on the Buzzsprout team .
PriscillaShe's just now on our marketing team and not in support , which is really exciting for Megan . She also just launched her own podcast a couple months ago .
MeganYes , jordan and I work on Buzzsprout Weekly , which is a weekly podcast from the people at Buzzsprout , and it's just a quick three-minute podcasting news updates and just gives you a little bit about what's going on at Buzzsprout .
JordanYeah , you're probably so much more comfortable now , having been , you know , a podcast host for a little bit , and now you're back on as a guest , which is a much easier gig .
MeganYou would think I'm more comfortable , but I'm still pretty nervous .
PriscillaThere's nothing to be nervous about . It's so funny though , like I feel like you going from support to marketing is such a cool thing for our customers , because you are now in the marketing world , but you still have all of this knowledge and all of these muscles you've strengthened through support . So now , as you're working in marketing , you're kind of like thinking about our customers in a new way and thinking about possible new customers in a new way , but you still have all of this knowledge from learning how to support customers way , but you still have all of this knowledge from learning how to support customers .
MeganYeah , it's definitely been like a reckoning I've had to kind of figure out within myself because I mean , once you're in support , you're always in support . I think those muscles never really go away and I'm always thinking about like well , how can this help the customer or how I can anticipate questions that people are going to ask about it , because I'm used to answering them and I've had to kind of with some of my writing , like pull that back in some ways and also push it forward in some ways .
MeganSometimes you don't need to tell them every little piece about what could go wrong before when you're just introducing something , but in some ways it is nice to be like hey , I know right away this is going to be something we need to talk about . So it's been really fun to have that knowledge and to kind of get to support our customers in a new way .
PriscillaYeah , it's fun too because , like you said , you know when you're writing for marketing it's a different strategy than writing for customer support , and so you're having to kind of like change that in your head and only write for marketing and not think about the customer support . But you still have this insight because you know where the customers are and have questions , because you've been anticipating questions like that for years and years .
MeganYeah , yes , and you know , the hardest part about the change in writing has been the exclamation points . Oh gosh , Because in support we throw them out there , like you get an exclamation point and you get an exclamation point because you just want to communicate that you're like excited , you're personality , happy to help . And I think a lot of times it can come across like in support if you're just like period period , period period , that you're angry , and that's not always the case and marketing is not that way .
MeganSo I've had to really pull it back and I'm like I promise I'm not mad .
PriscillaI promise , I'm not mad , I'm just using a lot of periods .
MeganI promise , I'm not mad , I'm just really professional now .
JordanYeah , honestly , like your support background has helped so much with like one of the things that the marketing team does a lot is writing our how to guides or our blogs and stuff like that , and so I think Megan is just so good for that because of her support experience . She's so good at like explaining how things work and you know , so she's she's kind of combining the support and marketing together in that and I think it is just awesome .
PriscillaYeah , and it's cool for the support team too , because we feel like we have this inside scoop into the marketing world and so we like reach out to Megan . We're like Megan , we need you to help us with this .
PriscillaSo it's cool because we have this like loophole now into the marketing . But it's really cool . There's so much about marketing and support that really do go hand in hand , and so it's very cool to have that crossover and to have that really tight between the two departments . Before we jump into what we're going to talk about today , I want to ask you who has made your day recently , Megan ?
MeganI know this is like such the cheesy , quintessential answer , but my husband hey , that's great , that's a really good one . Yeah , he went to pick up dinner for us the other night . It had just been like a super busy day , like really chaotic . We had just traveled over the weekend and we're getting back in town and just you know how that feels you get home .
Meganthere's a million things to do and when he brought home dinner he also had gone next door . There was like a little cake shop next door and he got my favorite flavor of cupcake and he's like I know it's been a hard day , just wanted to like get you a little something to make you smile . It was really nice and it you know it's something small , but it definitely made my day , I love that , and it's not even customer service related , right ?
PriscillaIt's just like it's just another person making your day better , which ?
Priscillais the base of what customer service is , and so it's cool because it's like , hey , you don't have to be working in a customer service field to make someone's day better , but if you are working in customer service , you have all of these options in front of you , all of these opportunities to make someone's day better , which I just love . So that's a great answer to the question .
Buzzsprout's 2021 DDoS Attack
PriscillaSo Megan is here today because she and I had a pretty intense support experience several years ago , back in 2021 , megan and I were one of three people on the Buzzsprout customer support team and , megan , I think you'd only been with the team for like a year .
MeganA year . At that point yeah .
PriscillaAnd so you were still kind of in a new zone . I mean , I think at that point you were pretty established , but you know it was less than a year , so there was still a lot of new things hitting you . At this point we were offering weekend support and so it was a Saturday or it was a Sunday .
MeganIt was a Sunday . I can like see it so clearly .
PriscillaOkay , set the scene for everyone .
MeganUsually working Sundays at that time in 2021 was like not super crazy . I would work it alone during the day and just get on every couple hours and help people out the best I could . Yep , and I had been working in the inbox for a little while when all of a sudden , the number just starts climbing yeah , climbing , and I'm like wait , what's going on ? Because we are getting like so many emails at once . This seems weird . And then I go into Basecamp .
PriscillaYeah .
MeganWhich is how we talk to each other within the company , and I was like somebody must know something clearly because this is not normal , yeah , and I believe Tom had posted in there like I think there's some sort of I don't even know if we were calling it an attack at that point . But there's something going on with the servers , or so I call you immediately and I think by this point we're at over 300 emails probably call you immediately and I think by this point we're at over 300 emails probably .
PriscillaYeah , on a Sunday is like insane Right , because on a Sunday at that point we probably had like 40 to 50 emails that would be in the inbox at a busier part in the day . Yeah .
MeganYou know , maybe answered 80 the entire day .
PriscillaRight , it was . It was pretty slow on a Sunday and so Megan called me . People are running into issues . I'm not seeing a ton of consistency on what the issues are , but people are having trouble accessing pages . Tom had posted something in Basecamp just saying , hey , something's going on . We're not sure , and basically what was happening was we were under a DDoS attack , so someone was just spamming our servers and locking them up so that people couldn't get into Buzzsprout . They couldn't get into the platform to do their work , and they had been DMing us and asking for some Bitcoin . I believe is what they were wanting .
JordanLike a ransom .
PriscillaYes , and so it was kind of wild . Right , it's a Sunday afternoon , you know , I think it was February or March of 2021 . It was beautiful weather outside and then all of a sudden it's everyone get to their computer . I mean , I think Kevin was down south and immediately got his family in the car and finished their vacation early and came back . It was this whole wild situation . And we actually have an episode of Buzzcast , which is another one of our podcasts , that's specifically about the DDoS attack . So if you want more details on that side of it , you should go listen to that episode . We'll put it in the show notes .
JordanIt's a really fun episode to listen to honestly , and we talked to Jack Reisider , who has Darknet Diaries , which is about the hacking world , and it's a fascinating podcast . You have to listen to that too , but it's a really good episode . I think that's our most popular episode we've ever published .
PriscillaYeah , it's really cool . So if you haven't listened to that , if you don't know what I'm talking about , you should go listen to it . But what we want to talk about today is what that experience was like for customer support specifically . There was no like consistency with the issues that we were seeing . It was not like everyone couldn't log in . Sometimes people could log in , sometimes they could get to a place where they're about to upload an episode , and then sometimes they couldn't upload the episode or they couldn't get to a certain page and it's like how do you even like respond when you don't even understand , like what a problem is ?
PriscillaI remember Megan and I at one point got on speakerphone and just had speakerphone on .
PriscillaFor days multiple days , the speakerphone was on Just so that we could feel like we were in the same room , because at this point it's 2021 . We were was on just so that we could feel like we were in the same room , because , at this point it's 2021 , we were working , everyone was basically fully remote at that point , and so we just put the speaker on so that we could just be in the virtual room with each other , because we needed to have some kind of human interaction , because there was so much emailing happening . One time I remember not being able to think straight about something and Megan said I think you need to stand up and walk outside and be in the sunlight for a minute . And I was like , ok , yeah , good , and I did , and it was so refreshing to like get out for a minute , take a deep breath and to come back in . What else do you remember about those two or three days ?
MeganI remember when we found out it was the afternoon , like Sunday afternoon at like three , and then the next thing I know it's like seven thirty pm and we had not left the computers . It was all happening so fast . I remember getting pings at like 2.30 in the morning and you being like I'm going to bed for a few hours and then I'll get back in here and Tom sending out pings at like 4 in the morning and just a lot of confusion .
MeganI think we were confused on what was going on . I think we had much more clarity once it stopped what had happened . I remember being really confused about how long is this going to last and when is this going to end . Yeah , and I also remember just like the resilience of Buzzsprout customers at that time , Like I was so thankful that we have such amazing podcasters who were so understanding and we're like what can we do to help ?
JordanLike they were like we ride at dawn for Buzzsprout .
MeganThey were so ready to help us , which was so sweet and amazing and definitely made it much easier to work through that time .
PriscillaYeah , so it was like 36 hours the actual attack and we kind of were able to get it resolved after about 36 hours . But then there was probably another day and a half where , at least from the support side of things , we were still dealing with a lot of just more emails than expected , because there was a lot of , still a lot of people writing in . After that the biggest surprise , I felt like , was how understanding our customers were like you were talking about .
PriscillaYou know the kindness .
PriscillaWe were getting messages from people that were just saying , hey , I know you're in the middle of this right now , but I just want you to know we're rooting for you and it was just like a lot of really sweet messages and kind messages from our customers and you know we're rooting for you and it was just like a lot of really sweet messages and kind messages from our customers .
PriscillaAnd you know there were angry people obviously there's always going to be but we really felt like we had an overwhelming amount of positivity from our customers and neither of us had dealt with anything like that before .
PriscillaThere were definitely times when the site would be down before the DDoS attack , when , you know , we'd have like a site down for a couple hours and we'd have to kind of manage those mini crises , but this was 36 hours of consistent , you know , the site not being fully usable , and so this was something unlike anything we had dealt with , megan or I , and so I feel like we had a lot of learning in those two days . A lot of learning like what kind of things we want to do to make this easier on ourselves to be able to get through this . Like you said we didn't know how long it was going to last , and so the sustainability factor of it was a big deal . Like are we going to be able to sustain this kind of influx with just the two of us for more than two days ? I don't know how long we would have been able to sustain it , probably not much longer .
MeganYeah , I majored in public relations in college and I had taken a crisis public relations class and then after college I worked at an agency where I did crisis PR for a few brands .
MeganOh , and let me tell you , working in support during a crisis is very different than being on the PR or media side of a crisis . Really , because you're hand in hand with the customer through it and you're experiencing it not only from the company side , but you're hand in hand with the customer through it , and you're experiencing it not only from the company side , but you're also experiencing it from the customer side and you're trying to bridge that gap for them . I think it's so cool that we're talking about this , because I wish we had had something like this before we went through that crisis .
MeganYes , I feel like there's a lot out there for how to deal with a crisis like with your company image , but not so much with image .
PriscillaYeah , I think that's a really good point that it is so different and that you are walking hand in hand with your customers and , as someone who's been in support for many years , you feel it on both sides . You kind of feel like you're standing in the gap because you feel for your developers who are trying to fix the issue , but then you also feel for your customers who are like , hey , I'm in a tough spot and you're in the middle of that going . I see both sides of this . I see where you're feeling the frustration and I see how hard we're working on this side , and it's my job to do as good a job as possible in communicating between those two things .
Strategies to Prepare for a Crisis
PriscillaSo today let's talk through some of the things we learned from that .
PriscillaSo some strategies . The first thing I'm going to say here is to plan ahead . That is the most important . I mean Megan just said you know I wish we had had something like this podcast to listen to , because if we had had some kind of strategy in place before that happened , I think it would have taken a lot of the stress of it down a little bit . We would have it still would have been insane . It still would have been a crazy three days , but it wouldn't have been quite so stressful maybe .
JordanBecause you guys were trying to figure out , you know how to navigate that and like what to say , what to do while you're in the trenches , Exactly .
PriscillaWhich is really hard .
MeganYeah , and I just want to say is like a word of encouragement too , if you don't have a plan in place yet , I think what we really did is we took the plan we'd had for smaller fires , other things we had , and really scaled it up . Yeah , and a lot of it was like a lot of our learning in that time was just scaling the plan for a bigger attack or a bigger issue . And so if you don't have a plan in place , like , look at what you do for smaller things and see how you can scale that up , you don't have to completely reinvent the wheel .
PriscillaRight , and if you've already set your tone , if you've already set your communication goals and all of these things that you are building as you're building a support team , a lot of that stuff will apply in a crisis situation . A crisis situation , you're not going to start treating your customers differently than you would outside of a crisis situation . So , being able to continue on with the tone that you speak in and the goals that you're going after like one of our goals is that you know , we want you to know , that Buzzsprout is on your team . That comes into play when you're dealing with a crisis like this and you want to make sure your customers feel cared for because we're on their side . And so , yeah , I think that's a good point , that it kind of is scaling what you're already doing just up to the max , because now you're in the middle of a situation that is not something you have ever dealt with before . So sometimes people will create like a crisis document or like a crisis management plan or something like that . This , I think , should include things like you know how you're going to communicate with customers , what that process is going to look like , assign the roles of who's going to do what during those kinds of things ? How are you going to communicate with your developers to stay up to date ? Have all of that in place before you even get to that crisis so that , when it comes into play , you can go back to that document and say , okay , I need to make sure that I'm executing on these things that we've already lined out . And , look , I've written some content now that I can morph a little bit so that it's applying to this specific crisis we're in . But I don't have to , like you said , I don't have to reinvent the wheel now , in the middle of the stressful time .
PriscillaYeah , the other thing I would say kind of that aligns with this is be prepared to debrief once the crisis is over , so that you can adjust your document , because you might create it like now , when you haven't had a crisis , you haven't gone through it , and then you go through it , and then you'll want to come back to it and say , ok , what worked , what didn't work , what did I not plan for that I want to adjust so that next time , if this happens again , I'll be prepared . And so I think that's an important key to it to like come back to it and revisit it at the end Debrief with your team , with the product team as a whole , and figure out what things you want to change and be prepared for going into the next crisis , because the likelihood is you're not going to think ahead for every little step in this process . You know you're going to miss some things and you want to make sure to capture that afterwards .
Effective Crisis Communication Tips
PriscillaSo the biggest importance when you're dealing in a crisis situation is to communicate well , and that is communication kind of on three different levels . When I look at it , I think of there's communication with your product team as a whole , so the whole team and what's happening with whatever crisis it is . And then there's communicating with your support team as a unit that is helping customers , and then there's communication with customers . So I kind of want to start with communicating with your product team .
PriscillaSo , as a support specialist , you are probably not the one that's actually fixing the problem right . Like Megan was saying , you're working both with the developers and with the customers . You're in the middle of that gap . So it's important for you to be aware of what's going on as much as you can be , because things are probably going to be changing really quickly and in our case , with the DDoS attack , things were changing a lot . Yes , I mean , it was very quick that things would change and different pages would be unavailable , and so it's very important for you to be on top of that and so hopefully , you're working with a company that is open communication , like that and sharing with the support team , that and sharing with the support team . But I know there are people listening to this going well , that's great and all , but there's no way that I'm going to be able to get that information from our developers . We don't have that kind of an open communication system .
PriscillaAnd so I would say , when you're building that plan , when you're building that crisis management document , I would encourage you to go to your developers now and say hey , when this happens in the future because something's going to happen where we're going to need to use this how are we going to keep our communication lines open ? And maybe they say we're going to make one person our point of contact and you're going to go to them and they're going to give you updates from the product side , but you want to make sure that those lines of communication are open , because the worst thing is that you can't get the information from the developers and then you have nothing to share with your customers , and then that gives you this look of oh , they're not being transparent about what's going on , they're not being helpful because we don't have any more information to give , and so I think it's really important to establish that line of communication early on , even before the crisis starts .
MeganI would agree and I would say too if you don't have direct communication with your product team , do you have direct communication with somebody else who does and can share that information ? I think it's just most important that you get that information to share with your customers in a timely manner . So wherever that's coming from on your team is great .
PriscillaYeah , and honestly take the crisis out of it . You should have direct communication with your product team .
PriscillaI mean you should , but that doesn't always happen and if you're listening , well , and if you're listening to this and you're like I don't , then I would encourage you to advocate for yourself , like knock on some doors , figure out why there's no communication there . It's really hard for you to do your job well if you don't have that open communication . So if you're working for a company that doesn't provide that , I would start knocking on doors . I would start figuring out how to make that communication easy , because once you get to a situation like this , you have to have it . There's no way around it , and so you want to make sure that that part of your culture is sorted out before you get to a place where you are really going to get stuck . No-transcript , because sometimes you're going to want to say something to a customer and they're going to say , hey , we actually can't share this publicly . We want to keep this piece of information private , and so having that information in the first place is good , but make sure you know what's public , what shouldn't be publicly shared , so that you can communicate with confidence when you're working with customers . Yeah , I also recommend that all of this communication be done in a public written way . So Megan mentioned we use Basecamp , which is just a way for us to communicate as a team . Try to keep this stuff out of pings or direct messages , where the rest of the team can't see it . Keep this kind of stuff in all company chats so that that way , or all company messages so that everyone can see where the current status is on whatever's going on . So the whole support team is in the same boat and they can all see that information . Because if you remove all this relaying information , it's kind of like telephone Like . If I get a ping from a developer says this is where we are now , and then I turn and I ping this person and this is where we are now , and they message this person . It's going to morph by the time it gets to the customer and so if you have it all in one place that's publicly available to everyone on the team , that's going to be a much easier way to communicate that information and then get the accurate information back to your customer . Yeah , okay .
PriscillaSo now let's talk about communicating with your support team specifically .
PriscillaSo in addition to communicating with the product team and putting fires out , you also have to communicate well with your support team so that you guys can all move together as a unified team to work with your customers and it's really important that you , as a support leader , are taking care of your team in this time , like when Megan and I were doing it , it was just the two of us , we were the only two support specialists and we were in constant communication .
PriscillaBut if you're in a big team and you have , you know , 30 , 40 , hundreds of people on your team , you have to be really , really intentional about making sure that communication stays easy throughout the whole time , because people are going to be . If things are changing in this crisis , you're going to want to make sure that everyone's on the same page , and that's your responsibility as the head of your team to make sure everyone on your team feels that knows the information and feels supported in themselves right Working through this crisis . It's not always about them making sure that they can help the customer , but in some cases's not always about them making sure that they can help the customer , but in some cases , it's also about them making sure that they can step outside for a few minutes and take a deep breath , because being glued to your computer for 24 hours is not healthy .
PriscillaNot at all , yeah , ok .
PriscillaAnd then the last level of communication is communicating with your customers , and this might sound like a no brainer , but I really don't think it is .
PriscillaI think it seems like when there's a crisis , sometimes you feel like there's this need to hold back information or hide it yeah , or hide it or not let it be known that there's something happening behind the curtain . You kind of want to be like oh , something's happening , or like let's not tell them anything until we know exactly what's going on , or kind of keeping it to yourself a little bit . And I feel like you have a short window of time there before your customers start to lose faith in you that you're taking care of them if they don't hear anything back . If people started emailing , so , megan , if on that Sunday people started emailing you and you didn't respond and you were like we don't know what's going on , I'm not going to respond to people , it would not have taken long for them to think , ok , buzzsprout is totally out of it , because they're not responding to us and we don't know what's going on and no one's keeping us in the loop . And so I think the communication between your customer support team and your customers is the most vital part .
MeganAnd I think you'll find that customers are much more patient when they have information . Yes , People just want to understand what's going on , and so I think the more you're able to obviously , you don't have to tell them everything , but the more you're able to tell them about what's happening and you know the information you have that's available , I think the more patient that they are , because they feel like they're being told the truth , they feel like they're in an authentic conversation with you and they have more patience for you as a person .
PriscillaWell , and even if you don't have a resolution for them , they at least know that you're working on it . They at least know you care enough about them to respond to them and let them know that John , your developer , is working on it , and that kind of like personality or that personalization of the situation I think can be really helpful . You know , we've all had experiences where something breaks with a product that we're using or a service that we're using and then we email their support team and you don't hear anything back , and then you just feel like you're in a hole . You're like I have no information . A good explanation of this is , I guess last year I went and saw a concert , a Taylor Swift concert .
PriscillaWe had like a huge storm before the show actually started , oh yeah , and so it was delayed for like four hours . But it was crazy because we're sitting there in this hotel lobby with no information on what's happening or when the show is going to start , and so you just feel very disconnected . You're like I don't know how to even who to reach out to . We ended up finding that the stadium where she was going to be playing was giving updates on the weather , and they were doing a great job of keeping things updated and they were sharing email addresses saying you know , if you need to reach out to us with specific questions , you can email us here . Otherwise , the updates are best to be kept on the status you know on this Twitter page . It felt really good in the moment to be like OK , wait , they do actually care about us . We're sitting here waiting . We're not actually in this hole , no-transcript .
PriscillaAbsolutely so as support specialists , our goal obviously is to support the customers , which is pretty straightforward , but in times when you're in a crisis , your customers need more support . Yes , you know , I think it's really important to communicate quickly and often with your customers . So , you know , don't make your customers wait . If you can respond to them quickly and let them know you're on it , do it . It's okay if you don't have a resolution , respond to them right away . Let them know you're working on it . Define what the issue is , because they won't know what the issue is so you can respond . Def what's going on . Take responsibility If it's your product , something that you know we broke .
PriscillaSo in the DDoS attack it wasn't something we had done , but we've definitely had situations where we've pushed out an update that has broken something and we will take ownership of that and say , hey , we are working to get this resolved . We will be in touch with you as soon as it is . We made a change that glitched the system , like . We'll take ownership of that because people respect that when you take the ownership of what the issue is .
JordanAnd I think the instinct in a lot of these situations is to like not say anything until you have all the answers , Like not say anything until it's fixed . You know . You just instinctually like don't want to give bad news and you don't want to say that you don't know .
PriscillaYeah , but when you don't say anything and people are left in the silence , then the worst case scenario is what's going on in their head , you know . So getting back to people quickly and offering that communication early on , even if it's not fully resolved or on a road to resolution , that can be really helpful in kind of showing your customers that you're in there with them and you're working on it and you're advocating for them .
PriscillaLike Megan was saying , be as transparent as you can be . You know , if you know the issue , say what the issue is . If you don't know what the issue is , tell them . You're looking into it and you're trying to find a solution , and you haven't fully figured out what's going on . People respect it when you tell them the truth .
PriscillaI think it's also important to address the important concerns with the DDoS attack . I remember specifically that we told people over and over and over again that their billing information and their personal information was safe and their episodes were safe and their content was safe . Because that's what people are worried about . They're worried about their content being leaked or they're worried about especially when you say , hey , we're experiencing a DDoS attack . People don't know what that means and they go oh my gosh attack , you've been hacked , you know all my stuff is being removed , but that's not what's happening . And so we were very intentional to say hey , it's not an attack where your information , your billing information , is being shared or any of your content is at risk . You just can't get into your account right now , which isn't good , but at least you can be assured that your information is safe and so getting ahead of it when you're working in a crisis situation , and telling someone that before they even ask about it can be really helpful too , just to reassure them .
MeganAnd if you're not sure what those main concerns are going to be for your customers , those first few emails you get will let you know . Like I remember , we had a lot of people in the beginning writing in asking , being like if there is an attack , is my information safe ? Is my billing information on my episode safe ? And we had kind of anticipated that that would be people's questions . But if you're not sure what those concerns might be , your customers will let you know and you can adjust your materials to address those real time In the moment .
Priscillayeah , exactly as you start to , you start to see where their worry is coming from . You can adjust things . So it's nice to have that plan in place so that you can be ready ahead of time . But the reality is things are going to change in the moment of the crisis and as you learn about what your customers are worried about , you can adjust things to speak to those concerns .
MeganI think that's really good .
PriscillaI would also say thank them for being patient . I think this is something that sometimes is overlooked , but the reality is your customer is trying to use the product that they're paying you for , and if they can't use it or if they're dealing with some kind of a glitch , they're having to be patient , they're having to wait , and so , yes , you're the one . That's like fielding fires and your developers are working frantically to get things done , but your customer doesn't see any of that , and so I would just say thank them for being patient .
PriscillaIt is always a choice , as someone who is writing into support , whether you want to be patient or not . You don't have to be . They did not . There's no need to be patient , and so I always try to be aware , especially when someone writes in and they are calm and they're understanding . I always want to reinforce that behavior by thanking them for being understanding and being patient with us while we work on this , but I think that that kind of just brings in that human aspect of it , and hopefully it encourages people to recognize that , okay , like they're going through a lot , they're dealing with this . We're going to be patient with them while they're working on it . I also love the idea of following up once you get more information .
PriscillaSo following up with your customers . I think that it's hard to scale this right , so you might be hearing this and going , oh , you had 500 emails that afternoon . That's nothing on a regular day for us and so , of course , volume is going to be different for every product , every service . But if you have the ability to follow up with your customers when something either when there's new information that's gathered , or when you're on the road to recovery , or when things have finished I think that's so valuable because it really shows the person like hey , I remember you and I want to follow up with you and let you know that this is resolved and you should be all good to go and everything is . But if you see anything off , let us know . I think that follow up piece can be really impactful when it comes to the loyalty of someone on your product .
MeganYes , and if you are not working customer support directly through email and maybe you're doing it through social media , like putting out a post on social media to follow up with people , even like a few days later , reminding people that things are OK is also like a great way to continue to reassure your customer base .
PriscillaYeah , absolutely . Another thing you can do is offer additional resources . So we said you know , we're kind of talking about this DDoS attack , which was pretty local to Buzzsprout . As far as you know , it was an issue that happened within Buzzsprout . It wasn't an issue we came up with , but it was Buzzsprout specific .
PriscillaWe recently had a situation where several , many of our podcasters had an issue with YouTube that affected their episodes on Buzzsprout , but the issue was YouTube , and so in those situations where it's an actually it's an issue with a third party that's outside of your control , and now you're just managing customer feedback right , you're trying to work with customers and make sure that they feel taken care of , but you actually don't have any control over the situation at all . Offer additional resources . Find them the help articles that the other third party has created , find the status page that the third party has created or their help emails , and share that with your customers and say , hey , this is actually something that's happening over here at this third party . We've reached out to them , but we also recommend that you reach out to them as well . Here's the information to get in touch with them . That can go a long way , too , because it really shows . Instead of just saying , oh , not our fault , you deal with it . It says , yeah , we are aware and we are trying to get this resolved on your behalf .
MeganI think it goes back to that theory of we're really standing in the gap between the customer and the company , and sometimes that is not your company . Sometimes you have to like fill in that gap for wherever the issue is coming from , to continue walking with the customer . Totally true .
PriscillaAnd it says so many good things about your company that you're willing to stand in the gap for someone else . Yes , so when you have customers that are frustrated because YouTube isn't doing something that they should be doing because we're all human and things happen right yeah , we stand in the gap for our customers , even if the issue is not Buzzsprout . I do think that that really goes a long way for customers . And then I mentioned a minute ago having like a status page or something . I think you know , if you're working with so many customers that you can't follow up with them directly , having a status page is a really , really great way to keep people in the loop and to let people know what's going on as it's happening . Yeah , and I would just say don't be stingy about your updates . It's okay if you're updating regularly on that status page , even if the updates aren't huge . I mean , I know I've gone to status pages to get updates on things and I'm like man , they haven't posted an update in two hours . Did they forget about this page ? Even if they had said hey , we're still in the same spot . We were an hour and a half ago , but I just wanted to give you an update . We're still working on it . That would feel at least something right , and so I would say , don't be stingy about your status updates . If you're working on a status page , I think that is a really good way to keep your customers , you know , in the light . In that situation , more information is going to make people feel so much calmer when they're dealing with that .
Develop Materials Before a Crisis Occurs
PriscillaThe next tip I would tell people is to develop materials before you get to the crisis .
PriscillaSo we talked about kind of a crisis document , but when I'm talking about materials , I mean like writing your saved replies or your canned responses or some helpful phrases that you know are going to be good when you're dealing with a crisis , like these phrases that you're like oh yeah , this is I've really thought through this intentionally and this is going to communicate that we're on your team , and so I'm going to write this ahead of time , because then , when we're in the middle of the crisis , I can use these tools that I've already developed to be really efficient with my emails , because when we were doing that DDoS attack , we had no time to develop anything like that , and if we had developed it in the moment which a lot of it was in the moment , but it was hard to step back and be really intentional about how we were writing things , because we were seeing this number just explode and so many emails coming in .
PriscillaYeah , it's really helpful to do it outside of the crisis right To step back and be really intentional about developing those responses , sharing them with your team so your team knows where to find all of that information , and then you can tweak things as the crisis actually starts . Right when you're actually in the middle of it , you can adjust things so that it's specific , because you don't want it to be these like vague , overarching emails that don't feel like they're specific to the situation , but they can still be used as a framework for that communication with your clients .
MeganYeah , I think you never wanted to feel like , oh , they're just sending this because they have to . I know I've definitely received emails in the past where it just feels like they're putting a bandaid on the situation or they're like trying to , you know , put their head in the sand and it's like , we're fine , we sent you the email , like we told you , but I'm like you didn't really tell me anything . Customers can really see through that quickly . So , like you said , it's OK to develop something that's pretty vague , but then make sure you tailor it specific to your situation .
PriscillaYeah , and what I will do . So with that YouTube example from a couple of weeks ago , what I will do when we hit something where we start to move into crisis mode , I will step back and I will write a very specific canned response for that issue . And it's hard sometimes , especially when emails are coming in quickly and you go , man , I really wanna keep answering these , but actually taking the step back , focusing on it , writing whatever response you're gonna write , defining the problem for the customer , writing it within your tone , with your communication goals in mind all of that is really important and then you can add it to your email service , whatever service you use . You can save it as a reply in there and then you can add it to your email service , whatever service you use . You can save it as a reply in there and then you tailor it for each email that you send . But that base information is all going to be there for you , and it is hard sometimes , especially if you have a team of two people , to take one person out of the inbox to focus on that . But it's really important because it will make your email so much more efficient as you then get back into the inbox and you start working through emails , when you have the ability to take this really good email that was just written and send it off and tailor it for each individual that's writing in , I think it's really important , even though it's really hard to step back and do that . And so as much as you can do it before the crisis is really great , but then , within the crisis , be okay with taking a step back and focusing on that in the moment .
Adapting to Changes During a Crisis
PriscillaAnother thing I think we've mentioned a couple of times is just being adaptable when things change . In our situation with this DDoS , things change really fast . In whatever crisis you're in , it's probably going to change really fast , and so be adaptable , be nimble , be able to change things quickly , be able to communicate with your support team about how things are changing , because you may go from saying one thing to your customers and then you learn a new piece of information , and now you need to change what you're telling your customers because actually it's slightly different and you want to make sure you're up to date on what you're telling people . You're up to date on what you're telling people , and so be able to have things in place so that that communication can be done freely and that change can be seen by the whole team . You know I was thinking through these kind of strategies .
PriscillaI was thinking , you know what do I feel like when we went through this DDoS attack , made it successful . It doesn't seem like the right word , but I keep coming back to the idea that we were human . Megan and I were human . We did not know what was going on , we were doing our best , we were trying to figure it out in the moment and we were being human . And when people would write in and be frustrated , we would say , hey , we're in the middle of this DDoS attack .
PriscillaMegan and I did not know what a DDoS attack was . I even think I Googled it because I didn't know what it was . I was like , what does this even mean ? And I think sometimes that human aspect of it can have such a big impact on your customers when they feel like , oh man , I'm talking to Megan . Megan knows podcasting , but Megan is not a tech wizard and knows everything about a DDoS attack . But she's helping me stay calm and she's reassuring me that the people on her team that do know everything about that are working on fixing things , and I think that that human aspect can be really , really powerful .
MeganYes , at the beginning of the episode we talked about how we had so many positive replies about the issue as well , and I think that comes from being human . The entire time we're in support , like people were ready to stand with us and encourage us because they know us . Yeah , and I think that really goes a long way , not just when you're in a crisis , but when you're not , because it can help you when you're in a crisis as well .
PriscillaRight , it's that empathy aspect right . You want to be empathetic for people who are dealing with the customer side of this frustrating situation . You're dealing with the support side of the frustrating situation . The developers are dealing with the support side of the frustrating situation . The developers are dealing with the technical side . So everyone is frustrated , and so being able to offer empathy for the people who are dealing with their side of it is really important . Having grace for your customers , especially the ones who are going to write in and be frustrated and saying you know , I understand this is frustrating . I would be frustrated too . I am frustrated . I'm working for seven hours on a Sunday and I don't want to be . But that allows me to be even more empathetic with you , because I know how frustrating this is to be doing this , and so I think letting that be part of your communication , it can have a huge , huge impact on your customers and that relationship solidifying .
PriscillaAnd you said something cool , megan . You said , like they know us , you know they were able to give us grace because they know us , because we'd already built these relationships with them before we were in crisis management mode , and I think that is a huge thing to remember that when you're leaning into this human side of support , this human side of customer service , you're building these relationships . It's not just an email or a call center , it's a relationship , and so then , when something goes off the rails , you have a foundation to work from . Yes , and people are going to feel like they have you on their side and I think that's a really cool thing when you see it happening . It felt really cool during the DDoS attack to have people who I felt like cared about me back when I was so they cared about my crazy situation that I was in and I was caring about their crazy situation . They were in and it was really cool to have that happen .
MeganYeah , that definitely went a long way during the late night hours . Yes , definitely did .
Supporting Your Team in Crisis
PriscillaI think another thing we can't forget is you have to take care of your support team .
PriscillaA lot of times when you're in the middle of these crises , it can be hard to think about the fact that you actually need to step out of it for a minute .
PriscillaAnd the people on your team are struggling and it's your job as the leader to say hey , I need you to step away from the computer for an hour . I need you to take a break . Yes , that means people are going to have to wait a little bit longer , but I need you to take a break . Yes , that means people are going to have to wait a little bit longer , but I need you to be able to have some calm in your life , because the reality is in that situation , we didn't know how long it was going to go for , and we had to make sure that you and I were protecting ourselves , and so , as a support leader , I want to encourage you to look out for your team in those moments and remember , just like you're remembering , that your customers are human and your customers have strong feelings and are frustrated in the situation , that your support team also needs to have that support , just like you're giving to your customers .
MeganAbsolutely .
PriscillaI mean , I really vividly remember you telling me , megan , to get up and walk out of the room , and I thought I would never have told myself to do that . I would have said I got to stay here , I got to stay on the computer . I can't let these customers wait any longer than they're already waiting . And Megan said hey , guess what , you need to go outside . You need to go outside and take a break because there are bigger things here and you're protecting of your own just ability to keep working , let alone mental , let alone all these other things . You know , it was just really good for me to hear that from someone else . And you're also in that moment saying I'm going to take on the load of this while you go outside . So that to me felt like , ok , megan's going to hold it down and then I can come in and do the same thing for her , to give us both the ability to keep going and to keep pushing through the crisis .
PriscillaAnd you mentioned something about me sending an email at 2.30 or something I remember in the attack in the middle of the night it like got really intense again because we'd go in these like waves . And it was the middle of the night and I saw it and I jumped in the inbox and Tom one of the founders of Buzzsprout he pinged me and said hey , I want you to go back to bed . Like you need to go back and go to sleep because I need you to be able to work at 7 am . I don't want you working at 3 am . Yes , and I also felt like that was another one of those moments where it was like I was given the permission to take care of myself no-transcript right .
PriscillaYou have to lead by example , too , and you have to say , hey , I'm going to look out for you , but I'm also going to take some time to walk outside or to get a glass of water or to go lay down for 20 minutes . Another thing that we find really helps us when we're dealing with these kind of crisis moments is assigning roles to different people on the team . So in any crisis situation Megan and I laughed about this a lot right after the DDoS attack , but there would be people who would write in and they'd say how do I reset my password ? And we'd be like do you not realize there's a huge attack going on and you're asking us how to reset a password or how to delete an episode , and other people can't even move around . And so in any crisis , you're going to have people who don't realize there's a crisis happening and they're going to ask their random you know run of the mill everyday questions . And so what I find to be helpful is to assign a couple people the role of looking for those everyday questions , and that is their job . And then you take other people and you assign them to the crisis questions , and that helps keep your communication clear , because you know that these are the three people who are dealing with the crisis and I'm gonna go work with them specifically about all of these updates on the crisis and I know that the other two people are looking for things that are not crisis related and they're staying on top of kind of your everyday run of themill support . So I think establishing those roles early can be really helpful and sometimes , depending on what the crisis is , you only need one person fielding those crisis emails , and sometimes it's the other way and you need one person dealing with everyday emails and everyone else on the crisis . But I think establishing that ahead of time can be really helpful .
PriscillaAnd then the last thing that I had , which we just kind of talked about , was accepting help . You know we are very used to giving help as a support team . We are very used to solving other people's problems , but we are not very used to accepting help from other people . And one of the big things that we noticed during that DDoS attack was it was just the two of us , but I don't know if you remember Megan Brian Hunt , who is one of our developers on our team . He spent the entire 36 hours in support with us . Yes , I don't even think we asked him . I think he just showed up and said hey , I'm here to answer questions , put me in .
MeganWhich is just like the best thing about Brian he is always so willing to help out and he has the foresight to think or is going to need someone with developer knowledge in there ?
PriscillaYeah with developer knowledge , yeah , and he brought himself in and we accepted it and it was huge to have him in there and it really just reminded me that you don't have to be the only people that are doing it in those crisis situations .
PriscillaIt doesn't have to just be the support team . If your CEO can't help squash whatever bug is happening , maybe they can get in and help work with customers . I think it's hard sometimes to let other people come into your space when that's not what they're used to doing , but as long as you communicate well with them and show them those tools we talked about , where they can find the tools , and keep that communication open , then they're going to be able to help in a way that's going to be helpful . Even if it's not perfect , even if it's not someone who's been trained on support for eight years . It's helping If a designer emails one of your customers and says , hey , here's the situation . That's going to feel good to a customer who's going oh , I'm talking to a designer . This must be like a serious thing , because the designer is telling me what's going on , and I think that can be a great way for you as a support team to feel supported by the company . But it can be hard to accept help in that way sometimes .
MeganYes .
PriscillaSo if you haven't experienced a crisis like we have with the DDoS attack , that's a good thing , and the reality is you may never experience a crisis at that level . But if you're working in customer support , you are going to run into bugs , you are going to run into glitches , things are going to break , the site is going to go down and these are not huge , terrible things that are going to happen , but they are going to be situations where your customers are affected , and so hopefully some of these tips that we've shared will help you to better stand in the gap between your customers and your product as you support them and make sure that they know that you're on their team and you're taking care of them , because it can be a really hard job , but the reality is , the way that you handle a crisis can lose you some customers , but it can also make loyal customers for life , and so preparing for that ahead of time is so important . Even if you never hit a DDoS attack , the way we did , the way you handle that , will have a huge impact on your customers and can ultimately come out with some really , really loyal customers at the end of it . So hopefully these tips will help you with that .
Support in Real Life: Airlines
PriscillaIt's time for Support in Real Life , our segment where we discuss real life support experiences and questions . So what do you have for us this week ? Jordan , I have something . Oh , megan has something .
MeganOk , megan what do you ?
Priscillahave .
MeganSo we are recording this the day after Halloween and yesterday on Halloween , I was just scrolling through my social media as one does , going through my social media as one does , and I saw one of my friends had posted that her flight attendant had made Halloween goodie bags for all of the passengers on the flight no way and it was just like a little bag , like it wasn't a huge thing , but she had taken his picture like holding all the bags and posted about it .
MeganAnd this friend doesn't work in customer support , she's not like a super huge traveler posting about that all the time . It was just like a kind thing that somebody in customer support did and it moved her so much that she posted about it on social media .
PriscillaI love that . That's such a good story . Typically we have in this section we talk about like questions and like advice , but I love just talking about this great story . That's so encouraging . I feel like I've been on a bunch of planes recently and I feel like I've been noticing a lot more about just the difficult job it is to be a flight attendant yes , and so someone going out of their way to create those little goodie bags to give everyone on their planes . They can have a fun experience because they're flying on Halloween . I think that's such a great example of like going above and beyond as a customer service specialist or worker to really take care of your customers . I really love that story .
JordanWell , and I mean to go with that , you know , we just got back from our trip in Nashville and it was so funny because while we were at the Nashville airport we were walking by this big candy store and Priscilla like pops in because she has to go buy treats for all the flight attendants to give them when she gets on the plane .
PriscillaYeah , it's something I've just recently started doing and obviously I didn't come up with it . I saw someone else that does this . They basically buy just a little treat for the flight crew before they get on a plane , just as a way to say thank you ahead of time . I love it . I saw them do it . I thought that is just such a good thing and I , you know , we have this podcast and talk a lot about making people's day and I just thought .
PriscillaYou know I can do this easily and so it's something I've started doing the last several flights I've gone on and it really it's so much fun to walk on the flight and to hand it to someone and say , hey , this is for the flight crew , and their face lights up . They get so excited and it's just a sweet moment . And what is it ? $15 , because it's an airport chocolate .
MeganSo it's probably $15 .
PriscillaBut , still it's not that much , and it's a great way to just show people who work in the service industry because , let's be honest , it's hard to work with people all the time , especially when you're stuck in a tiny tube in the middle of the sky with them . You know . I want to make sure that you know that I appreciate the work you're doing , because it's hard .
MeganYes , and I feel like the aviation industry in general gets kind of a bad rap for service . I feel like most people's stories about flight attendants or airlines in general , airline workers yeah , airlines in general are typically negative . So it's nice to hear positive stories too and to know that , like if you're working in an industry that might have negative connotations associated with service , that like you can still make a huge impact and people are always going to be receptive of it .
PriscillaYeah , I completely agree . Well , thanks for sharing that , megan . I think that was a great story for our Support in Real Life segment . Yeah , so if you have a question or a support situation that you would like us to discuss , you can email us at happytohelp at buzzsproutcom , or you can text the show by using the link in our show notes . Each episode we will discuss a different question or story , so if you send something in , we may discuss yours on the next episode .
PriscillaAnd remember , if you like this episode , please take some time to rate or review it on Apple Podcasts . We are getting close to wrapping up our first season , so as we plan for season two , we would love to hear some of that feedback . So click the link in the show notes to text us and let us know or leave a review on Apple Podcasts , because we would love to see that . Thank you so much for being here , megan . I really appreciate you taking the time to talk through this with us and , as always , jordan , thank you for being here and being the best producer in the land . Oh , wow .
MeganThank you both for having me . This has been so fun .
PriscillaAnd thank you both for having me . This has been so fun , and thank you everyone for listening . Now go and make someone's day .
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