Lessons from 20 Episodes of Happy to Help

As we bid farewell to season one, we recall the invaluable lessons learned over 20 amazing episodes!

Thanks to our incredible guests: Sarah Caminiti, Chase Clemons, Sarah Hatter, Kristi Ernst Thompson, and Suneet Bhatt. These experts shared their wisdom on leading with kindness, addressing feedback constructively, and fostering a sense of community and team support.

We'll be returning in February 2025 for season two!

Your suggestions for future topics or guests are welcome! We plan to continue providing you with actionable strategies to enhance your customer service, so if there is something you want us to discuss, let us know! 

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!

Transcript

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Priscilla 0:00

Welcome to Happy to Help , a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout . I'm your host , priscilla Brooke . Today we're wrapping up season one and looking forward to season two and the future of Happy to Help . Thanks for joining us . Let's get into it All right , jordan ? Well , we've completed 20 episodes of Happy to Help . Can you even believe it ? Honestly , I can't . When we first talked about doing this podcast , I remember thinking that 10 episodes was going to be such a hurdle , like , how are we going to do 10 episodes ? That was our original plan , was a 10 episode arc , and then we will reassess . And here we are , 20 episodes in and we're wrapping up season one .

Jordan 0:43

I can't even believe it . Yeah , and it's one of those things like that's so funny because it did start as just like such a small , bite-sized project and then it just blossomed into this amazing thing that we did , and now I'm like so pumped for the next season . I know I just can't wait and it's just wild that we'd even like picture this happening .

Priscilla 1:03

You know , the other day we had just finished recording episode 20 and I was thinking about the season and we did five episodes with just you and I , so five , you know kind of just the two of us and then we did 10 episodes with people from the Buzzsprout team joining us , which was really fun .

Priscilla 1:22

We did 10 with the Buzzsprout team 10 episodes , yeah , with the Buzzsprout team , and then we did five interviews with people outside of the Buzzsprout team , which is also really awesome Just all of the information that is now captured and available for people who are in this industry , who are trying to level up their customer support , or people who have a small team and are trying to figure out how to offer remarkable customer support . I feel like I'm just very proud of all of the episodes that we've published and put out there . And you know , one of my goals when we started this podcast was that I wanted it to be a podcast where people had actionable tips and strategies and things that they could take and turn around and implement . Yeah , I don't know about you , I listen to a lot of podcasts . I'm sure you do too , jordan .

Priscilla 2:10

Yes , I feel like a lot of times when you listen to these , like big leadership podcasts or these big how to do your work well podcasts . A lot of times they're very big ideas in there and they're kind of talking in these vague terms and it's all very inspiring and good and can be really beneficial , but sometimes it leaves you at the end of it going OK , but what do I do ? How do I do that , and so , with this podcast , I really wanted it to be very actionable . I wanted it to be things that people could start implementing that would make their work better , or at least ways to think about things that might challenge what they're used to thinking about , especially in the world of customer support . And I feel like we did that and hopefully , especially for people who are just starting in this industry or people who are trying to build a team of customer support specialists , my hope is that these episodes are giving them the right foundational tools to build that well , to be remarkable ultimately .

Jordan 3:07

Yeah Well , and reflecting on this last season , what would you say are probably like the top takeaways that you really hope people walk away with .

Priscilla 3:16

Man , it's hard to boil 20 episodes that are all different down to like four takeaways , and all completely packed in with information .

Jordan 3:26

I know I know , right , right .

Priscilla 3:28

There were three things that stood out to me as kind of threads throughout different episodes , that kind of tied episodes together , and so the first one is just about the intentionality behind planning ahead and thinking through things before you're dealing with them in the moment .

Priscilla 3:44

And so you know , when you think about those early episodes where we talked about setting your communication goals or defining your support tone or hiring the right people and how to train them , All of those episodes talk about the importance of preparation , the importance of thinking ahead or laying a foundation for your support team to be successful .

Priscilla 4:05

Exactly and like I want to think through my communication goals before I'm in a situation where I have to figure out what I'm trying to communicate . Like putting that foundation together , like you said , I think that's really good and being intentional about that is going to set you up for success . And being intentional about the kind of people you're hiring and the soft skills that they have and the way you train them and the importance of that step being done correctly so that you are set up to offer really good customer support and , you know , a remarkable service beyond that person getting hired or getting trained . Yeah , so I feel like that was one of the kind of through lines I think we even talked about it in one of our recent episodes about , like crisis management , the importance of putting together a plan before you're in the middle of it . Yeah , so I think that was kind of that preparation piece or that thinking ahead and being intentional about preparation I think was one of the takeaways from the season .

Priscilla 4:57

Another one that you know is just a through line with all of customer support . Every time I'm talking about customer support but just being human with your customers , yeah , and remembering that you're human . You don't have to be perfect . You know we had that episode with Tom early on about perfection and how you don't have to be perfect . Then we had the episode about empathy with Brian and we talked about how to work with angry customers with Megan . And all of those come back to this very simple idea that we are humans and the people we are working with are humans . And if you keep that human side of support and you keep that relationship and that connection at the top of your list when it comes to communication , that that's going to lead to a better outcome than if you try to keep things super , super professional or robotic or kind of keep the personality out of it . And so that was another one just like being human with your customers .

Jordan 5:52

Yeah , I think , as someone who was , you know , basically along for the ride during the season , that would be my number one . You know , humanity and empathy , yeah .

Priscilla 6:02

And I think , spoiler alert , it's probably going to be the number one thing through season two , because I think it is such an important part of remarkable service , is that humanity , that human aspect , the relationship building piece , like we talked about in our episode about writing , the importance of writing how you speak , oh yeah .

Priscilla 6:22

And keeping things conversational , because it allows you to connect with people so much better than if you try to keep things super professional or worry so much about the grammar or should this comma be here ? Should it not Like keeping those things out of your main focus can allow you to have this communication , this relationship built in such a way that's just really , really cool . And then the other thing that I feel like we touched on several times in several episodes was the idea that you shouldn't be afraid to try something and it not work out and then try something new , and that just because you've done something one way up until now doesn't mean that that's the way that it's always going to be , or the best way , or the best way Exactly . And you know we talked about adding after hours support and how we went through phases of does this work ? No , that's not working , let's try a different way . Does that work ? Okay , that works a little bit better , but maybe not where we want it to be or holiday coverage .

Priscilla 7:19

You know we had that episode about holiday coverage , where we talked about trying out a lot of different things and a lot of them not working and eventually finding something that for right now works but next year it might not be the way that we do holiday coverage , and so kind of the idea that you can try things and they might not work out and there's growth in that , and then you try something new and that might not work out or it might go great for two years and then you realize that it's no longer the best thing , and so I think that was kind of the third main takeaway is that it's OK .

Priscilla 7:54

Main takeaway is that it's okay and this really applies outside of support too just in your life that it is good to try things and to have them fail and to learn from them and to try another thing and to see how that goes and to be adaptable , yeah , and be able to roll with that .

Priscilla 8:04

And it can be scary too , especially if you're like new to the workforce . I know this is something that when I first started working , I felt like I was always trying to get to a place where I was comfortable and that I knew what I was doing , and at some point I realized that once you get to a comfortable spot , you should push yourself more , you should find ways to become uncomfortable again , and I think that that idea and that thinking is sometimes scary to people , but I think it can be really . At least it was scary to me . I don't know if other people are like that , but for me I remember thinking , oh gosh , I don't really want to push myself past my comfort . Now I've just gotten this down , like this podcast , for example .

Priscilla 8:40

You know a year ago when we were thinking about it , I thought , man , you were so stressed . I don't want to do this . This is scary , but there's something so powerful about pushing yourself to try these things , and it's the same thing with customer support . You know , if you get comfortable in the service you're providing your customers , that means that now you have the ability to push that service even farther . Yeah , what else can you do ? How else can you serve your customers better so that they are even more loyal to your service or your brand ? And so I think that's another big takeaway from this season . I love it . Yeah , okay , so season one is a wrap .

Priscilla 9:15

Yes , we really had the best guests , some wonderful guests . We had Sarah Caminiti , who talked about leading with kindness and just how important that is . If you need an encouraging listen , go listen to that episode , because it's really so encouraging to hear her talk about that . We had Chase Clemons come on from 37 Signals and he talked about customer feedback . That was such a good episode . I feel like I have implemented changes since that episode in how we do customer support and how we handle feedback now , because of the things I learned from Chase in that episode . Sarah Hatter came on and talked about the importance of finding your community which .

Priscilla 9:53

I feel like with this podcast I'm finding my community and the Elevate CX team and just the people that you meet through community and for us it was with Elevate CX . But if you're listening and you're not in customer service like the importance of finding your community in general is just so important . Yes , then we had Christy Ernst Thompson talk to us about how they do all company support at Help Scout . Yeah , and that was a really cool conversation to learn .

Jordan 10:20

That was so interesting . That was like so different from how we did it too .

Priscilla 10:24

I know exactly . It's so cool that the foundation is the same , the reasoning behind why we do it is the same , but that we took such a different approach to it , which I thought was very cool .

Priscilla 10:32

And then , you know , our last episode with Sunit Bhat was just a great way to round out the season and talk about the importance of supporting the team that's supporting your customers and that might be you , that might be your support team but just the importance of taking care of yourself , and I just thought that was such a great way to end the season . So , anyway , I'm very proud . Thank you so much , jordan , for being so encouraging throughout this whole process and for being the best producer that there is and making me sound smart . It's really been a lot of fun to do this with you .

Jordan 11:05

Well , you make it very easy to make you sound smart , so I think that you deserve some credit as well .

Priscilla 11:11

Okay , jordan , season two . We're moving into thinking about season two . So when this is released , it's just before Christmas , and so there's going to be about a month of downtime before season two comes back . Season two will start in February of 2025 . So we're going to take January off and use that as kind of a planning month to get prepared . So , yes , if you're listening to this and you have an idea or an episode that you want to hear us talk about , or if you know someone who you're like this person does remarkable support they should talk to you .

Priscilla 11:45

Oh my gosh , that'd be great , yeah , email us at happy to help at buzzsproutcom and share with us a topic you want us to discuss or a person that you want us to have on the show . The whole point of this podcast is to provide a resource to people working in customer support to level up their support for their customers , and so if you know of someone who's doing that really well , have them reach out to us or pitch them to us and we will reach out to them and have them on the show , because we really want to elevate those voices of people who care a lot about Remarkable Service . So , like I said , you can email us at happytohelpatbuzzsproutcom . You can send us fan mail through the link in our show notes and recommend people that way . If you want to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts , we of course , would love that .

Jordan 12:29

We will never shy away from plugging our ratings and reviews , please do that , and we definitely appreciate the people who have left us a review on Apple Podcasts .

Priscilla 12:43

That has just been wonderful , so thank you . Yes , it's very fun to hear that people actually listen to this podcast .

Jordan 12:45

Oh yeah , because podcasting you're just speaking into the void .

Priscilla 12:47

Exactly . It's really fun to hear from people who listen to the podcast . Even if it's just an acknowledgement , you know it doesn't have to be anything intense but I love to hear from people hey , listen to the show .

Jordan 12:57

Yeah , listen , thumbs up , that'd be great .

Priscilla 13:00

You know , I can see the numbers , but you don't know who those people are . And so it's really fun to hear from people who listen to the show . Yeah .

Jordan 13:08

All right . Do we have any final parting wisdom to carry people into our second season , into 2025 ?

Priscilla 13:14

Yeah , you know . Ok , here's my parting wisdom for going into the holiday season , because right now it is mid-December and my guess is most people listening to this are stressed on some level and they're probably trying to finish up their Christmas shopping or start their Christmas shopping and they're dealing with lots of crowds and maybe they're emailing support teams about shipping not happening in time . And my wisdom that I will pass on is just have extra patience for people as you go through your holiday season , because I mean , especially if you're working in support , you know what it's like to be on both sides of that to be the person who is desperately trying to clear the inbox queue before going on holiday break and you're also the person who is desperately trying to clear the inbox queue before going on holiday break , and you're also the person who's desperately trying to get their gifts delivered in time . And so just remember that we are all humans . We're all trying our best . That's my big wisdom going into the holidays .

Jordan 14:10

I think that's a great reminder actually , because it's easy to forget that .

Priscilla 14:13

So it really is . Thank you , jordan , again , for being the best producer , thanks for being the best host and thanks everyone for being the best listeners . Now go and make someone's day .