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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
Balancing Inbox Coverage and Support Projects with Chase Clemons
We’re exploring how to balance inbox work with long-term projects on a support team! Chase Clemons from 37signals returns to share how his team uses six-week cycles to manage support coverage, build new initiatives, and avoid burnout while still delivering exceptional customer service.
In this episode, you’ll learn how 37signals structures their support team to thrive in both reactive and proactive work. Discover how they balance daily inbox demands with meaningful project work, the benefits of hiring “managers of one,” and why project days are key to team longevity. Chase also shares how cycles promote clarity, protect focus time, and allow support pros to contribute far beyond the queue
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!
Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer support from the people of Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke. Today we have Chase Clemons joining us, from 37signals. Chase is going to share with us how his team works in cycles, how they balance inbox coverage and project work, and some of the strategies that he uses to keep everything running smoothly. Thanks for joining us, let's get into it. Thanks for joining us, let's get into it. All right, hello, hello to another great episode of Happy to Help.
Priscilla:If you've been listening to Happy to Help for the last couple months or since its beginning about a year ago, then you will recognize the name that I dropped in the intro. Welcome to the show, chase. Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited about it. Last time you were here, we talked about customer feedback and how you take that in and what you do with it to make your product more valuable to your customers and to improve your service, and so if you're listening and that is interesting to you, go find that episode with Chase, because it's really great. So I'm excited to have you back, chase, to talk to us about working in cycles and balancing project work with inbox coverage.
Chase:I think it's going to be a really good conversation, but before we start, chase, who has made your day recently- yeah, I got to tell you about an older guy by the name of Nate over at the local Ace Hardware store. So I went in there the other day looking for a light switch plate. We had one that the previous owners had painted and I was like this looks dumb, I want a white one. So went in and tiny little thing, right, like a light switch plate, just a tiny little thing in this massive store. I walk in, I'm looking up at the aisle numbers, trying to make sense of like what is where.
Chase:And this guy's spotty sense must have went off at that point, because he walks over and asks what I'm looking for and then just walks with me to the right spot and a lot of folks at that point would just like stop and move on Right. This guy stood there and he was like all right, here's where they are on the shelf, here's the different brands that we have, here's the one that I use in my house. I was like sold, I'll take that one. Wow. And then the guy walks back up to the front. It was like and again, I spent maybe $2 on this thing. I was in and out inside of five minutes essentially. But the care and attention that this guy put into that one moment of his day is the reason why I drive past two other hardware stores to get to that particular one. So Nate at the local Ace Hardware, he was fantastic.
Priscilla:I love that. That's awesome. I like the fact that he had to be observant to see you looking around, Like it wasn't a situation where he waited for you to come to him. He saw you so he had to be aware. And I think sometimes when you're working in a situation whether it be in like email support, like in a queue waiting for an email to show up, or when you're like standing physically in a hardware store waiting for someone to ask you a question there's a tendency or a temptation to kind of check out until someone walks over to you and to like take that as a breather. But he must not have done that. He must have been fully engaged in the role he was playing, even when he wasn't actively helping someone, so that he could go and be proactive about helping someone.
Jordan:Well, and you mentioned that you were in there for such a short time maybe like two minutes out of five minutes but he was the reason why you were in and out of there so quickly, because he took the time to help you and he, instead of you, like wandering around, going where are the light switches?
Chase:Yeah, I was talking to a friend the other day and I was like, see, this is not to be like too on the nose with things, right, but that's the same kind of mentality we have with our support and even with Basecamp, the product. Like we want you to get into your work and get out Right. We're not like gamifying the whole Basecamp app to get more of your time and attention on there. We literally want it where you can be in and out in the shortest amount of possible. And to see that he didn't do any of it. It was he knew what I needed, got me what I needed, walked me up to the front, to the cashier, and then, you know, gave the friendly goodbye on the way out the door, like it was perfect for how short a moment. And I'm sure this guy does it with everybody right. So it's a very small part of his job, but it's one where, like I said, I drive past two other hardware stores to get there.
Priscilla:So it pays off and it impacted you positively, so it might feel like a small, insignificant part of the day, but the reality is it actually made enough of an impact that you remembered it, and so now you're talking about it here.
Chase:See, this is what we do we look for good customer experiences in the real world that we can then bring back into our support teams.
Priscilla:Essentially it was a perfect example. Yeah, and the more we talk about it, the more we promote it as a way for people to do their service, and I just love it so much. Before we jump into how you balance kind of project and cycles and working in the inbox, for anyone who didn't listen to that episode that you were on earlier, can you give them just a quick rundown of what it is you do and where you work and what products you support?
Chase:Yeah, definitely. So I work at a company called 37 Signals. We make a couple of different products, most notably Basecamp and hey. Basecamp for projects, hey for email. We are ancient in internet years, which is kind of like dog years. Right, we've been around since 1999. And then Basecamp itself the app has been around since 2004. For me, I joined in 2011. So I've got what is that math Like? 14, 15 years of experience with the team. Essentially, I lead the customer support team there and we provide support for those products, along with all of our I guess you would call them vintage kind of like. So we have products that, even though aren't in active develop anymore, we still go out and support the customers that are still using them.
Chase:So you have different, older versions of Basecamp. You have an older app called High Rise which is a CRM, an older chat app called Campfire. Like, if you tally it up at the end of the day CRM, an older chat app called Campfire. Like, if you tally it up at the end of the day, it's 15 people on the team. There's two products that are in active development, one more coming up later this year, and then seven that are in that kind of vintage stage where we're still supporting so small little team but supporting just a lot.
Priscilla:Yeah, so I'm curious what makes you excited about customer service these days? So I'm going to give you an answer, but it's probably not for the reason that most people think.
Chase:We'll start with that way AI right and most people would be like, because it's going to open up all the sorts of technological wonder and all the rest. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. I am not well steep enough in that to make any kind of prediction, even if I was in the prediction business. Right, I'm excited about it because it is a great time to figure out what great support really means to you and really means your company right. So is great support directing everyone to a bot? Is it training the bot to be as close to a human as you can and kind of going that route? Or is it hiring and then training a team that customers can quickly talk to? Is it a mix? I don't know. Like the thing is, wherever you land on that AI trend I think at least all of us in this moment it forces you to lay down a line and say this is what great support looks like. This is where I'm going to focus and this is where our team is going to head for the next couple of years.
Priscilla:Essentially, yeah, you have to make a decision. You have to define that, regardless of whether it's AI focused or human focused or whatever you choose. But you're going to have to make a decision here and if you don't make a decision, that's going to be your decision.
Chase:Yeah, you can't just stick your head in the ground and ignore all of it.
Priscilla:And I know there's a lot of I in the support world when it comes to AI and replacing people, but I think you're exactly right. We have to figure out for each individual company what it is that you're going to value in your support and how you're going to measure a good experience, and you might find that for you, you're going to measure that as full AI support. I'm probably not going to agree with you, but you're right. We're going to have to be pushed to that decision and figure out what that looks like, and so it's exciting to see what's going to happen and hopefully it pushes people to be even more human, focused and let AI be that tool we use to be even better in that human connection. That's a very good answer.
Chase:I try to bring good answers for you.
Priscilla:You always have the best answers. That's why we have you on again. All right, so let's jump into it.
Priscilla:About, I don't know, mid last year we had an episode of Happy to Help where we talked about the importance of working in the inbox and having projects outside of the inbox and finding that balance and why that's necessary for your team. You know it allows your team to flex different muscles and it gives them a break from kind of the inbox grind, as sometimes that can feel like a grind. It allows flexibility in your schedules, it allows your team to grow and develop their knowledge and offering more cool things to your customers, and we also talked about some of the strategies we use here at Buzzsprout to make that happen. But I'm excited because this is a slightly different kind of conversation and Chase is really going to share what he does and his strategies around this with his team. First, I want to get a little more context of your team. So you kind of mentioned that you're supporting a lot of different products, some in active development, some not. Remind me how many people did you say you have on your team?
Priscilla:15, including me, and does everyone on the team support all of your products or some on certain products and some on others? How does that break down the structure of your team?
Chase:Yeah, the goal is everyone handles everything. Now, of course, the more experience and tenure you have, the more quickly you can handle some things right. So, if we're talking, basecamp Classic come out in 2004, ran up until 2010, 2011, like right, when I get hired, essentially I'll have more experience with that than someone who has been with our team for six months Now. That said, we're not going to shy away from letting them support that product right. It's just going to take them a little longer to find the answer, figure it out, that kind of thing. So the goal again everyone handles everything. Tenure and experience. That plays into it a little bit. The big thing here is there's no silos in any of it.
Chase:We kind of think of ourselves like a local fire department. Right, you do reactive, which is go put the fires out. Right, Proactive, which is go out and you know, controlled fire burns and wooded areas or putting sprinklers in buildings, like that kind of thing. Right, you do training, you do education. My kids had one of the fire trucks that came to the school the other day and was teaching them about fire safety and all that. All that happens in your local fire department. It's not like you've got this one department that does only the reactive and then another department that does only the training right.
Chase:So that's how we like to think of ourselves too. We want everyone to be able to handle pretty much anything that's thrown at them, because that makes everything else easier down the road.
Priscilla:Yeah. Do you have some people on your team that are specialized in certain like features within the product, or do you have people who kind of are your go-to people for certain things and they educate the rest of the team? Is there like a structure in that way?
Chase:Structure is a very big word for what we do. It's more along the lines of does someone have an interest in X, right? So, like, one of the products we have is hey, it's an email service. There are a couple of members of the team that are just really love it and really want to go deep in it and learn all the different corners of it and that kind of thing, and then they come back so that when a new person is learning hate, they can share all of that information with them.
Chase:So, yeah, if I have a really tricky hate question that I am beating my head against, right, my first stop is in our campfire chat, in our team chat, like hey, has anybody else ever seen this? You know it doesn't ring a bell for anybody that kind of thing. Now, if that person is out for the day, then I might ping them and be like hey, I know you're out, like, answer this tomorrow, like, have you seen this? That kind of thing, just to make sure they see it more than anything. So we have people that are interested in some things more than other things, but it's not one of those where we set up and say, hey, you're our hey person now or hey, you're our billing person, now You're our X person, right, because I mean two big things off the top of my head, right. One it makes scheduling a nightmare, because if you have a dedicated person and they want to take vacation what do you do?
Chase:So you end up in a weird position there. And that also goes for like what if they decide to leave? What if they join another company, Like that kind of thing. And two, we think of ourselves as support professionals. You're not just there to answer a case and move on. Like part of your career in the support industry is to get better, and that means getting better at supporting multiple apps, multiple products, holding that knowledge in your head or at least being able to find it where you need it when you need it. So it makes each person on the team better, so that again, if they do decide to leave and join another company, they're more valuable in that new role. Yeah, so again, structure is very yeah, strong word.
Chase:Not the right word there, but, like you know, you hire curious people, you hire people that are interested in things, and that kind of naturally happens.
Priscilla:Yes, you're going to have people that are interested in things and that kind of naturally happens. Yes, you're going to have people that are naturally more knowledgeable at certain areas and honestly, that's what makes a really good well-rounded team, because if everyone tried to be experts about everything, it would be difficult to stay on top of all that knowledge. So having that kind of balance throughout the team is, I think, makes for a better experience for the customer because they have more access to everyone at that point. So you mentioned kind of education and obviously inbox coverage and the proactive and reactive. What other projects or what other kind of areas fall into the realm of support over at 37signals?
Chase:A lot. So all of our help guides, our documentation, knowledge base, whatever you want to call it right that's all maintained by us and created by us Classes. So we offer weekly classes for Basecamp that are entirely free for new customers. We have an intro class and then several other more advanced classes. We do what's called tier one on call, which is when you think about escalating to a programmer, right, Like we have a first stop in there that can cut off most of it so that we can handle it ourselves, essentially, rather than bugging a programmer for some stuff. The community we have a Basecamp community that we run for any of our customers that want to join, and then we're working with other teams when we're doing things like the onboarding videos, the help guide videos not all the marketing videos, but the ones that are like support contained, like teaching features, kind of things. Onboarding, customer surveys, product research yeah, like if it's customer involved in some way, then there's a good chance someone on our team is involved in it.
Priscilla:I love that. It brings back something that I feel like we talk about a lot on this podcast, but is the idea that support is so much more than just like this one little section off to the side in a company that doesn't have any input into anything else. Yes.
Priscilla:Just hearing all the things you just listed off and the way that your support team kind of has a hand in so many of those projects maybe not fully doing them themselves, but like helping with a certain thing or providing insight, that kind of a thing really just reinforces the fact that support is so important and is such an important part of your company and your product and the success of that, and that your support professionals that are working with your customers every day have so much valuable insight to offer to your marketing team, to your video producer or whoever it is that's working on the project. So I think that's a great way to bring your team into and provide that feeling of value to your support professionals, which really can be a huge benefit in having just a healthy team.
Chase:Yeah, that's why we've got people that have been here for just as long as I have. Yeah, when we have an opening or a team, it's very rare, right? Because even our youngest tenured folks at this point have three, three and a half years.
Priscilla:Yeah, and that is really rare in the world of support to have that kind of longevity with someone in a quote unquote support role. And I think that speaks to the fact that you treat everyone on the 37signals team, including the support team, as professionals. It's a career, it's not just a job that you're checking into until you burn out and then you're going and jumping into another place. So there's a lot of things that you guys do over at 37signals that doesn't follow their traditional company practices, and one of those things is that you guys do over at 37signals that doesn't follow the traditional company practices, and one of those things is that you work in cycles. So can you tell me a little bit about what that rhythm looks like for the company and then a little bit about how that affects your support team too, because I would imagine it's a little bit different for support.
Chase:Yeah, it's a little different. So for folks that haven't heard of the cycle setup before but yeah, it's a little different. So for folks that haven't heard of the cycle setup before my best resource for it would be go to Basecampcom slash shape up, read the book, because we don't try to hide any of it. This is exactly that whole book is about how we run projects and how we think about product development and all that fun stuff. So check that one out. Essentially, a cycle is six weeks and then we have a two week, what what we call a cool-down in between, just a little break in between before we start a next cycle. Essentially, the entire company runs off of them, right? So we all start a new cycle, product ops, support and you start to develop. I think you said rhythm earlier. That's the right thing.
Chase:There's this rhythm that starts to happen essentially.
Chase:So the new year starts, a couple of days into January, we're starting a new cycle and everybody puts out their kickoffs, which list off these are the projects that we're going to tackle Essentially.
Chase:These are the things that we're going to work on for the next six weeks. And then you're off to the races, essentially, and you're working and building things and doing these projects and at the end of six weeks everyone gets together and writes up what we call a heartbeat, which is literally a look at here's the kickoff, here's what we did and here's the heartbeat that basically summarizes all of that and gives out kudos and accolades for the work that was done essentially. Then we take a two week, again cool down, where everybody can kind of work on what they want to work on for support. It's usually little projects here and there that can be knocked out in like a morning or an afternoon. For product, it's more like, hey, there's this like bug I've really wanted to fix, but I haven't had a chance yet. So I'm going to like knock it out essentially and then at the end of the two weeks we start the next cycle and move on to another one.
Priscilla:Yeah, I think cycles are great. They really does provide that rhythm. We also work in cycles here at Buzzsprout, which I think there's so much value in knowing that whatever you're about to tackle has to be within that six week period, and so it has to be kind of an appetite that's going to be able to be done in that time. It helps things move forward. I know I've worked at other companies where there's not that rhythm and then it's been months and months and months where you've been haphazardly working on something and it's just taking so long because there's no end date in sight, and so it's just this ongoing thing which doesn't lead to, you know, effective work or efficient use of your time. And so, coming into Buzzsprout several years ago and being introduced to this kind of cycle work, like you just laid out, I think it's a really great way to stay on task.
Priscilla:As the support team here at Buzzsprout, I mean, I think we started introducing working in cycles probably about a year and a half ago. Before that we had kind of been separate from the company and we weren't working in cycles, because the support inbox is not a cycle. You know, we don't take two weeks where we don't do inbox coverage, and so it was kind of hard to see how support kind of worked in the cycle as well into that same rhythm. And so about a year and a half ago we started bringing support into that and we had some struggles and a lot of learning things along the way. But can you tell me a little bit about how you lead your team in a way that allows that kind of rhythm along with the rest of the company, while you also have these things outside of cycles that you're doing?
Chase:So I think it's a couple of things. One, we're looking to hire what we call managers of one right People that can come up with an idea, execute on the idea, ask for help when they need it, bring in people when they need it, but do all that without a manager breathing down their neck. Essentially, yeah. So it is a high performing team that has ideas, whether it's ones that we've talked about before or ones that they just came up with on their own and then shape this idea so they can start working on it. Essentially. So the first thing there is you got to have a good, high quality team to do that. If your whole setup is literally nothing but I'm focused on the next email and trying to get through it as quick as I can and you've hired for that kind of setup, it's going to be hard shifting over to anything like we're going to talk about, right. So that's the caveat in there, too.
Chase:I think the thing is there are some ongoing things that you can't get away from. The inbox is a good example, right. When we do a kickoff, we tend to talk about that as keeping customers happy, like this ongoing work kind of thing. Ops is similar, right. So your operations team. They have to keep the servers going. Our ops team calls that keeping the lights on and everything that goes along with that right. So the server upgrades and maintenance and all that kind of thing. So there's this base level of this is going to happen every cycle and you just acknowledge it and you're like all right, this is a big portion of what we do every cycle. And then you start looking at, well, what's the other things that we have influence in that we can work on that? A key phrase here, what's something that is going to get a good return on effort for us. And then from there we can start talking about does it make sense for this cycle, does it make sense for the next cycle, that kind of thing.
Chase:Now, one of the things that sets us apart from, say, the product team is that there isn't really like a betting table with us. So product comes together. They've got 20 different ideas that they're looking at and they look at here's who we have available for this cycle. These are the ones that we can reasonably do. Support doesn't have like this bet. Essentially, ours is more along the lines of someone comes to me again in that manager of one mentality and says I intend to do this, and nine times out of 10, it's like, yeah, great idea, go for it, right. Or they'll come to me and say like I'm thinking about this, have you done anything in this area? I had one of our support pros come and talk to me about creating a new online class for Basecamp. I was like, yeah, I've done that multiple times now I know kind of how to help through that process. Yeah.
Chase:But still, great idea. Let's do it for the cycle, right? It's very rare maybe like 1 in 10, 2 in 10 at the max that someone comes to me with an idea and it's like I see where you're getting at right, but it's not for now, like it's not a good idea for this moment, or it is just generally we're not going to get the return on effort that we would want to see there from that kind of thing.
Chase:So it's a little different than like again, if you go to Basecamp and reshape up like you're going to get the product development, so support's a little different in that. But there are still big projects that we tackle, whether it's like we've got a new product launch coming up, so it's going to be. We have to create a brand new help site essentially and think about all the guides and documentation and videos and all that's going to go into it. That is a cycle project.
Priscilla:That's a big project Now. Would you tackle that in one cycle or would you spread that into smaller chunks that you could do over multiple cycles?
Chase:Depends on how soon the design settles and this is always a moving target, right? So the cool thing with our designers and programmers is you might get two, three weeks into something and they go like actually, I just had this better idea last night. We're going to pivot real quick into that. It doesn't really happen as much with individual features, but new product development. Yeah, Like that's not uncommon. Yeah.
Chase:We had a big design overhaul for the product we're working on, where everything looked good for like six months, and then one day it was oh wait, here's this other, so they like read it. So if we had done any real prep work up until that point, it all would have been like tossed down the drain yeah.
Chase:So there's this sweet spot in there, right, where, say, if we're going to launch something in the beginning of August about four to six weeks out before that things start to settle into the point where, yeah, we can start looking at drafting up probably not videos, right, but at least like some screenshots, some text to go along with things, get the bones in place essentially. So, yeah, you can do that. You just, again, you got to be careful for new products, for existing products. It's usually a lot easier. So, like we add a new feature to Basecamp, right, that's one where we can get the skeleton of a new help guide or whatever written up pretty quick and then you're just plug and playing some screenshots and some videos from there. That takes maybe a couple of days at max.
Priscilla:So what are some of the recent cycle projects that you've worked on that you can talk about, that have been really rewarding for your team, or just fun tests that you've done, or projects that you've worked on recently?
Chase:So the biggest one for us was we tried out a different support app. Okay, we've been talking about it for a while and the timing kind of came up pretty well at the end of the year last year and we were like hey, like let's see if this is actually going to work, because it's one thing to like look at an app and evaluate it. It's another to look at it when you've got real customer stuff going on inside of it.
Priscilla:And you are referring to like an email. You know service.
Chase:Yeah, so we use help scout right now. It would be like switching over to any of the other big ones, right, zendesk or Intercom or Freshdesk or whatever, so like a shift in your core tool that your team is in every day, kind of thing yeah, it's a big shift.
Chase:Yes, yeah, and I gotta say like things look good from the like early evaluations we did Once we got in there and started running. The cool thing with multiple products is that you can run like pay customers through it essentially. So we rerouted just one group, just one product, those support requests through it and that gave us a real look at is this going to work or not? Same thing, you can go out and you can buy a hammer or a saw I guess I'm a hardware kind of thing today, since I'm at the store.
Chase:I don't know you can go out and buy a tool and it looks good in the store, but is it really going to work on the project that you need it for at the house? You got to actually try it and so, yeah, we did that, learned a lot of good stuff, ended up not switching over, but I think out of that experience, it was really cool to put ourselves in the position of a new customer trying something new, which is what happens every day when a Basecamp customer tries Basecamp for the first time. Yeah, so like that was a really cool experience. For you know, support team listeners out there Like, if you haven't done that in a while, I definitely recommend it. Even if you don't switch, you're going to learn so much and be able to bring that back into your support experience, which is really cool. Yes, that was the big one.
Chase:On the smaller size scales, we've done a couple new Basecamp classes, which have been really cool. Those are always a little interesting because you work on them for a week or two and then you put it out there and you're like is this like? Are people going to show up? What are they going to say? Did we get it right? You can do all the research you want beforehand, right, but it's not until you put it out there. You're like, oh yeah, ok, this was a good idea. I'm glad we did this.
Priscilla:How do you measure the success of that? Is it a measurement of, OK, X amount of people? We want this many people to show up and if that many people show up, it was successful.
Chase:No, it's oh man, I feel like I'm dating myself or whatever, because it's vibes, right. Like sometimes you know if something is working just by. Are you in the class? Are you seeing the chatter in the chats? What kind of questions are coming across? Right, it is like a little bit of how many people are there, because if you do a class and like two or three people are showing up, it's probably not worth 30 minutes of your time all the time.
Chase:But if you're getting a decent crowd for whatever that means for you, right, and the interactions in there are happening, engagement, that, yeah, that engagement part it's again, it's hard to quantify, right, because it's not number of questions, it's not number of people, it's not number of comments, it's not number of anything really. It's standing there in the experience and going is this helping customers?
Priscilla:Right, and you were talking about your return on effort and you know you look at the amount of time it takes to build out that class and how many people show up or how the engagement is there or how it affects those customers that came. I think you know all of that is balanced.
Chase:And it's a long time too, right, like, we do the class once and then like all of our quote unquote research at that point, right, the R&D part is done. Right, we're just shipping that on a continual basis after that and we're going to reuse it all over the place, right, so the video recordings end up in other places. So I've talked to people before who are like oh yeah, we did online classes and five people showed up and it wasn't. And I was like, eh, like you got to look at the big holistic picture at that point. It's not just pure numbers in that one moment.
Priscilla:There's a longer lasting effect there that you'll see your customers experience. For the past couple a year and a half or so we've been working in cycles and so really putting emphasis on that routine, that rhythm, with work outside of the inbox. How do you see that balance of inbox versus project work? How does that affect the people on your team, just like their mentality when it comes to working, both positive and negatively?
Chase:So the biggest thing for us is the hiring of the managers, one that we talked about earlier. Right, we hire support professionals that we then treat as professionals. We give them responsibilities, and then the salaries are higher to match up with the professional status. The benefits are higher to match up with the professional status. The benefits are higher to match up with the professional status. So it's a big thing if we're giving you lots of freedom but we're expecting in return that you're not going to need a lot of Chase breathing down your back.
Chase:There should be no Chase breathing down your back essentially, it should be more along the lines of hey, chase, I want to do this, cool, go do that and then come back to me if you have questions or if whatever you're working on is ready to ship essentially.
Chase:And that flows down into the balance too, right, and a lot of times when I talk with folks about how we're set up, they're like that makes no sense. Like how can you trust people on when they should be working in the inbox and when should they not? Yeah, you treat them like adults, you treat them like professionals, as managers of one, and you give them space. That's a big thing, right? So for our team, every person has one project day a week where they're expected not to work on any cases, not to be in the inbox at all. This is their dedicated day to get accomplished whatever they need to get accomplished. If they need more time than that, cool. Like just find a spot in the schedule where it'll work and block off a little bit of time and let us know like hey, I'm going to be out Thursday morning for a couple hours to work on this thing, but there's a lot of trust in. You've got the day that you have automatically. If you need more time, please do that. And then from there you've got to get the balance right, like that's, that's a them thing.
Chase:I can talk about how I do it, I can talk about, like, the experience I have with that. But in the end each person has to find their own balance between here's my project, I've got to get that done. Here's my customers. Here's my inbox.
Priscilla:I've got to get that done too.
Priscilla:Yeah, I think we're now transitioning into the time where I am going to start being selfish with the questions I'm asking, because now I'm just like, oh OK, I could try that, I could try this, because, you know, yesterday I was working on the schedule for our team and sometimes building a schedule out when you're talking about figuring out project work and inbox coverage, and there are different times in the inbox where it's busier than other times, and so you have to account for that it can get very, very tedious and you have meetings.
Priscilla:We don't have that many meetings over here at Buzzsprout, but when we do, you know you have to account for that and you want everyone to be present in the meeting, so you don't want anyone to need to be. You know, in the inbox it can get very structured, which is a scary word, I'm sure, for you, for us maybe a little less, but still the same idea. So it's like there has to be a high level of trust there if you're going to go about it in the way that you were just talking about, which is saying, hey, we're going to treat you like adults and let you choose. You've got this project day, so a full day, which is very cool to me. Can you talk to me about the benefits of giving that full project day versus like half days or versus like smaller chunks?
Chase:Yeah, you got to get into a groove, a rhythm, right, it's not like you wake up and start your, you know, start your day at eight, nine, whatever, right, and instantly move into oh, I am fully focused on my project and I'm going to start knocking things out. You can kind of do that with emails, right. Like you log on, you're like all right, I got an email Like here's the customer problem, like all right, I've seen that, here's the answer. You move on. That ramp up time, usually for projects, is just a little bit longer. Essentially, and if we can give you blocks of uninterrupted time like that is the holy grail in product work, right, like having that time and space to work without being dragged back into something else, that is really valuable and the return on the effort that we're going to get out of that is very, very high. So, again, like by hiring managers of one, my job at that point doesn't become oversight.
Chase:It becomes protecting your time. So you know, say, priscilla, today is your project day, you're focused on that. If a server goes down for base camp right and we get this influx of customer cases, I'm the one that's stepping in to help with that. We're not pulling people off of their project day because we're protecting that time as much as we can. So that's the job of a manager at that point. It's the protect their time. Free up any problems that they might run into, free up any blocks that might happen essentially. But, but other than that, give them the time because they're going to be able to use it and bring something back.
Priscilla:Yeah, there's a high level of trust there between you and the people on your team because of that manager, of one characteristic that's so valued. But also they're trusting you to protect them in a situation like that. You're trusting them to use their time wisely when they're outside of the inbox or when they're doing those project days, and also just be honest about how much time they need and if they need more time or if they don't, how do you figure out how much project work to give out in a cycle and balancing that with that inbox? Ongoing customer happiness work.
Chase:Yeah, the cool thing, like you mentioned, like our inbox is pretty consistent. I can point to specific hours of the day and be like oh yeah, this is what the time is going to look like, this is what the volume is going to look like, as long as nothing goes wrong. Essentially, basecamp is also very seasonal, so it's kind of like January 1st rolls around and everyone joins a gym, starts a blog and decides to get their business together.
Priscilla:Essentially, and they start a podcast. We also have circuit breakers in place.
Chase:So, basically, if we're working on a project and it does not ship by the end of the cycle we pull a circuit breaker the metaphorical breaker and say, all right, that was fun, let's shelve it for the moment. We can decide if we want to come back to it next cycle or if we missed somewhere, like maybe the shape of the idea was wrong, maybe whatever went wrong went wrong. Now it doesn't happen a ton. Since I've been here, I can count on one hand how many times we've had to do it across the company. Right.
Chase:But it does happen. You know. Beyond that, like looking at the projects and trying to guess more than anything and how long they're going to take and what time is going to be needed, that kind of thing yeah, it's just, you go with your gut, you go all right. I've developed a new class before. I know it should take about a week to two weeks. So this person is new, we'll call it two weeks. Well, their project day is one day a week, so that's probably going to be their big focus for most of the cycle Trying a new app. That is much bigger. Right, there's a lot of things that we have to both prep to get into the test and then actually have to do during the test. So that was a full six weeks for January, and then I also spent a lot of time last December just my own self going through and setting things up. But yeah, there's no magic formula, there's no secret sauce on that one.
Priscilla:It's you get better by just doing it and I would say, for anyone who's listening to this and considering, maybe not working in cycles but just like bringing project work into their flow more, it is going to take some time to figure out what that balance is. When we started working in cycles, that was one of the harder things for me in the early couple cycles we did was figuring out how much work is the right amount of work to bring in without overwhelming people on the team, because when you have this six-week deadline, it's hard to go. Okay, I have to get everything done in this six weeks, but I've also got this high priority that is the inbox, and then people are taking PTO, or maybe someone has something unexpected come up and so things without even talking about something happening that is causing more support. Sometimes it is just a trial and error thing and you might have a cycle where, like, we bit off way too much the cycle.
Priscilla:We got it done, but was it calm? Were we working from a place of you know having time for it, or was it a place of reacting to everything because we didn't have time to really prepare? Well, you'll learn that as you go. So I think that's just a good piece of encouragement. It's not going to be perfect the first time you start bringing project work in, and so it's nice for me to hear because it's getting you know easier, I think, for me to find that balance. But it's nice to hear from you, who's been doing this for so long and working in these kinds of cycles, that you're like it's a gut thing I go okay, okay, it will become easier as I do it more.
Chase:So that's an encouragement to me, for sure. And that's the other thing, like we were joking about it before we started recording, like this is not rocket science, this is not a high stress hospital environment, it is customer emails. Right Before I worked at Basecamp, I worked at a couple of different restaurants, so the phrase that I always use with folks this is just sandwiches. You're just making sandwiches, right? Like it's not that big of a deal. So if you blow a cycle and have to pull the circuit breaker and kind of reset things, that's fine, it happens. Been there, got the t-shirt. If you do a cycle that was light, okay, next time, you know, like to push it a little bit more. You don't have to be 100 percent on target every single cycle because you're doing them like six, six a year. So you've got plenty of opportunities.
Priscilla:Yeah, another thing that I was thinking about, as you were talking about the full project days, is the other side of that. When you have one or two people doing a project day, let's say on a Wednesday the rest of the team then they are primarily in the inbox, right? And do you schedule out that time at all, or is it just hey, you're in the inbox today eight hours. Enjoy the inbox, go.
Chase:Yeah, so it is a very loose schedule. I'll put it that way. We have kind of falling into like shifts that we typically work, so my day typically runs seven to four. Are there some days I start later or start earlier? Yes, I have kids, it's bound to happen. Yeah, right.
Chase:Or like you might need to come in later on a certain day for whatever, right, but typically speaking, I'm online, working seven to four, monday through Friday, and everyone else on the team has kind of fallen in that too. We've also been very intentional with our hiring. So that you know, we want to get 24-hour coverage, which means we've got two folks in APAC, the Asia-Pacific region, we've got two in the EU, we've got several on the East Coast and we have several on the West Coast. So it's staggered when people are starting. So, even if you're on the West Coast and starting your day at 8 o'clock well, that's 10 o'clock my time. That's a start of a busy time, especially with us flowing into lunches by that point. So it's not like you have to hit these hours. It's more of a. This is what we're doing. This is kind of what we've fallen into. If you need to move hours around, it's not a big deal, just let us know that kind of thing.
Priscilla:Do you ever have a situation where you have more than enough people covering the inbox and you have to kick people out and say, hey, go work on some project work. Do you ever run into that?
Chase:So not typically, life intervenes right, finds a way all that fun stuff right, because you'll have people out for PTO, you'll have people out to the doctor. You'll have like. We woke up this morning and two folks were unexpectedly out, right, so you're going to be down to people automatically for the rest of the day. At that point again, my job as a manager is to step in as much as I can to protect time for people that are on their project days and that kind of thing. So more often than not, it's not that we're kicking people out to other stuff. Our rule of thumb with the inbox is we don't want anything past an hour on the first reply time.
Chase:So we get to that point. You know I've got the inbox pulled up on a side screen over here. If I see it getting to that point, I jump in. If it's stretching way beyond that, we throw up the proverbial bat signal and call in whoever else that we possibly can. But those are rare cases.
Priscilla:It's nice to hear that that's a possibility. That bat signal, yeah, when something goes wrong and support is getting buried and maybe you have two or three people in there covering the inbox at that time and the emails are flowing too fast and people are getting past that hour that they have an outlet of where to go, whether it be you or whether it be other people on the team who can jump in and help for a 15 minute spurt to get things handled. That's like a safety net that's nice to know you have. Yeah.
Chase:We also use that for not that. That again, we have a bunch of meetings or anything right Like for our support team. We get together for we call them team hangouts. It's more social chat than business chat. I'll put it that way.
Chase:We do a West coast and East coast, so two of them every month. But after those happen you'll see all of us swarm back into the inbox like a big thing of bees, essentially, and knock things back until that hour mark gets caught back up. We do the same thing, like when we're at company meetups. You know, during those times so far we've always had one or two people that couldn't make a particular meetup, so they'll provide coverage while we're in an all hands, for instance. So they're knocking out the big stuff while all of us are laptops closed, talking to other people on the team participating in the all hands, and then once that is over, then yeah, we swarm back in and knock that the case volume back a little bit Again, thankfully, like we're very consistent. So, like that volume that's coming in, unless something breaks, we typically know like hey, two o'clock in the afternoon. It's not going to be that busy Like.
Priscilla:And unless something breaks, we typically know like hey, two o'clock in the afternoon it's not going to be that busy Like we can get together if we want.
Priscilla:Yeah, what you just said made me think of my early days of doing support here at Buzzsprout, where we would have a team meeting and I would bring my computer because I didn't want to leave the inbox unmanned and I'd be in a meeting trying to participate but trying to respond to emails.
Priscilla:That attempt really took me out of the meeting. It also took me out of giving quality emails, because I was trying to do two things at once and it really made me not feel as valuable to the team as a whole because I wasn't able to participate at 100%. And so it's so nice to hear you say like we really want to make sure because this is where we are too but we really want to make sure that our support team is able to be fully present. And if that means customers are waiting for an hour and a half instead of an hour for one afternoon or one block of time, it's worth it, because what we're getting there is our team, our support team, feeling fully valued and included in these bigger company conversations, and I think that's just refreshing to hear, because I don't think that's the norm in a lot of other probably bigger but a lot of other companies.
Chase:Yeah, yeah, it's absolutely okay, it's just sandwiches right At the end of the day.
Chase:it's just emails, like we do give our customers an outlet. So like when you contact our team using the in-app widget little thing, right. There is an option there to say like hey, I've got an emergency, like I need something, right now right and when it flows over into Help Scout, it throws an emergency tag on it and it notifies me, so like if it is big, then it'll buzz my phone setting off to the side and I can step out and handle that essentially.
Chase:But I mean, we've been offering that for three, four years now. You get like one a month. Yeah.
Chase:So I think a lot of people get scared around offering customers choice because we think we have to control everything right. We want customers to flow through this exact funnel that we've built and it's going to be perfect. Their experience is going to be perfect at that point when, in reality, customers just want choice. They want to be able to have a live chat, if they want to, with you. They want to be able to talk to an AI bot, if they want to. They want to be able to drop you an email. They want to be able to tell you I need help right now. They want to be able to give you a call or send you a text or whatever right.
Chase:When you give them a choice, it's going to end up as a better experience overall. I'll say it that way.
Priscilla:Well, and it's kind of like what you're saying about treating your team like adults. You know it's the same thing. Your customers treat them like adults most of the time, especially once they start to realize that when they reach out to you it's not going to be more than an hour. They're not going to abuse that emergency option because they know that they're going to get an answer.
Priscilla:But if you call Comcast and you're used to being on hold for four hours and they give you an emergency option, you're probably going to use it because you know that the alternative is a four hour hold time. Just like button punching, the zero Right.
Priscilla:But as you get to know this team and what to expect and the consistency of that service, then you go OK, actually I'm not going to hit the emergency button because I know that Chase is going to be back in touch with me within the hour, even if I don't hit that, and I think that that really speaks to trusting your customers with that information and saying, hey, if it is an emergency, you have an option here, but we also trust you not to abuse that and so we don't have to take away from you. I think that's really a nice place to be able to operate from. Okay, so for anyone who's listening, who wants to start incorporating project work into their normal rhythm of their work, what advice would you give them to kind of start that?
Chase:Yeah. So first up, team size matters here, right? If you're a team of three, it's gonna be different than if you're a team of 15. So I've been talking about what we have done as a team of 15. So if you're like that dozen people range, then a lot of stuff that I've offered up is going to work. Please try it. I'll put it that way.
Chase:If you're a team of two or three, right, you're going to have to go slower and take it in smaller chunks. It is good to work in cycles, just so that the two or three of you are all on the same page about what's important to us for the next six weeks. Kind of like we were talking with the AI question earlier. Right, it forces you to sit down and say this is important, this is what we're going to work on, this is what we're going to get out of it and then from there just set aside a morning, maybe an afternoon, to kind of start working on those things. You're going to know your coverage better than any of us, so if you've got a hole in there somewhere where you can squeeze some time in, you know aim for that.
Chase:If you're a smaller team and you're trying to push down to like we want 30 minutes or less, Domino's pizza style replies, then loosen up. Give yourself a little bit of grace on that. Stretch out to an hour. We've done that. Customers didn't mind at all Anything. Less than an hour usually works just fine for most of the customers out there. So start there. If you're bigger than us, then haven't had a ton experience on that side of things. But I would say again, take the opportunity to sit down and sketch out a couple of ideas and don't look further than six weeks. This is the big mental shift that folks make. It's oh, we're coming from a company where we had roadmaps for every quarter and for half year and the one year mark and we wanted to do all this stuff.
Chase:One of the core ideas of ShapeUp is you're just guessing at what the next six weeks should be, so just embrace that. Take it six weeks at a time. Don't look further than that. Sketch out the ideas you have for the six weeks and then go out and just try it. See what happens. Essentially, again, if you're like that 12, 15 group, maybe up to like 20, like we are, then yeah, most of the stuff in here is going to work. You can copy paste essentially.
Priscilla:The six weeks kind of provides you a little bit of a safety net to say we're only spending six weeks on it, so if this doesn't work, we haven't spent a quarter or two quarters or the year trying to make it work.
Priscilla:We're committing to six weeks of going full in and trying to make it work, and you might find that at the end of the six weeks like you, you know, had your example with a different email service you might find, hey, it's not worth it, but we haven't sunk that much time into it, you know. And so it's easier to say we learned a lot and we're going to move on and go a different route, without feeling like, oh my gosh, we just spent the last year working on this and now we've decided not to do it. It can feel like a lot more of an investment because it is, and so it's nice. The six weeks kind of provide you with the freedom to test things out, knowing that if it doesn't work, it doesn't mean that it's a complete loss or anything like that. It's just another way to learn.
Chase:It really is. I mean, you would not believe how many times I've gone into a project going. Is this going to work? I don't know, but the only way we're going to know is if we try it. So we did that with we wanted to offer up a like an incoming phone number and that customers could call and text if they want to like really radical idea, very much so. But that also just came out of experience where I had to call my bank one day and it was here's the phone number and I got to a person within like two minutes. I was like geez, like that's easy. And then afterwards they were like oh yeah, we're going to text you some stuff. I'm like this is great. So, yeah, I was talking about it with a colleague and she was like, yeah, same thing.
Priscilla:I've been wanting working in cycles. There were definitely learning and growing pains in the beginning for our team. But, like we were talking about earlier, the more you do it, the more you kind of get connected with that rhythm, the easier it gets and the benefit for your team is so big. Because, you know, I have heard horror stories from people who work in support where all they do is an email queue, that's it. That's the only work they get to do and the burnout is so high and the inability to grow. You know your strengths. I mean, you just can't do that when all you're doing is email reactive support and you might be able to provide a really good service, but at what cost is that happening? And being able to go back and forth between projects and inbox work and finding that balance and giving your team that trust and the ability to be managers of one.
Priscilla:All of that, I think, comes back to the reality of what we're trying to do as leaders here, which is to create an environment where people can grow and feel empowered to do really good work.
Priscilla:And when you have people on your team who are empowered to do really good work, it's going to be a healthier environment, which is going to be a better service for the people that are using your product and then, ultimately, it's going to end with customers who are loyal because they're getting a consistent, remarkable experience from people who are happy doing the job that they're doing because you, as a leader, are supporting them and empowering them and allowing them time to try things and push the boundaries, and I just think doing it in a six-week cycle or doing it in a six-week period of time is a really great way to have that safety net and to keep things moving and always be pushing forward, always trying to improve.
Priscilla:Thank you for coming on and sharing all of your insights with us. I know there were some of those questions that I was like, okay, now I literally did this yesterday, but I really appreciate that you are giving me the help that I need. I'm already excited to think about how we could do the schedule differently next week to save me time, to give my team more flexibility. So thank you so much for coming and doing that. I really appreciate it.
Chase:Of course, of course, I'm always happy to be here.
Priscilla:Always happy to help. I love it. All right. So it's time for Support in Real Life, our segment where we discuss real-life support experiences. So what do you have for us today?
Jordan:We have an interesting question from TheElevateCX. Slack Says I'm looking for some help on shift management. Nobody on our team wants to work closing shifts. Do you face this issue at your company and how do you approach it?
Priscilla:So OK, chase, you know you mentioned, you have people all over the world who are working on your team. But when you run into a situation where someone doesn't want that, like I don't know, like late in the evening shift or whatever it is, how do you handle that?
Chase:Yeah. So, just for honestly, at our company we don't really run into that because with our remote setup we have two in the APAC region, two in the EU and then the rest of us split between the East Coast and West Coast. So we've been very intentional with hiring from multiple time zones to make sure that we can get that 24 hour coverage that we were looking for. Working here I mentioned earlier, I worked at a couple of different restaurants. Closing crews were always hard to hire for the restaurants I worked for. We typically ended up paying them a higher hourly rate or a higher salary to entice folks over.
Chase:If we were trying to get somebody from an opening shift to cover a closing shift, we would often give them like an extra day off, essentially so incentives. You do X for the team and you'll get Y in return, and then if that doesn't work and you're not interested in the remote coverage like we do, then I would start looking at do you really need a closing shift? If not, then the problem solves itself. Right, if you don't need a closing shift, then cool, like don't have to worry about it at all. If you do, then yeah, you really got to start looking at. Can I give them something or can I hire for that, and there's not really a lot of other ways around it.
Priscilla:Yeah, one thing we have kind of run into is kind of like a rotating schedule type of a thing. So the support team at Buzzsprout is six people right now. It's on the smaller side and so when we have those necessary hours that we want to make sure to cover that are less ideal, we don't typically have people that refuse to do it, but we want to make sure that there's a balance there.
Priscilla:And so what we will do is kind of have a rotating situation where you know, for six months out of the year maybe you're working that shift and then the other six months you're not, or something like that. I would say one thing that we kind of fell into a habit of doing a couple years ago was having our newest hires kind of fall into that shift naturally. And I would warn people against taking your newest hires and putting them in the least desirable role One, because they're new to your team and so it can be a cause for burnout early on when they're getting the slush hours burnout early on when they're getting the slush hours. But also then it kind of makes this feeling of that is a role for someone who's new, and as soon as a new person comes in, then they move out of that. But then anyone else who's not new. It's like a hierarchy thing that you kind of want to stay away from when it comes to specific hours, and so we have moved away from that intentionally because of what we were kind of falling into with this idea of well, now no one wants to work it because everyone perceives this as being for the new person or for the lowest on a totem pole that doesn't exist, that we are not, you know, running our business by. It is a tough one to find that balance, and I really like what you were saying about looking at if you actually need it.
Priscilla:Like, one shift that we kind of had that discussion about was Friday evenings. You know, a lot of times there's this like 24 hour cycle. You want to make sure you have support for 24 hours and we had everyone on our team go. No one really wants to work Friday nights and I was like do we even need to have support on Friday nights? Are people podcasting on Friday nights? If there's something really urgent, we would like to be aware of that. But, like you were saying, it's sandwiches. Do people need that on a Friday night? And so it's nice to step back and really evaluate that. Is it necessary? And if it's not, then there's no reason to put anyone in that role just for the sake of covering that.
Chase:Yeah, you're not a Waffle House. Yes, some teams are right, open 24, seven like all the rest Right, like sometimes you are. But I think the other thing, too, would be like give customers a choice. So perfect example Friday nights, like if somebody's podcast goes down and they have a big show that's recording the next morning, I could see how the customer would want somebody as quickly as possible in that situation. If they have a, this is an emergency button, right, that goes to an on-call person or to the head of the team or whatever, that's a good outlet. Or even just like I've got the Help Scout app on my phone and then sometimes I'll just like flip through real quick and just make sure there's not anything crazy that needs attention at that moment. You can do that without having a full-time person.
Chase:You can also I mean again like we talked about AI- a little bit like this would be a good spot, for if you can turn your AI on and off, like, maybe you give customers an option. Do you want to wait eight hours until the morning to get a like human on the line, essentially, or do you want to try like the AI bot real quick and see if it can answer your question?
Priscilla:That's a good point. That is a really good use of AI and giving people that access, even if a human isn't there.
Chase:It's options, that's the thing at the end of the day. It's choices. It's give more customers a say in the process, a say in the flow, and it's just going to work out better.
Priscilla:Awesome. Well, if you have a question or a support story or situation that you would like us to discuss or shout out, you can email us at happy to help at buzzbratcom, or text the show using the link in the episode description. You may hear your question discussed on a future episode of the podcast. So before we wrap it up, chase, how can listeners learn more about you, about base camp and the way you work?
Chase:Easiest way, cause email is always the easiest it's just drop me an email, chase at heycom H E Ycom H-E-Ycom. If you want to find out more about Basecamp and we've talked a lot about how project cycles, that kind of thing, can be run in Basecamp. All of our team coordination and communication is also run in Basecamp. So if you're a support team looking for something that's not Slack and Google Docs and Atlas and all the rest of them, right, give Basecamp a shot. It's what our team does. That's Basecampcom. Yeah, and then I'm sure Priscilla is going to put all this in the show notes. So yeah, just definitely will find me on LinkedIn or drop me an email.
Priscilla:We have been using Basecamp as long as I've been here and it really is such a great tool for organization and communication with the team, and it is like the only thing we use outside of Help Scout. It really is the way that we communicate as a team. It's a great product. So if you are trying to find what that way you're going to communicate with your team is, I highly recommend checking out Basecamp. And, as you know, because Chase is here, they offer remarkable customer experiences too, so you know you're going to be in good hands if you run into any questions. So, yes, highly recommend Basecamp and everything that 37signals produces, because they have some really great products over there. So thanks again for joining us, chase, and, as always, if you liked this episode, please share it with someone who works in customer support and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you all for listening. Now go and make someone's day.
