Finding Excellent Customer Support Agents in Unlikely Places

The best support specialists can sometimes come from the most unexpected places!

We're getting into what really makes a great support team and exploring the unique, non-traditional paths that led each member of the Buzzsprout podcaster success team to provide remarkable customer support.

You’ll hear from everyone on the Buzzsprout podcaster success team as we share the skills we developed long before we ever worked in support—skills like representation, empathy, relationship-building, communication, adaptability, and staying calm in high-pressure moments.

This episode is for anyone hiring support specialists, building a support team, or looking to transition into customer support, and wondering how their past experience fits. We talk about what to look for beyond a resume, why loving to help people matters more than years of experience, and how diverse backgrounds can create a better support team.

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!

Chapters

• 0:00 Finding Excellent Agents in Unlikely Places
• 1:09 Who Made Your Day Recently?
• 5:07 Secret to Great Customer Support: Great Team Members
• 7:55 Meet the Buzzsprout Podcaster Success Team
• 14:09 Transferable Skills That Truly Matter
• 18:48 Unexpected Strengths and Skills from Other Jobs
• 29:42 Handling Tough Conversations Well
• 33:18 Passion in Customer Support
• 39:11 Final Thoughts

Transcript

Priscilla: 0:00

Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer support from the people of Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke. Your support team can make or break your customers' experience. So today, we're talking about how important it is to find and hire the right people and how your best support specialists can be found in the most unlikely places. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it. So, Jordan, one of the fun things about doing this podcast is that everyone in my circle always comes to me now with their stories about good customer support or bad customer support. Really? Yeah. All the time. I get phone calls from friends of mine and they're like, oh my gosh, I just got off the phone with a customer support agent. I have to tell you about it. Or they text me and they say, This great thing just happened. I wanted you to know. And it's so fun to be like the go-to for that. But it also gives me all of these stories that I want to tell on this podcast, but they're not directly related to me. So I figured I'd share one of them today because it just happened a couple of days ago. And I just thought it was a great little story. So a friend of mine called me and he had a bad experience with a customer support team. I'm not going to name them, but he got an item that was broken. And when he told them it was broken, they pushed hard on the no, you broke it. And he's like, I didn't break it. It came broken. It's a pretty expensive thing. And they refused to replace it a couple times until finally, after enough time, they agreed to get him a refurbished one.

Jordan: 1:36

Oh my gosh.

Priscilla: 1:36

But it was a really painful process. And he was kind of frustrated about it. Well, then he called me again, maybe an hour later, and said, Okay, I have a really good experience now that I'm going to share with you because I just had a bad one that I shared with you. But then I just went to Publix on my way home from work and I have a good experience. So it was like a little bit of whiplash.

Jordan: 1:56

I was gonna say, like, did do they cancel each other out?

Priscilla: 1:58

Is that I don't know how it works. Okay. So the second story was that he went to Publix and he grabbed an item that was on sale. And it was a pricier thing. I mean, everything is pricey these days, but it was some kind of body wash or something like that. And it was more expensive. And it was on sale. It was like $10 off. And he was pumped about it and he went to go check out. I think he grabbed a couple because they were on sale. Yeah, toiletries are expensive right now. And groceries are expensive. And they rung up at the original price, not the discounted price. Oh. And he said that if it had just rung up incorrectly and no one was around him, he would have just paid the full price and left because it's not worth staying and trying to figure out the pricing. Yeah. But it was at one of those self-check situations, and there was someone standing there that was monitoring the self-checkout. And because that person was close, he was able to reach out to them quickly and say, hey, this is ringing up incorrectly without it being this big hassle for him. Yeah. And they quickly grabbed the body wash, went back to look at the pricing to double check it. They didn't ask him any questions. They didn't make him prove it to them. Yeah. You know, he didn't have to do any of that work. They went back, they checked it, and they came back and they said, you know, you're absolutely right. However, the problem was that we put the discount on the wrong item. So these are actually not discounted, even though it shows that they should be discounted. Yeah. You know, it stinks because it's a mistake, but the way that they decided to fix it was to give him the body wash for free and to not make him pay for anything. What? They fully just comped it. Okay. I know. And I just I thought those two stories were so interesting because then that led us talking about how Publix, I mean, if you're not in the US, in the South, yeah, I was gonna say we don't have you may not be familiar with Publix. But Publix is a grocery store that is so focused on service and it is so focused on making your shopping experience enjoyable. And they live that out. Each person in the store does a really good job of living that out. And you see it in the way that they bag your groceries, you see it in the way that they have people with a smiling face checking you out. You see it when you have to get around someone to get those raspberries and someone's stocking the raspberries and the way they say hi to you and they don't make you feel like you're imposing. There's so many layers at Publix where they really do, their slogan is make shopping a pleasure. And I really think they do a great job of that. And this was a really good example where it was just a little thing. It was not that big of a comp, probably 20 bucks or something like that, but it reinforced his loyalty to Publix. He could have gone to any grocery store and he will always go to Publix because of things like that, because of consistent service like that. I just thought it was a really cool story. I love that. That's so cool. Okay, so today's episode is a little bit different than we're used to doing, but I'm actually I'm really excited about this. So we don't have any guests today, but we kind of have six guests at the same time. Yes. One thing I said up top is that your customer support is really only as good as the people that you have running your customer support, right? The people that are actually interfacing with your customers and giving them that experience. You can have the best processes in place. You can have the best mission statement and values in place. But if you hire people that don't live out those values or don't live out that mission statement or run those processes the way they should be run, then you're not going to have a good experience for your customers. So you have to find and hire the right people in order to execute on what you want as far as your customer experience. And I think, you know, we have a really cool team of people here at Buzzsprout that do really incredible work in customer support. And so I thought it would be cool to talk to each of those people and learn a little bit about their experience and where they developed these skills that are now serving them so well in customer support. And spoiler alert, none of them came from a customer support background. Yeah. All of the people on our team came from other industries. And I think sometimes when you're hiring, and I know this from experience, you look at someone's resume and how much experience they have in the industry that you're working in. So I want to hire someone for customer support. So how much experience do they have in customer support? Oh, yeah. Or I want to hire someone to work in podcasting. How much experience do they have in podcasting? And the reality that I have learned is that that experience can only take you so far. And sometimes that experience is not enough to give your customers this elevated level of service. And sometimes the lack of that experience is actually a benefit because they're not unlearning the stereotypical behavior that you have in customer support. Yeah. So my hope is that for anyone listening to this, you know, we're starting a new year. I am sure that there are support leaders listening who are getting ready to start hiring people for the year, or maybe you're starting a new year and you want to find a new role and you're just you don't know how to break into a customer support setting. Maybe you've been working in, you know, administration and you're like, I want to work in customer support, but I don't know how to make that jump over. Hopefully, as we talk through some of these skills that you may not have expected to be so powerful in customer support, hopefully this will inspire you to write your story in a way that really can sell yourself to a customer support manager. And then on the flip side of that, if you're hiring, hopefully this gives you a little bit of insight into what to look for to find the rock stars that are going to be on your customer support team. Okay, so I'm gonna start by introducing you to the Buzzsprout Podcaster success team. Each of them will give you a little insight into their path that led them to support and what skills they learned along the way before they got into a support role.

Cara: 8:09

I'm Kara Passetti and I have been a podcaster success specialist here at Buzzsprout for two and a half years now. And I've taken on a couple of other roles, uh, hosting our podcasting QA podcast and offering live orientations for new podcasters. So, in a past life, I started as an NFL cheerleader for the Jacksonville Jaguars, which did a lot of shaping for me professionally. I was also a golf course beverage cart attendant in college. I graduated and I was an athletic trainer working in sports medicine, then moved into the education world where I served as an executive secretary for the school district. And briefly I transitioned into a daycare teacher for four and five-year-olds.

Brian: 8:56

My name is Brian, and I just celebrated my three-year anniversary here at Buzzbrook. I started in recreation. I'm a big sports guy, so I just thought I'm gonna make sports my whole life. And so I started out as the intramural director at a college, just kind of being the commissioner of a bunch of different sports leagues. And after that, I kind of transitioned into hospitality. And I've been in hospitality for really the last 15 years of my career. This means I've done everything from, like I said, run the sports leagues on both a collegiate level and I also did that at an elementary school. And then in hospitality, I've done everything from work at a hotel planning people's vacations. I've worked in an insurance office, I've worked at a sports card shop, and then I worked at Chick-fil-A. I always like to say they uh gave me my master's in customer service.

Serena: 9:44

My name is Trina Nigro, and I have been with Buzzsprout on the customer support team for eight months. So I joined Buzzsprout right after graduating college. So I didn't have a lot of formal work experience. I did work as a nanny for about 10 years, and I also was just super involved with clubs and leadership and helping people throughout high school and college. In school, I studied marketing, which was really fun because I got to help companies bring their hopes and dreams to the next level and help them build a really meaningful business.

Kate: 10:15

My name is Kate, and I've been with the Buzzspout Podcast Success Team for about a year and a half now. I have um a background in marketing, um, worked for like a couple different nonprofits and managed their social medias and did things like helped acquire contrac and did some like writing support for them, some press releases and things like that. And then I've also worked in education and like tutoring and some teaching with like elementary school. And then also some more creative writing, like working for a magazine. I was like a poetry editor for a little bit.

Lindsey: 10:53

My name is Lindsay, and I have been working here since May of 2021, which is crazy. It's been four and a half years. It does not feel that long. I had two jobs really prior to this. I worked as a practice liaison at a medical office. And then I also worked as an executive assistant, kind of office assistant for a commercial real estate office. So kind of all over the place.

Priscilla: 11:17

So there's just six of us, me and the five people you just met. And so we are a small but really mighty team. And I think one of the things that makes us so great is that we all bring these unique experiences into the support world from these varied backgrounds. Yeah. I had this realization earlier this week. I went to the symphony, the Jacksonville Symphony. It's a great symphony. And so I went and saw them play over the weekend. And one of the things that struck me while I was watching the symphony was this idea that they are all relying on each other with so much trust that it's just it's really powerful because you look at a symphony and it's made up of all of these different musicians that are really good in their own right. But when you bring them together and you put all of their strengths together, something really powerful can happen and really moving and really impactful. Yeah, you need the percussion section and you need the string section. Exactly. Yeah. But you have to have this level of trust with the people that you're playing with. Because if one person doesn't come in on time, or if one person just decides to get up and walk off the stage, it's going to affect the music. It's going to affect the piece you're playing and it's going to affect the people that are there watching. And I think that the same thing can be said about a really good support team. You're going to have people with different strengths. You're going to have people that excel in certain areas and that need encouragement in other areas. And if you're working together with a high level of trust that the person next to you is working with the same kind of intention and mastery that you are, and you can trust that they are, then you can do something that's way more powerful than individual customers' experiences. It can be this really powerful thing that impacts lives in a way that you couldn't do on your own. And so it was just a cool analogy sitting there watching the symphony and thinking this is in so many ways how our support team is able to do so many really cool things because individually on this team, we have really strong people. Yeah. And together we're able to do some really cool stuff. I think it's well put. But I do think it's interesting that no one in the team right now came from SaaS support. Yeah. Brian came from a Chick-fil-A background, which is the closest thing to like a traditional support background out of everyone on the team. I came from advertising. Lindsay came from working in more of an admin role at a medical office. Serena came straight out of college where she just had a love of learning. Kate came from more of a writing background, and Kara has worn every hat that you could possibly wear. And so it's really interesting to see how all of these people have come together with all of these diverse backgrounds and are able to use the skills they learned in those roles to have incredible, remarkable experiences for our customers. I asked everyone on the team to kind of walk me through some of the skills that they learned before they got into support. Oh, yeah. These are the transferable ones.

Cara: 14:16

Yes, they're transferable skills. Yeah. When I was a cheerleader, I learned professionalism and I learned socialization and representation. So I was a representative for an organization that was bigger than myself. And so I had to conduct myself in that way as I interacted with fans. And so that really shaped me moving into careers. As a beverage card attendant, that was like I said, during college, it was kind of a part-time job, but it taught me responsibility because we handled money and transactions, keeping things organized, and also hospitality. And again, serving the golfers and the resort guests that were coming. And so my job was to make their experience a good one and meet them with positivity and energy. And then moving on to athletic training, huge learning curve there. I was responsible for the health and safety of athletes many ages, spanning from pop warner five-year-olds all the way to seniors in high school, rehabbing them from injuries that took them out of their sport. And so not only did I have to invest in my knowledge on how to treat these injuries and learning what to do to diagnose, treat, but also I learned responsibility and how to keep things private. What needs to be private, what needs to be shared. And I was trusted with that information. It seems like a lot of different hats, but I'm so thankful for each opportunity because it's shaped me in so many ways. And now I get to use these skills as a podcaster success specialist.

Serena: 15:49

I learned a lot of things from these experiences. First, I learned a lot of patience because I was working with loads of different types of people. I mean, working with two-year-olds, managing temper tantrums and figuring out, okay, how am I going to get through this issue, have a resolution, and also brighten their day, boost the mood and not take this personally.

Kate: 16:13

I think the biggest one is writing skills. Like in each of my jobs that I've had, I've had to hone in how I write. So yeah, I really do value being able to communicate effectively in written form. And I think that's really helped me out in my success team role. And learning how to kind of read people and understand where they're missing gaps. Like when I was doing tutoring and teaching and you're working with a kid who they don't necessarily even know what knowledge gaps they have, but being able to sit with them and kind of understand has been like a really helpful skill and support as well.

Lindsey: 16:51

One of the main things was just having a deep knowledge of the practice or of the business and feeling confident in that. And then also the, I say it as strong communication skills, being able to maybe take some technical terms, some harder situations and be able to communicate that to others. And then another one, which I think is really fun, is relationship building. It's hard, especially, you know, when I'm in that medical practice and we have people coming that are not feeling well, that have to have surgery, that are nervous and stuff like that. It's important to be able to build a relationship with them so that they can trust you and really hear what you have to say.

Priscilla: 17:28

I think it's really cool when you listen to all of these different clips because they're all mentioning these skills that they learned outside of the support world. But when you hear them here in a support context, you go, oh yeah, I can see how being able to communicate with all levels of customers is necessary for a remarkable service. Oh, I can see how someone being a brand representative is really important when you're working in customer support. Yeah. And I think sometimes we look at these jobs on a resume and we see it printed on a paper and we don't immediately think if this person was able to work and interface with children at a daycare, then they're gonna be good at this role in customer support. I think we don't make that connection. Yeah. But there's so many of those skills that are transferable over into customer support. So as you're reviewing resumes and you're looking for that rock star, don't write off experience that doesn't fit into what we think the mold of customer support is. You know, there are some of these skills with each person on the support team here at Buzzprout that make them exceptional at customer support because they are not skills that you would routinely think about for customer support. So I asked each person on the team to really focus on one skill that they learned outside of support and perfected outside of support that has served them really well in support that they wouldn't necessarily have thought. So we'll go through those one by one and touch on some of what those skills look like.

Cara: 19:08

So one strength that I've taken away from my previous work experience is the art of representation. Some people don't understand when you say cheerleader, sometimes you kind of think, okay, you're cheering on the sidelines, you're doing some dances, oh well. But really, when, especially at the level of NFL, you are employed as a representative. So everything that I did, I had to think, okay, how am I also representing something that's bigger than myself? And that has really translated into working for support. Because every interaction I have with a customer, whether it be at a conference or in the support inbox, I am thinking to myself what are our values? What is my response communicating to this person in front of me? And am I doing a good job of representing what we stand for in honoring that person? Request or answering their question.

Jordan: 20:03

This is a skill that if you handed me a sheet of paper and you said, write down all the skills that you would want to have featured on like a resume, representation would not even come to mind. And yet it is such an important skill to have. It is such an important mindset to have.

Priscilla: 20:19

Yeah, it really is. And what's crazy is the way that Kara makes that connection about being a cheerleader. Yeah. If you look at a resume and you see someone listed as a cheerleader, what do you think? Well, they're good at dancing. They're probably like really good at always smiling and being super bubbly and encouraging, but you don't think necessarily, unless you've been a cheerleader, you don't think, you know what they're really good at? They're good at representing a brand.

Jordan: 20:45

Yeah.

Priscilla: 20:46

They're good at not letting their own personal struggles come through when they're being the face of the brand. And I think when you're hiring people for your customer support team, look at the people who know how to represent a company or a brand well. Because just like with that Costco story that we heard with Britney Hodak a couple episodes ago, you can lose customers if your support specialist does not represent the brand accurately. And I think Kara makes a really good point that that representation piece does not need to only come from working in a customer support world, but it can be grown and strengthened in a role like being a cheerleader.

Brian: 21:27

Another skill that I learned when I was at the sports card shop, which might be surprising, is the power of finding a common ground or building a relationship with someone. Because obviously you're both people. You're just trying to accomplish the same goal. In this case, it would be to buy or sell cards. And it really helps when you're on the same level as two human beings that are just interested in the same thing. And so let's say someone walked in with some baseball cards. I'm more of a basketball fan, but I still know enough about baseball where I can find a detail or something to relate to that person. And that just creates a little bit of a connection to give us momentum for the rest of the conversation. Now, obviously, that doesn't mean that I'm always going to buy or sell his card. It could just mean that we have a great interaction and maybe that leads to something else down the line, but it leads to a better experience for that person because we have kind of gotten on the same plane and related to each other and just it's not so transactional and so robotic.

Priscilla: 22:27

So if you know Brian, then you know that this skill is like classic Brian. It is. Brian is so good about finding common ground and building relationships. And I love that his example was when he was working at a sports card shop, which basically was more of a sales role trying to convince people to sell to him or convince people to buy the cards that he had. And I think it's a really cool connection of okay, in order to make this sale, I have to find a common ground with this person and build a relationship. And that is so obviously customer support, right? In order to build those loyal customers that are going to keep coming back, you have to be able to find common ground with them, treat them as people, and make a connection. Even if that connection ultimately doesn't land them being a customer right away, it still is building a relationship. So down the line, they may come back.

Serena: 23:28

Well, I just love to learn. I did not want to graduate. So as someone who's always loved learning and fell in love truly with education, it's really served me well in helping our customers.

Jordan: 23:41

We talked so many times about needing to be sort of self-starting in learning information and constantly like sharpening your axe. Like we've talked about that a million times. So this is perfect.

Priscilla: 23:52

Well, and Serena's unique because she came to us straight from college. Yeah. But she had such a love of learning and she had such a love of people. And it was so clear early on when we met her that I knew she was going to be great at this role because she loves the learning aspect. And if there's anything you will hear in support, it's that you are always learning. You are always figuring out the next upgrade that just got rolled out by the, you know, developers, or you're figuring out this new pricing that we just pushed out or something like that. So there's this constant learning, a constant staying on top of the industry. And so having someone who loves that can be a huge asset for the people on your team because they will do the research and they will share it with your team.

Kate: 24:37

Something I've learned is I think they did a study that 70% of communication is nonverbal. And so learning how to kind of communicate those nonverbal things that you would normally get through like hand motions or like tone of voice, and a lot of like empathy and things come from those nonverbal things. And so things that I've just learned in my career and in my education to translate those into the written form through like sentence structure or punctuation, even has been like a really surprising thing that's really helped me in support to communicate like clearly and empathetically with our customers.

Priscilla: 25:15

I mean, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Writing is so important in support.

Jordan: 25:20

Yeah.

Priscilla: 25:20

And I think when I first started in customer support, and when I was first looking at hiring the first couple of people for my team, I remember thinking, you need to be a good writer. You don't have to be the best writer, but you need to be a good writer. When you have someone on your team who is really skilled at writing, and I'm talking like they know all the technical ins and outs of it, that can be a huge differentiator for your customer support because it allows you to communicate so much better with your customers.

Jordan: 25:50

And it's not like copy and pasted from like a template.

Priscilla: 25:53

Exactly. And I think Kate does a really good job bringing that skill to our team and making all of us better writers because she has a passion for writing and she brings that into support every single day.

Lindsey: 26:07

So one thing that I think has been really interesting to see how it kind of transfers over is the ability to talk to people of all knowledge levels. So with my job as the practice liaison at this medical office, I would sometimes be talking with physicians. I would also sometimes be talking with patients. Physicians tend to know way more than an average person that's coming in as a patient. So they have a lot of technical questions. They want to know what type of surgeries do we offer, stuff like that. Well, patients are coming in and they just know something's wrong. So they need help. And so being able to quickly assess where somebody's knowledge level is and then be able to provide them with the information that they need at their level. I think that's very important. Taking that skill and moving it over to a support role, it really almost is the same. The only difference is that I'm now behind a screen. So I'm answering these emails. I'm not able to see them face to face, but I can also assess the email based on the questions that they're asking, the language that they're using. And so I can figure out where they are in their knowledge level and then be able to respond in a similar way to give them the answers that they're looking for, but knowing, hey, this person is just starting out, or this person's clearly been doing this for years.

Priscilla: 27:22

I think Lindsay's example is really great. And I think it's one of the things that really solidifies the need to look at these kinds of skills in a support context when you're looking for new people to come on your team. Lindsay's example is really interesting because when you're in a setting like a medical office, when someone is walking in, it is very clear right off the bat, is this someone who is familiar with the terminology? Is this someone who has no idea what I'm talking about? Yeah. Is this someone who's nervous about a surgery or something like that? And you have to, you have no option but to adjust and talk to them in the way that will work for them. Because if you talk to a doctor like they're a patient, they're gonna get frustrated. It's gonna be clear right off the bat. If you talk to a patient like they're a doctor or without any of that empathy, then it's gonna be really hard to communicate with them and they're gonna get frustrated and it's a high stress, high emotional moment. Yeah. You don't have to have that skill in support. You don't. You can copy and paste the same kind of answer to a simple question to anyone who writes in. And for most of those people, they will go, okay, I'm gonna convert this into a tone that works for me and take it and go. For most people, it will be adequate. But if you have figured out how to do what Lindsay can do, which is talking to people on all different levels, and then you come into support and you treat every customer that way and you give them that personalized care based on where they stand in their experience, then it feels like you're being taken care of, right? As a customer, you feel the care that you don't necessarily have to feel over email. That's what makes, you know, a pretty good experience a great experience if you feel that personal level of care. Yeah. And so I think that this example from Lindsay is so important because it's something she had to learn. She had no option. She had to learn it when she was in that medical setting. And because she learned it there, she can use it here where she doesn't have to use it. But when she does, which is all the time, it levels the service up so much more. So these are just five examples, right? These are just five skills that I asked each person to pick one and highlight. But I think there are so many more like this. Oh, yeah. And another kind of level of this, another layer is that, you know, in support, we deal with frustrated customers a lot. That's just the nature of the job. And so one of the things I was curious about that I asked the team to talk about a little bit was how their experience has changed the way they approach these tough conversations and these hard situations because it takes a certain kind of person to be able to work with a frustrated customer and stay calm and stay cool and not let it affect them in a personal way. And so I asked everyone on the team to kind of share a little bit about how their experience has helped them build strategies for handling these tough conversations.

Cara: 30:22

In athletic training, working on the field in an emergent situation, I had to remain calm and I had to figure out what was going on with this athlete. There was no walking away and saying, oh, well, I don't know. And so I had to know yes, this injury is enough where they cannot go back into the game. They need to come to the sideline with me. Yep, we can stretch ice, they can go back. But it was a calm, I had to be decisive. And I had to continue on without ceasing until we had an answer.

Brian: 30:53

I really think it's helped me separate myself from the situation. And by that I mean when I first started out in hospitality, I would take every difficult conversation to heart. I would take it personally. Some of those difficult conversations would stick with me for days or weeks even. And when you take that stuff home, it just snowballs. And you'll eventually get burnt out if you're always thinking about those negative conversations, or even if the conversation ended up turning out just fine, but you're still thinking about those personal attacks that someone had with you, it really weighs on you. And I've learned over the years just to separate myself.

Kate: 31:27

In creative writing, when you're looking at like a short story or a poem, you're kind of reading between the lines to understand the subtext of what the author is communicating or the piece of art is communicating. Kind of the same thing happens in the sport inbox, where that analytical reading skill is really important when you are looking at an email from a customer.

Lindsey: 31:49

So I will be the first to tell you I am not necessarily a confrontational person, right? So as soon as things seem to be a little heated or a little frustrated, I have a tendency to retreat. But what I've learned is that knowing that in a sense I am the expert in this area, I really have to lean into the knowledge that I have about our product. So I have to be able to communicate that knowledge with confidence to customers, not in a sense that I could never be proven wrong, but know that I'm really the expert in this area.

Priscilla: 32:21

Not only do these skills help in offering remarkable services, but they also come in handy when things get hard. Yeah. And one key to a great support team is having people who are around long enough to have confidence in their ability and their knowledge.

Jordan: 32:36

Yeah.

Priscilla: 32:36

And are people that are able to handle these tough situations in a way that avoids burnout. And I think Brian said something about being able to let these tough situations roll off his back and that he had to do that in other roles. And so now when he's in a support role, he has that skill already ready to go. And I think those kind of skills really help you in the longevity of the people on your team. And so when you have people who are able to hit those tough conversations and those hard questions head on and not shy away from them, but do it in a healthy way. I think that allows you to have people around for a long time, which levels up your service. Yeah. So I asked everyone one last question. I wanted to know what makes them passionate about working in customer support.

Cara: 33:25

The fact that I get to cheer them on and problem solve when they have a challenge or let them know a different way of doing something. All these ways of encouraging and inspiring these creators to continue chasing after their passion is so fulfilling to me. And so I feel like work is only enjoyable when you really love it and you really get to enjoy what you're doing and you feel like you're making a difference. And truly, when I'm helping these podcasters continue on with their passion, that fills me.

Brian: 33:56

What makes me passionate about support is being an outlier on the other side. I really get fulfilled by giving excellent service and just knowing that I helped people at the end of the day. Now, when you help someone, people may express their gratitude either through a thank you or even a good review. And some people may not, but I know for myself at the end of the day that I did help people. And it really doesn't get better than that.

Serena: 34:23

There's nothing I love more than helping people. Every day, I my goal for the day is to, regardless of this job, my goal is to help people and make their lives easier.

Kate: 34:34

I love um helping our customers understand something and helping meet them where they're at. And I love that moment where it's like things click for them and they understand. And I think that's just such a cool moment to get to be a part of.

Lindsey: 34:49

At the end of the day, if I feel like I've helped 15 customers, 30 customers, sometimes it's 70 customers, right? It just fills me with joy. I think it's something that is important in this role and that you can just really make a difference on either a grand scale or on a small scale.

Priscilla: 35:06

I think that's the key to all of this, to this entire episode. When you're looking for someone to join your support team, look at their experience, look at their skills, but most importantly, look at who they are. Because your best support specialists will be the people who love helping people. They're gonna feel genuinely good at the end of the day because they've helped people. And if you hire people who are experts in your product and they're experts in support, they could do a really good job. Oh yeah. But if you hire people who love helping people, that is going to come through in every single interaction. Whether they're tired or whether they're frustrated, they are going to see the value in helping people. And at the end of the day, they're gonna feel good about that. I think there is nothing more important than that, honestly. It kind of makes me emotional. Like it is a value that is so not celebrated. This idea that helping people and being a support for people can be super rewarding. Yeah. And if you find people for your team that have these skills, but have this love and this passion for helping people. And it fills their bucket. Yeah, you're gonna set yourself up for having incredible experiences. And you know who's gonna benefit from that? Your customers. Yeah. Because they're talking to someone who genuinely cares about them, that is genuinely happy to help. Yeah. Right. Because they want to do it. And I think that when you look at resumes, it can be really difficult to look and see someone with 30 years of experience in a customer support role and not go, oh, that's great. They've got so much experience, they're number one. Yeah. You've got to sit down and talk with them and you've got to ask them about these things. Like what drives you? What is it that you love about customer support? Is it the fact that you can clock in and clock off and you can work remotely? If it is, that's not a bad thing to love, but that might not be the strongest support specialist. It's not the main thing. Right. But if it's someone who says, I love helping people, I love knowing at the end of the day that I got the ability to positively impact 50 people. That's the person you want to hold on to because you can train them. You can train them on your product and you can train them on the necessary things to know. But what you can't train people on is getting fulfillment from helping people. That's not gonna be for everyone. And so you've got to find those people who love that already in their soul. Those are the people that you want on your team.

Jordan: 37:42

Absolutely. This whole conversation and hearing the backgrounds of everyone like on our team and how diverse it is. I would actually really be curious to see what our listeners' backgrounds are. So, like if any of these questions inspire them or they go, oh yeah, actually, you know what? I actually learned something really weird from my background. I would love if they would tap the Texas Show link in the show notes to like ride in and let us know what weird skill that they learned from their previous that they didn't expect to help them in customer support, or maybe they had like an unexpected past career that like led them into customer support in a weird way. Like that would just be so fascinating.

Priscilla: 38:20

Yeah, I think that would be great. I will also say this was a really fun experience for me as the head of this team to sit down with each individual person on the team and talk to them about their strengths and talk to them about the things that they are really good at. And I recommend it to anyone who is leading a team. Sometimes we get so caught up in like the day-to-day and the task list and the inbox queue and all of these things, which are all things that need your attention. Yeah. But take 20 minutes and sit down and just say, let's find those through lines that the skills that you have today that you do really well and support, let's find where they came from. Yeah. What spawned that? You know, where did that skill come from? Where did you develop that skill? It's a really fun exercise and it was really encouraging for me. And also I think it was encouraging for the people on my team. So I highly recommend that. And, you know, like I said up top, if you are in a hiring position and you are looking at resumes and you're trying to make sense of hundreds and thousands of resumes. And who do you hire? I hope this episode is helpful when you're looking at those skills. And I really hope if you're someone who's looking to get into a support role or to transition from a support role to another, I hope that this can inspire you to see the skills that you have that you may not have put under the support umbrella and to see how those can really brand you as a rock star support specialist. Yes. So that you can walk into your next interview equipped to be like, here's what I did in this other role that has nothing to do with support. And here's how it's gonna benefit your customers when I get to do it in the support team. Yep. those are the kind of skills that are going to level up your service and set you apart from your competition. Love it. So if you have a support question or a support story or a situation that you would like us to discuss in a future episode, or if there's something that you really want to dive deep into and you want us to do that, send us a text and let us know because we would love to do an episode specifically about that topic for you. So you can send us a text by clicking the send a text link in the show notes. And then it like opens your text messages right on your phone and you can just send us a quick text. It's super easy. So I would love it if anyone listening to that who has kind of a suggestion for a topic episode or a question, go ahead and send that into us. We would love to see that. As always, if you liked this episode, I would love it if you would share it with someone who works in customer support or you leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It really can help the show a lot and it just makes us feel good to get good reviews. So I would love it if you'd do that. Thank you, Jordan, for being with me on this episode. And thank you to the entire Buzzsprout Podcaster success team for taking the time to talk about their experiences and their skills. It was really fun to do this with all of them and I really appreciate them taking the time to do that. They're the MVPs. They are the true MVPs. You are absolutely right. So thank you all for listening. Now go and make someone's day.