Podcasting As Proactive Customer Support

What if your support team could answer customers’ questions before they ever submitted a ticket?

In this episode, we’re joined by Cara Pacetti, host of Podcasting Q&A and a member of Buzzsprout’s Podcaster Success team, along with Happy to Help producer and longtime podcaster Jordan Blair. Together, we explore how businesses can use podcasting as a proactive customer support strategy for educating customers, answering recurring questions, and building trust at scale.

We look at how Buzzsprout transformed Podcasting Q&A from a marketing initiative into a customer education resource, why support inboxes are full of potential episode ideas, and how a branded podcast can give customers more than step-by-step instructions. It can also teach the strategies behind a product, service, or feature.

We also discuss the unique ability of podcasting to create authentic relationships and brand loyalty. When customers regularly hear the voices of the people behind a company, support begins to feel more personal, familiar, and approachable. Over time, listeners can even become super fans who help educate and encourage other customers.

In this episode, we cover:

• How podcasting creates proactive and scalable customer support
• Turning frequently asked questions into evergreen content
• Using educational content to prevent customer frustration
• Building customer trust and brand loyalty through audio
• Adding support elements to an existing branded podcast
• Giving support professionals creative opportunities beyond the inbox
• Choosing topics, hosts, equipment, and production roles
• Using AI to identify recurring questions and brainstorm episodes
• Starting a podcast without overthinking the technology
• Why even a limited 10-episode series can become a valuable customer resource

Resources mentioned:

• Listen to Podcasting Q&A
• Follow Buzzcast
• Listen to Buzzsprout’s How to Start a Podcast series
• Learn more about Buzzsprout Fan Mail

If this episode inspires your support team to experiment with podcasting, send us Fan Mail and tell us about it! 

We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!
 
To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com. 

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

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Topic & Guest Intro

Priscilla 0:00

Welcome to Happy to Help, a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke. Today we're talking about how launching a podcast can extend your support experience. We'll explore what inspired Buzzsprout's Podcast, Podcast and QA, how it helps customers succeed, and how you can use content and conversation in your support strategy. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it. Okay, I'm really excited about this episode. Um, it's exciting for me specifically because if you've listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you know that Buzzsprout is the producer of this podcast, and Buzzsprout is a podcast hosting service. And so we're really big into podcasting. And so this episode is really fun because we're going to talk about how podcasting can actually give you a way to level up your support strategy and give you like some cool ways to connect with your customers. So we have two guests. One of them is Jordan, our podcast producer. And she's here as a guest today. I mean, she'll also be producing, but she's here as a guest today because she's also the host of several very successful podcasts. And I was thinking about it, Jordan. I feel like you're the most knowledgeable person about podcasts that I know. I feel like you've been doing it. Well, I mean, obviously, I work at Buzzsprout. There's so many people here that are like really knowledgeable about Buzzsprout. I think you have like the most hands-on experience. You've been podcasting for a really long time. You have a variety of different types of shows. You're constantly helping people launch new shows and you're editing new shows. And so I'm really excited because I think you are like just a wealth of knowledge. Thank you. And then our second guest is Cara Pacetti. Cara is our podcaster success concierge. She's on the podcaster success team, but a lot of her role is about welcoming new podcasters and helping them podcast with confidence. And so she's also the host of Podcast and QA, which is the podcast that she runs under the umbrella of the support team here at Buzzsprout. So it's really exciting to have you here too, Cara, to talk about podcasting.

Speaker 1 2:11

I love it. I'm excited. I feel much more equipped this time than my first two guesting appearances.

Jordan 2:15

Yeah, I think this is maybe one of the easier episodes of Happy to Help because this is directly in our wheelhouse. Yeah. Absolutely.

Priscilla 2:23

So before we get into talking about podcasting and support and how we can use podcasting for support, we always start our episodes off on a positive note.

How Fan Mail Made Cara's Day

Priscilla 2:32

So, Cara, do you have a story of someone who's made your day recently?

Speaker 1 2:35

So recently we offered uh what we call a Buzzsprout class. It's something new that we're doing where we get to highlight some of our Buzzsprout features. And the feature that we highlighted was fan mail, which is a really fun, interactive way for listeners to engage with their favorite podcast. And so my day was made when I unexpectedly received some fan mail to my podcasting QA podcast. Nice from an attendee that attended the fan mail class, sent me a hype up message just letting me know that they really enjoyed the class and that they were excited. They were returning to podcasting and they were so thankful. And so not only did I feel super energized and encouraged that my class helped somebody, but also the fact that they successfully sent a fan mail message, which is exactly what the training was on. And so it was such a win-win and it fell in line perfectly with this recording. Um, and so I was excited to share that. So that definitely made my day.

Priscilla 3:34

I love that. That's awesome. It's one of the things that I think we've even mentioned on this podcast, but like how important it is to like hype each other up and like give encouragement easily. And the fact that that person went out of their way to send you a message to tell you you did a good job. We finished that class yesterday and we felt really good about it. But then when we got back to our desks and saw that message come through, it was more like, oh man, it it hyped us up even more. Like we already felt good about it. But absolutely seeing that happen was so encouraging. And then hearing from someone was so encouraging. And so I love that story. And I think that's that's just a great example.

Jordan 4:12

Well, and also, I mean, to even like add to it, Alban, our head of marketing, saw that we had received a fan mail message about podcasting QA. And then he screenshot it and shared it to the company. And then the whole company was like, Yeah, Cara. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4:25

That definitely was a great feeling. I forgot to mention that part also made my day. Yeah.

Priscilla 4:30

But it's so cool because the person who attended took 20 seconds to write you a thank you note and send it to the podcast. And then Alban saw it and took 20 seconds to take that note and post it in front of the whole company. Yeah. And then everyone in the company saw it and took three seconds to boost it and, you know, celebrate you. But that's like what, a total of 40 seconds that made your day so much better. Yeah. With like the tiniest little thing when we actually break it down like that, it just sounds like, why am I not doing this more? Why am I not complimenting people more? It's so impactful. And I just don't think to do it as much as I should. Me too.

Speaker 1 5:10

A shameless plug to the happy to help listeners. If you were loving the content that Priscilla is putting out each week, click the send us fan mail link in the show notes and let her know. Go ahead and make her day. Cara, that is why you're our favorite guest.

unknown 5:24

That's right.

Podcasting As Proactive Support

Priscilla 5:26

Okay, so let's jump into podcasting. Yeah. Specifically how podcasting can be used to level up the support service that you're offering your customers. So when you think about support, most people are going to think about tickets and emails, maybe a chat bot, maybe AI responses or phone calls. But like we've talked about in this podcast quite a few times, your support service should be more like a firehouse. Remember, Chase came on and talked to us about the idea that while yes, we're putting out fires, the best support teams are creating an environment where fires aren't happening in the first place. And so people don't have to come to you for help because they don't need help because they've been educated up front. When I think about podcasting in a support sense, that just feels like a natural proactive approach to support. And so I'm really, you know, I am excited to talk about it because I think it's something that can set you apart from your competition and is something that can be a fun, creative way to interact with your customers and build a relationship with them. Absolutely. So first I want to like go back a couple of years to, I think it was about 2018 when we launched a podcast under the Buzzproud umbrella called Five Minute Mondays. So the idea of this podcast was a podcast that came out weekly every Monday, and it was, you know, five minutes thereabout. Very self-explanatory. Very a Monday podcast that was about five minutes. Uh-huh. That was it. And the idea was we're gonna give you a quick tip for the week, right? We're gonna give you a tip about podcasting for the week. And it was launched under our marketing team. And at the time, you know, podcasting, this was pre-2020. And so podcasting was known, but it wasn't the popular media that it is today. Yeah. When we launched it, there was an idea behind it that this would be a way to get Buzz Sprout into that education piece for people who want to start podcasts so that we would be top of mind because we'd have these videos. Cause I think they were pushing video to YouTube at the time and they were making a podcast about podcasting. And so it really was more of a marketing push when it was originally launched. And it ran successfully for several years. At one point, Jordan, you hosted it for a hot minute.

Jordan 7:43

Yeah, it got like rebranded because we realized like five minute Mondays is not very SEO friendly and it doesn't really say what it's about. Yeah.

Priscilla 7:51

You know that it happens on Monday and you know that's five minutes, but you don't know what it's about. Yeah.

Jordan 7:55

So it got like somewhere in there, it got rebranded podcasting QA. And then we went from like five minutes to like then bringing on guests for like quick episodes and it's been through a million iterations. Yes.

Priscilla 8:07

And then at some point it kind of took a hiatus. The marketing team was working on different initiatives. It wasn't uh priority on the marketing team, and so it kind of sat there for a couple years. It still got a lot of traction, but it didn't produce any new episodes until last year. Last year, the support team was looking for creative ways to lean into customer education. Yeah. Karen, you could speak to this. We tried a lot of different things. What are some of the things that we tried? Because you really led most of those.

Speaker 1 8:38

We did one-on-one calls. Oh, yeah. I mean, we've done orientations, but it was an iteration. I was cold calling or cold emailing customers and who just set up new accounts and said, Do you guys want to jump on a call? Do you need help? And so that was some of the creative ways, but we knew we needed something that could, you know, be more time efficient and reach a lot more people.

Priscilla 8:59

So and we started doing Buzz Sprout Lives, is what we called them, which Cara and I were both very excited about. So they were kind of like classes, kind of like how Cara was talking about with the fan mail class, but it was on Facebook. We have a Facebook community, and we would go on there and we would host a live. And the idea was it was like join the live and ask us questions and let us give you real-time support. I thought it was a really cool idea, but we really didn't get a ton of traction because what we realized was that the time that would work for us to do a live QA session was not the time that worked for our podcasters, because a lot of times podcasting is a hobby that someone's doing after hours, after working hours, but for us, it's not. It's a job. And so we were trying to hold these during working hours, which made it difficult for people to come to it. Anyway, it just didn't work out as we wanted it to. And so about a year ago, we were talking about how can we get this in front of more people so that more people can get help from it and also do it on a timeline that works for them. And it made sense to go the podcast route. And because podcasting QA already has the name and already existed with an with a following, we decided that not exactly rebranding it, but just moving it into the support world was the natural next step. And so about a year ago, Cara worked on, relaunched, we restructured, and we got podcasting QA running again, but this time hosted and scripted and produced and edited all by Cara and focused less on the marketing strategies that it could have and more on the support strategies and the support benefits. So, Cara, can you share some of the things that you thought through when you were in that relaunching phase, you know, thinking about the podcast as a support resource and not as a marketing initiative?

Speaker 1 10:51

One of the things that I think is really cool in this day and age about using a podcast in the support world is I just love that it's such a creative, out-of-the-box way of offering support. And so if you are a support team that isn't a part of a podcasting company, I challenge you to think how can I incorporate a podcast as a support feature? And so that's what I was essentially doing when I was taking over podcasting QA is okay, so we have the queue. We have our support inbox where I'm answering emails from our customers, from our podcasters. But how do I make this kind of the equivalent? And so one of the things I was excited about is that everybody learns differently. And so some people are maybe they don't know how to ask a question to the support team. Maybe they are they're afraid to, like it's a silly question. And so a podcast, first of all, will give a little bit of confidence and reassurance. Hey, your questions are valid. We actually have a whole back catalog of questions that people are sending in. And so it's asking maybe those questions that you're afraid to ask or that you don't know how to ask. It's also, I wanted to think about the episodes as answering the questions before they even know what it is they're asking. So as you're learning a new craft, as you're learning something, I wanted to tailor the episodes to answer those questions as they begin to understand and kind of help to grow and help them to learn. I think that that's a huge one.

Priscilla 12:15

People don't come to us, they don't experience the support situation or the support service until they have a question that they know and can clarify enough to write an email about. But think about all the people who don't know what they don't know. And so they don't ask the question because they don't really know what the question is, or the people who know there's a question, but they just don't want to have to go through the hassle of writing an email and they are so used to bad support that they don't even consider writing an email, right? And so this is a great way to put ourselves in front of our customers in a way that says, Hey, let us tell you the things you can be doing and facilitate a really easy way for you to get in touch with us and ask questions if you need them, but also we're gonna put this in front of you before you even know if this is something that you're concerned with.

Speaker 1 13:04

So specifically for podcasting QA, we are not only speaking to Buzz Sprout podcasters. Yeah. We're just speaking to the industry. So our customers are broad. It, the people who are listening are not necessarily hosted here with us. So I try to design the episodes in that way. Like, of course, I'm gonna highlight a feature that we have that will help you, but overall, I'm just taking this industry that we are a part of and that we are passionate about. And I'm just sharing what's gonna help them succeed in this industry. And so I think that's a fun way, again, to just offer a podcast that can be helpful and that it's more support than it is a marketing that's specific to your specific business.

Priscilla 13:46

Yeah. It lives in the support world, but there's definitely marketing benefits that are coming out of this too, because it is public and it is available to more people than just our customers. So while it's not completely focused on marketing, it definitely has those marketing benefits.

Turning Repeated Questions Into Episodes

Jordan 14:03

Cara, I have a question for you. So, as like a fellow podcaster, I have experience in like the episode planning. And I know that that can be like really daunting for people, especially when you're first starting out a podcast, because you're thinking, like, what if I run out of things to talk about? And so I know that at podcast and QA, we literally cover like questions and answers. So, what kind of questions do you focus on for the podcast when you're coming up with various episodes?

Speaker 1 14:28

Super valid concern, especially because we put out episodes weekly. So there is always that lingering fear of like, oh my goodness, am I gonna run out of content? But then I remember I actually have a very useful resource, which is an active support inbox that has hundreds of emails that we go through every day. And so, but I can't pull all of them, right? Some of those questions are just not gonna translate into a successful episode. So some of the things that I look for are how-to questions. So, how do I grow my show? How do I make money podcasting? So that's specific to our field, but I'd just be looking for questions that are specific to maybe a feature that you're offering or something that's specific to your niche, your customer base. And how-tos are really easy to make an episode on, sharing how something works. Uh, so an example here would be how we track downloads, how our analytics are showing in Buzz Sprout. And so we get a lot of various questions that are all related to that. And so I want to try to get out of the weeds, not make it so specific, but kind of just cover an overarching broad episode of this is how this works. Yeah. Um, and then also helping with like strategies, thinking outside the box of how can we do this better, how can we do this this certain way, and giving options for listeners to take home and try on their own.

Priscilla 15:50

Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest ways that I see podcast QA being so powerful is that it gives you the time to talk about strategy. Yeah. So you can teach someone how to use a tool, especially if you're listening to this and you have like a SaaS product. You know, you can teach someone how to use your product, but there's a difference between teaching them how to click this button and that button, and then teaching them the strategy behind it, right? The like the strategy piece of it. You can use a tool and use it the wrong way, right? But this gives us the ability to say, okay, here's how you use this feature we have. And these are some of the strategies that we recommend you use that you try. And it gives you a little bit more room to communicate that than you would be able to communicate in an email when someone's saying, you know, how do I take a break from my podcast? Oh, well, here's this plan you can move to to take a break. Right. But Cara can write and record an episode that goes way more in depth on the strategies around how to take a break.

Jordan 16:46

Yeah. And this actually ties directly into what we were talking about earlier with like when we had Chase Clemens on and he was talking about like the firehouse thing. Like, this is the education aspect of it. This is like the pre-amble sort of thing. So, like, if you have like an HVAC company and you're doing an HVAC podcast, you can talk about like things to check when your vent is blowing warm air. Right. Or if you are in hospitality, you can say, here are things to remember to pack before your trip. Like you can have these different strategies that you do to make the customer experience that much better and educate them on like things that they need to be prepared for before getting your services.

Priscilla 17:26

Yeah. Think about like you just said hospitality. Like, think about a hotel that launches a podcast about getting the best experience out of coming to this hotel. Yeah. You could like highlight different restaurants in the area. You could highlight your own amenities, you could highlight day trips. Like there's so much you could do. If like the city of Jacksonville had a podcast, they could highlight the local businesses. And this kind of leaves that support side a little bit, but it really focuses on the education side, right? Because it's it's getting to people, like you were saying, Dordan, before they have the questions, before they have to walk up to the desk and say, Where should I go for dinner? You've already given them four episodes where you highlight, you know, restaurants within walking distance.

Jordan 18:09

If we're gonna bring it back directly to support, like let's say that you have a finance app or you work at like a bank and you want to educate people on how to read the financial reports on their dashboard. You know, just something like that. A podcast can do all these things that you're constantly educating people on. If you constantly have people coming in and they're asking the same questions over and over again, like that's probably gonna be a good topic to cover.

Speaker 1 18:34

Absolutely. I actually have a real life example of how I covered one of our features. Uh, so visual sound bites is a feature that we offer here at Buzz Sprout. And um, primarily, I think the understanding around it is that you would use it to promote your podcast. So it's a little audio clip, you'd share it on your social channels, and you'd use that to promote your podcast. Well, we have a podcaster who's been with Buzz Sprout for a very long time who reached out to me via fan mail on an episode that I did on visual sound bites. And she never knew that she could use the visual soundbite as a trailer for her next episode, like a sneak peek because I mentioned that on my episode, and she wrote in and said, Oh my goodness, I've been using this feature for years. Never did I think to have it as a teaser for my next episode. Like, awesome. I'm gonna try this next. And so that's one of those ways we design these amazing products, or we have this great hotel with awesome amenities. Sometimes customers they miss out because they just don't know, like you said, they just don't know what they don't know. And so getting out there and really explaining how things work and the best intention for using it can really level up your customers' experience. And I think that's support.

Jordan 19:46

On top of that, you could get ahead of things too. So if you work with the product team or you work with the marketing team and you know that like a new feature or a new service is coming out, you can record an episode ahead of time talking to the developers. Why did they make these decisions to do these certain things? Talking to the marketing team, what kind of things do people need to be using uh this new feature for? Or how do they use the new feature and use the new tool? And then as soon as that launches, you send out the podcast episode in like an email newsletter or something to all the customers and they can learn about it like in real time and be in the know of what to expect when they like next log into the website or next walk into your uh facility or you know, whatever.

Priscilla 20:36

Yeah. Well, and I think about, you know, because I'm kind of stuck on this hospitality thing that we were talking about, but I think about, you know, you make a reservation for a hotel that you're gonna stay in in a couple of weeks and you get an email confirming your stay. What if that email included a link to the podcast about the that the hotel produces so that you can start planning your trip? Once you get to the hotel, you're gonna know all those amenities that you have available to you. And it's one of those things where you think about that and you go, man, that would work for a luxury hotel, but maybe not for like a smaller hotel, you know. But why wouldn't you use it for a smaller hotel? You could make your hotel feel luxurious by treating it that way and having that kind of a resource for the people that are coming to stay. And I feel like it's a cool creative way to build a relationship with your customers. So if it's the hospitality example, then before they really get there, they're already coming into it with that excited, you know, mentality and they already have a little bit of a relationship with you. Or like you were talking about like an HVAC, like these things that we have to do in life that most of us are not experts in. I'm thinking of like my um, you know, my AC unit. If there was a podcast that I could easily access where they were like, hey, your AC unit went out. Here, let me walk you through what you should do, what you should check to make sure it's working. Yeah. That would be so much better than like to listen to that on a Friday night in the middle of the night when my AC goes out, than to try to reach out to someone on customer support when it's 105 degrees in my house.

Speaker 1 22:07

Well, and if you go to their website and it's, you know, oh, Florida heat QA. Oh, hold on, let me check that. And then there's quick five minute episodes of like, oh, is the meter reading this? Try. Yeah, like super helpful. And everybody lit, you could literally listen to it as you're troubleshooting it with your device or with your machine. So, you know, HVAC companies, take note.

Trust Building Through Audio Relationships

Jordan 22:30

Priscilla, you actually said something that I think rings so true, especially in the podcasting space, which is um you talked about like with the hospitality thing, like you come in and you've already established a relationship with the company because you've like listened to their podcast. And I think that is so true for podcasts. It's such a great way to establish like brand trust and relationships with a company. Yeah.

Priscilla 22:54

I mean, think about last year we had Britney Hodak and she talked about creating super fans for your company, right? And how apathy is like the scary part of having customers because if they don't really feel connected to your company, then they're gonna move on because you've got to make them super fans in order to build this brand loyalty. And that's what she was talking about. But I think that relationships are built with storytelling and podcasting is storytelling at the end of the day. Yeah. And so it's such a powerful tool to build a relationship. And so, like thinking about that hospitality example, if you start building a relationship before the person gets to your hotel, you're starting on a really strong foot or with podcasting QA. Before someone even reaches out to support, they're listening to this podcast, they're getting to know Cara. And that in part means they're getting to know Buzz Sprout and how we talk about things and how we talk about podcasting and how we encourage podcasters. So then by the time they have a question to write into support or to ask Cara specifically directly, they already feel comfortable doing that. They're already ready to like give us a little bit of grace if something goes wrong because the relationship is already there and it's already, you know, really strong. Jordan, as someone who has several successful podcasts, can you talk a little bit about how that aspect of podcasting facilitating relationships?

Jordan 24:20

We see this all the time in advertising. You'll see this on like local commercials now, which is wild. It's such a weird thing. And you will see it in like social media and stuff like that. There's all these companies that are doing these ads where it's the like company founders or people like behind a microphone and you're watching on the screen. And the reason for that is that podcasting has gotten so popular that there's been all these studies done on podcasting and the psychological effects of how podcasting establishes parasocial relationships like stronger than any other medium. The reason for that is, and parasocial relationships, if you haven't heard, is like the hot word of last year. Um, but if you haven't heard it, that is where a relationship is very like one-sided. And so it's when you feel like you know a person deeply, like you would a best friend or something like that, but they have no idea that you exist, which is so real. Yeah. I think a lot of podcast listeners experience this. And that's because with podcasting, it's such like an intimate medium. You know, you are you're joining these people, like when they're going to the gym and when they're driving their kids on the morning commutes and when they're like going about their daily routines. Podcasting is built into routines. And so you become like a part of that routine. It just establishes trust because you're in someone's ear, you're you're explaining things in a way that is very like personal. And because it's like long-form content, you get longer to um hold someone's attention and really explain things and give nuance and give context. And so I think that that is why these relationships are so much stronger through podcasting than it is through like a YouTube video or a TikTok where you get like two seconds of their attention max.

Priscilla 26:14

Yeah. We don't just think that because we work in podcasting. Like it is legitimate. There are studies and studies that show how impactful those relationships are, right? And how podcasting is like a huge part of people's lives. And I think about like the advertising side of things. I don't know the numbers, but just the growth in podcast advertising over the years, especially in the last five years, has blown up because advertisers are seeing how the relationships built through podcasting can impact, you know, growth in your product. And so it's one of those ideas that sometimes feels really big, like, oh, launching a podcast for my company as like a way for me to connect with potential customers or existing customers. That's a lot of work. Is that going to be worth it? I think it's one of those things that there's so many benefits to it that people might not realize that it is, I could say it is absolutely worth it. It is absolutely worth it to create an environment where your customers can get to know the people that are running your product.

Speaker 1 27:20

Absolutely. You are selling yourself short by not starting a podcast having to do with your company. That part right there, Priscilla, that you just said, you get to know those behind the product, those behind the customers. I know for podcasting QA, yes, I host it, but sometimes I bring on Jordan as a podcast producer. I bring on Tom, who is a code writer and who knows all about podcast stats. Or I, you know, I can bring in other team members so that listeners are now familiar with Buzzsprout and the people behind it. And like Jordan was saying, it's such an intimate thing when, you know, our voices are in your ear. Your voices are in your customers' ear. So it creates a lot of loyalty. And I just feel like it really eliminates any hesitations from customers, like, can I trust these people? When you hear them speaking in in this genuine and authentic way, man, that really is going to result in loyalty from your customers.

Priscilla 28:16

And it gives you the ability to like be friends with your customers. Does that sound weird? No, but obviously I'm thinking about podcasting, right? But even beyond that, like going back to like the AC example, like the AC maintenance people, it allows you to become closer with your customers in a way where you can encourage them and build confidence in them, right? So Cara does this in every single episode with podcasting QA. She is always talking about how the goal of the podcast is to make the listeners, whoever they are, but Buzzsprout users or not, how the goal is to make them more confident in their podcast so they will keep podcasting. Because, like with anything, there's an intimidation factor when you get started with something new. So whether that be podcasting or you just bought your first house and now you have to deal with an AC unit that you've never dealt with before and you don't have a lot of confidence around that, right? Or it could be anything. It could be any product, any service that you have to

Branded Shows That Quietly Do Support

Priscilla 29:14

use. But if you have this podcast, you can kind of be that friend for your customer and encourage them and say, hey, you can do this. Like, let me give you an episode about some maintenance tips to make sure your AC will live the longest it can. You can come alongside your customers in a way that's like encouraging and friendly that builds that relationship more than just like answering questions.

Jordan 29:35

Well, and I love what you're saying, Priscilla, here because what you're talking about is like brand loyalty. And it's so funny because branded podcasts are like really having a moment. I hear all the time about Trader Joe's podcast, which is so funny. Like I've never listened to it personally, but like I know I love it. But it's so funny because people are like, oh my gosh, have you heard the Trader Joe's podcast? I love the Trader Joe's podcast. I just think it's so cool. Like, I know Ben and Jerry's has one about like activism. And I know that General Electric has like these science fiction podcasts that are like really weirdly well produced. Like it doesn't really have anything. So random. Yeah, it's so cool. And you know, Buzzsprout, we have a branded podcast, really, and it's Buzzcast. That's one I co-host. And I co-host it with the co-founder of Buzzsprout and with the head of marketing. So you would not think that it has anything to do with support, but I really want to put it out there that if you do have a podcast that is a branded podcast, there are opportunities to have support elements in it. So with Buzzcast, we use it all the time for like marketing and education and stuff like that. But like if we have a new feature come out, we have the co-founder who really did a lot of the thinking behind like why we're adding this thing. What's what's our reason behind making these choices? What is our philosophy when we're approaching these things? And then we have the head of marketing who is telling people all the great things that you can do with this. And then you have me who I'm kind of playing like the average podcaster, saying, like, oh, cool. And I'm asking the questions that I know that other podcasters are going to have for them. And it creates this like really cool dynamic. And we have listeners write in all the time with fan mail, which, you know, Cara had mentioned earlier. And that's the link that we have in the show notes of this podcast where you can like send us a text message or send us a voicemail. It's so cool because we have listeners write in all the time and they will ask us questions that really fall under the support umbrella. And then we have an opportunity to address that. And then other customers or other people who are in our industry are listening and they're like, even though they're not asking these questions, they're taking note of it. And it's really cool because we see it trickle down. So in the um online community groups and stuff like that, when people are posting and they're saying, like, why can't I do this? or or what's the reason behind this? And they're asking these questions online. I see all the time, I see it on Twitter, I see it on Facebook, I see it on Instagram. Our listeners will comment under their thing and say, Oh, I actually heard them cover this on their podcast, and here's the reason why they did it. So we have now this trickle-down effect where our super fans are educating the other people because of our podcast. Yeah. And it's not even a support podcast, but it's actually kind of filling that role.

Priscilla 32:29

Yeah. And

Using AI To Free Humans Up

Priscilla 32:30

it makes me think about the fact that you might be listening to this and thinking, okay, my product really doesn't lend itself to having a question and answer podcast. That's not a need. But what you're talking about, Jordan, is much more than that. It's a branded show and it allows support to kind of push into that a little bit. And so support could host a podcast that is about the company branded more education. And it doesn't have to be a QA podcast. Nope. And I think that, you know, we talk a lot in this podcast about support being more than just an inbox cue and the importance of like giving the people on your support team outlets to grow and to move beyond just answering emails. And this is a great example for that. And I actually think about it in terms of AI, with AI coming into support in such a way, right? There's so much talk about like deflection and answering those easy emails so that you can have time to focus on the harder questions. It made me think of this conversation with Simon Sinek and Will Guidera that I heard a couple months ago. There was a story that Will shares that's something along the lines of they had a group of people that were taking reservations by phone and they really felt that that was a very important way to take reservations. And then they ended up changing things up and started taking reservations online. But then it freed up a whole reservations team. And now they didn't have anything to do because the reservations were being handled online. And he talks about how instead of letting that team go because now they're not needed, they repurposed that job into something a little more creative and they started doing calls with people who had made reservations to talk to them about their upcoming dinner reservation. And they leaned into the super personal side of things. And I think about a podcast being a way you could do that in support. If you're running a team that is now finding itself where the tickets are being answered by an AI, and you're like, okay, now I've got these people who need work. I want to, you know, reallocate their time to something that's gonna improve our service. A podcast might be a really fun creative way to do that and a creative outlet for them to lean into. And like I think I said it earlier, Cara, you script the episodes, you record the episodes, you produce the episodes, you edit the episodes, and then you publish them. It's all you. Most of those things I just listed are things you have learned how to do in the last year. How has that been?

Speaker 1 34:59

Well, I will say that role that you just described is what many of our podcasters that I'm working with in the inbox are experiencing. They are a one-woman, one-man show and they're doing it all. And so it's been a lot. It's been awesome, honestly. It's been a lot of hard work. But what I've gained from it is when our customer writes in and says, Man, I'm struggling with this script. I don't know what to do next, or my audio, it just doesn't sound right. I love it because genuinely, not just because of knowledge, but because of experience, I can give them advice. And there's just something to that. And so that's been really fun to be able to live it out, what I'm answering the questions on, and then uh be able to incorporate that in my responses to our customers. So I mean, I've loved it.

Jordan 35:49

Would

Learning The Skills And Sharing Roles

Jordan 35:50

you say that podcasting was harder or easier than you feared it was?

Speaker 1 35:56

That's a great question. I feel like there are aspects of it that are easier than I anticipated, and then there are aspects of it that are much harder than I expected. What things are a lot easier than you thought. Honestly, just talking into the mic. Like, but I'm also I uh I like that kind of thing. Like public speaking makes me excited, not nervous. Yeah. So maybe that's why I enjoyed it. My first recording for my trailer with you, Jordan, I was such a timid little mouse. I'm like, I don't know what to say. But then that part clicked very quickly. One of the parts that I underestimated was editing. Yeah. Ooh, that was a bear. Um, but I've had a lot of uh great teachings from Jordan and uh and our own resources that we have here at Buzz Sprout. And so now I've mastered that and uh, but it's it's all still a challenge. Like I am constantly learning, and that is actually a really fun part about podcasting that I also didn't realize until I got into it.

Priscilla 36:53

I think if you're listening to this and you're considering launching a podcast, the unknown of podcasting can feel like a huge hill to climb. But the reality of the situation is that it's a lot easier to start a podcast than you might think. And the technical aspects that can feel really scary can actually be really simple. And yes, there are skills that you have to learn, like editing and producing, but those things can be learned. And Cara is a great example of that because a year ago she had no editing experience. And now here we are a year later, and she's editing episodes in a couple hours and getting those released really quickly. Yep. And so you can come a long way. And so if you're listening to this going, oh my gosh, we can't even consider a podcast because I'm not tech savvy and I can't learn that. I just want you to challenge that a little bit because I actually think it's something that's way more accessible than you might think it is.

Jordan 37:45

I also want to say real quickly, we have met so many podcasters who are just starting out, and every person has different strengths and different weaknesses or different fears and different things that they're excited about, things that excite them and give them life. And so one person might be excited to speak behind the mic, but might be scared of editing, and another person might love the editing aspect of it, but maybe they don't like talking behind the mic. Well, this is a great opportunity to team up. Yeah. And so you have you have someone on the support team who loves talking, then you put them behind the mic, and then you have the other person who's like, man, I would love to get, you know, my mitts on the editing board. And like, you know, and so it's a really good opportunity to kind of like split things up and make it a team project too. And I want to say too that like apps have come such a long way. I have a $70 Samsung QTU microphone that has a USB-C. My daughter wanted to start a podcast. I gave her the microphone and said, here you go. And she plugged it into her tablet and she has Cap Cut, which is just like a very simple app. And her podcast sounded so good. It was crazy. She just like ran upstairs and like recorded for like an hour and like was doing her little editing thing. And I'll tell you what, if my eight-year-old can do that, you can too. And it sounded great. Like I was, I was very impressed. So there's so many tools now that make podcasting a lot more accessible. There's like AI things, there's lots of like text-based editing, or, or if you like editing with sound clips or editing on your iPad or, you know, whatever. There's options for everybody and you just have to kind of experiment and find what works for you.

Priscilla 39:21

Yeah.

How To Start Without Overthinking

Priscilla 39:22

All three of us are podcast hosts. So I'll kind of pose this question to all three of us. If a support team wanted to experiment with a podcast, what would you tell them would be the first thing they should do to like get started?

Jordan 39:34

I'm gonna get mine out of the way. Okay. In this day and age, you do not need a ton of equipment. Years ago, it used to be way harder to start a podcast. You had to have an audio interface and you had to have an XLR microphone and you had to have like all this different stuff, and it was so confusing. Nowadays, honestly, the tools that we have in our phones is crazy. So at Best Breut, we have like magic mastering. So if you don't have perfect audio, you can upload it and it'll just like like magically fix it, and it sounds perfectly like studio audio. There's so many tools like that. So don't limit yourself, like start simple. You can just start with a $70 to $100, depending on inflation, USB microphone and just plug it directly in your computer. Use a free software like Garage Band or Audacity or Cap Cut to record your podcast and edit it, and you can be done. It's really not that complicated anymore.

Speaker 1 40:30

So, my thought is actually if you were on a support team, define the purpose of what we could offer with this podcast. What is the information that needs to get out there ahead of our customers in order to put out any fires that may arise? And then find somebody who, like you said, enjoys uh speaking behind a mic and also has kind of a gift of explaining complicated things in kind of a simple way. Um, so if there's somebody who or a couple of people on your team that do a really good job at that, um, I would see if they'd be interested in the recording and then turn on the mic and start recording. That's really the best way to learn. I kind of feel like that's how it happened with me. It was like, we're gonna do this. And I said, okay. And then we just went for it. And now here we are 46 episodes later, and uh, I'm growing every day. And so don't think too hard about it. Just go for it.

Priscilla 41:19

To piggyback on that, Cara, one of the pieces of advice I got when I was starting this podcast was sit down and write down as many episode topics as you can think of. Like you don't have to flesh them all out, just come up with the topics for how many? And if you can sit down and just come up with 10 episode ideas right there on the spot, then that's enough to launch because by the time you get through those 10, you will have 10 more, right? And you'll have 10 more. And you'll be able to create that content. Because for me, the content creation aspect of podcasting feels daunting. And that was a huge motivator for me to sit down and go, oh, yeah, we could do 10 episodes. So, like you're saying, Cara, if you pull your support team together and go, okay, let's come up with 10 episodes of ways that we could get to our customers before they have questions for us. So let's say we're an AC company. Let's get together the two people who run the support team. And we want to outline what are 10 episodes that we could do that would come alongside our customers and help educate them on using our services. If you can come up with 10 episodes and release those monthly, then you've got a branded podcast that will be evergreen content. Like if you decided to pause the podcast, the episodes are still going to be valuable, even if you just do 10 episodes. And I think that is like a huge resource for your customers.

Jordan 42:40

And with AI, it is so easy to find the information, like just give it the data, have it figure out what the hottest topics are, like what are the most asked questions, and then also have it help you brainstorm episodes that you could do around those topics. You don't have to dedicate a ton of time to figuring this part out of it.

Priscilla 43:02

Yeah. I know for me and for Cara, and I'm sure for you too, Jordan, with episode creation for your podcasts, AI is a huge tool in helping with that brainstorming. Yeah. I want to be clear, podcasting is not going to be the answer for everyone, right? You might have a team of people who it is terrifying the idea to get behind a mic. And so you really don't have someone who wants to do that, and it might not be the answer for you. But if podcasting is exciting for you, it can be a huge relationship builder between you and your customers. It can build those super fans that are so important to growing a company, use it as a resource to share more information about using your product or strategies about using your product well. And at the end of the day, podcasting right now is so popular and so part of people's lives that now is a really good time to get in on this and to launch your own branded podcast. So at the risk of this sounding a little bit like an ad, which it's definitely not. There's so many podcasting resources out there that you can use. If you are interested in launching a podcast, if this is something that's exciting to you, you can email our support team and you'll probably get Cara or I and we can give you some next steps for starting, or you can go ask AI how do I start a podcast and let them walk you through it. And you can use any kind of there's coaches, there's so many resources out there that can help you start.

Resources Plus Final Requests

Jordan 44:24

I want to plug our Buzzsprout How to Podcast podcast. I will link to it in the show notes. It is a 10-part series. Each episode is very short, like maybe 10 minutes. And uh Jelan and Alban do such a great job at making like starting a podcast fun. And they just like each episode is like the next step and you can follow along and do it yourself. And honestly, like it could be a fun support team building exercise to build your podcast together.

Priscilla 44:52

Oh, that's a great idea.

Jordan 44:53

Yeah.

Priscilla 44:54

If you do that with your support team, will you please send us fan mail and let us know that you did that? Because I think that's such a great activity for like a meetup or something, is like, hey, we're gonna listen to these episodes and we're gonna launch a podcast together as a team. You can also totally create a podcast and not publish it. Yeah. And just do it as an activity. And then maybe something gets published, maybe something doesn't.

Jordan 45:18

I think that's one of those things where like you take the pressure off yourself and so you have like more fun creating it. And then I bet anything, if you all get together and like make your own podcast, you'll listen to it and be like, you know what? Actually, this is pretty good. We should probably do this.

Priscilla 45:33

Yeah, I agree. Well, thank you, Jordan and Cara, for joining me on this episode. This was really fun to talk about podcasting, which we don't do that much on this podcast. Yeah. But it was really fun. And if you are starting a podcast, you should go listen to podcasting QA because podcasting QA every single Monday releases a new episode to help you podcast with confidence. Thank you, Priscilla. Yes. If you have a question or a topic that you would like us to cover in a future episode of Happy to Help, you can shoot us a text using the Send Us Fan Mail link in the episode description. If you like this episode, please share it with someone who works in customer support or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you again to Cara and Jordan for joining us on today's episode. And thank you for listening. Now go and make someone's day.