#130 – Live from SUPCONF NYC
It’s our live show from SUPCONF NYC! With it’s AMA style, we tackle everything from “Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into support with no experience?” to “Would you rather be a...
View Article#131 – Social Media Boundaries
This week, we kick off a new series focused on boundaries. We have boundaries all around. With customers. With team members. With work itself. This series it going to look at those boundaries and help...
View Article#132 – Share Often
If you don’t have clear boundaries on when to share one’s work, a person can get wrapped up in it and let it become part of them. If/when the work doesn’t pan out, that person can get discouraged and...
View Article#133 – Protect Your Time
This week we’re talking about one of the most important boundaries to set – your time. We look at ways to control how much time you spend on your work and how much of your time people grab for...
View Article#134 – Your VIP Customers
It’s the last in our boundary series so we’re focusing entirely on your customer borders. When you have customers that have been with your company forever, it’s tempting to set them up with perks and...
View Article#135 – The Business Value of Thank You
With special guest Emily Triplett Lentz on the show, we take a look at one of her recent articles over on the Help Scout site. In The ROI of Thanking Your Customers, she makes a case that something as...
View Article#136 – Preventing Burnout
Camille E. Acey joins the show this week as our special guest. You might remember her from SupConf NYC back in November. We look at how burnout happens and more importantly, how you can help your team...
View Article#137 – A Good Manager Will…
It’s new series time here around the show. There was a great Tweet that caught my eye, both because it’s a great prompt and had a great conversation thread alongside it. “Regardless of seniority, every...
View Article#138 – A Good Manager Will Listen
Next up in our “Every Good Manager Will…” series is an important one that often gets overlooked. Managers tend to focus on action – do this, don’t do that, etc. On this episode, we talk about the idea...
View Article#139 – A Good Manager Will Care Personally
“It’s not personal, it’s just business”. You’ve heard this phrase before and maybe even said it. But is it true? On this episode, fill in the good manager question with this belief – “Regardless of...
View Article#140 – A Good Manager Will Keep Regular 1:1s
Everyone talks about the power with regular 1:1s between you and your team. But are they really worth it? And how important is it go have them regularly scheduled? On this episode, we’ll talk about the...
View Article#141- A Good Manager Knows the Team’s Strengths
Leading a team is all about knowing the strengths and weaknesses of others on the team. It helps you to put the right people in the right roles for the project. But how do you find out the...
View Article#142 – A Good Manager Creates Growth Paths
Jeff started a great conversation on the last episode around the idea of growth paths and grow-outs. We’ll continue that conversation this week and look at the idea – “Regardless of seniority, every...
View Article#143 – A Good Manager Helps Balance the Team’s Work/Life Schedule
One of the things we’ve been talking about at Basecamp is the idea that 40 hours is plenty of time for work. Is that enough time for your team though? And how do you make sure they stick to 40 hours,...
View Article#144 – A Good Manager Admits Their Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, even super managers and team leads. It’s how we handle those mistakes that set good managers apart from the not-so-good ones. On this episode, we’ll look at the idea that...
View Article#145 – A Good Manager Trains Their Replacement
It’s rarely a good idea to bottle up all the knowledge you have that makes you a great manager. But how do we make sure others on our team are ready to step into our shoes? On this episode, we’ll talk...
View Article#146 – A Good Manager Actively Seeks Out Feedback
With support teams, our empathy often creates a culture of nice where it can be tough to have candid discussions. We hold our opinions back rather than risk being confrontational. But a good manager...
View Article#147 – A Good Manager Gives Feedback Upward
On the last episode, we looked at how to actively seek out feedback from your team for yourself. But what happens when it’s you and your boss? With this episode, we tackle how you can give feedback to...
View Article#148 – Personalized Messages to New Customers
It’s a new series from your favorite support crew! When a customer signs up for your product, you want to give them the best onboarding experience possible. With this series, we’ll take a look at best...
View Article#149 – Custom Onboarding Flows
Most new customer onboarding flows tend to be one size fits all. Everyone who signs up goes through the same steps, receives the same emails, and gets the same advice. But is that the right approach to...
View Article#150 – Did You See Who Just Signed Up?
We touched on a few manual options for contacting customers in the earlier episodes of this series. That made us wonder – if you notice a certain company signs up for your product, does that prompt you...
View Article#151 – You’re an Onboarding Wizard
Remember Clippy – the fun yet kinda irritating assistant from Microsoft? Onboarding tools have come a long way since then. There are all sorts of guided setups, wizards, tours, and more that companies...
View Article#152 – I’ve Got to Onboard a Company?
Up to this point in the series, we’ve talked about how onboarding works when it’s a single person signing up to try your product. If you’re in the B2B business though, it’s often a group of people that...
View Article# 153 – Back to School with Classes
Customers love online classes and demos that help get them up-to-speed on a new product. From the team side, it’s often easier to host weekly trainings like this rather than individual ones for...
View Article#154 – White Glove Onboarding
When it comes to customer onboarding, we’ve seen a growing trend of the white glove approach. Dedicated account managers, personalized training, and anything else that you can tailor to that one...
View Article#155 – Customer Success – Don’t Slap It On
We’ve seen more and more companies set up support as a reactive, first line of defence. Meanwhile, success teams don’t handle cases like that and focus instead on helping the customer achieve their...
View Article#156 – A Career in Support
This week, we’re talking about customer support career paths. We all agree that a career in customer support is worthwhile. But what does that look like? Subscribe: iTunes | Android | RSS | Overcast...
View Article#157 – The Future of Customer Support
With only three episodes left, we wanted to take a look into the future of customer support. Are the bots coming for our jobs? Will you be doing the same job in ten years? Let’s take a look into that...
View Article#158 – Support in both Work and Life
We’re down to our final two episodes! With our penultimate episode, we’re chatting about supporting your team both at work and in life. As a manager, it can be tough supporting a teammate going through...
View Article#159 – The Final (Ultimate) Episode
We’re at our final episode, the ultimate episode if you will. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been collecting your questions for this rapid fire episode. So grab a coffee and listen as we dive into very...
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