22. Feel free to ping me at:
@kavbojka
camille.acey@gmail.com
http://camilleacey.com
Editor's Notes
Im Camille. (PAUSE) I run support at a small startup called Clubhouse. Need help. (PAUSE) I know what youre thinking [NEXT]
How with so much on plate?
Here today to share new approaches to technical leadership
End of talk will have plan
Lot on plate too. Phone rings, ticket in queue, angry tweet in Twitter feed
CEOs Twitter feed.
Ready to tackle. Fine for lions share but many require attention from you - the Engineering team
Quick show of hands - escalations? regular meeting? answer users directly?
Every time we have to be on, come back quick
many require attention from YOU - the Engineering Team
By A Show of Hands - deal with bugs/escalations? meet with? answer directly?
We think about you constantly. Underdog protagonist.
Attention - Time - Closer Relationship
Anecdotes - > Stories from the trenches
Lost full day of work frontend change
Then we think
We pull together metrics and visualizations
But one thing works better than stories or data
All Hands Support defined
Many goals but three main ones Ive identified
More people available to attend to customers
Your support team is on the front lines
Enthusiastic and angry customers
Getting into the user context and understanding painpoints in a way that can inform future development decisions.
Noble endeavour
Cool things can happen - third party integrations, internal tools, opportunities to deliver super fast solutions
But if sounds bad, not alone
Developer who decided to service outside forum instead of customers
At ANOTHER company, BigCartel
support is its own skill and developers are expensive
At Clubhouse went alone but soon ran into issue, we couldnt quickly hire out of. Developed another approach
Some of the developers. Some of the time.
Works well at small company like Clubhouse can work well if coordinate across three key areas
Whats yours whats theirs?
Support needs to have written down and be ready to train.
Engineering also needs to have their workflows written and ready to share. Rogue dev pushing code.
Missing QA and documentation is not good. Get relationship off to good start by harmonizing process.
Who does support need? Who can you afford? At another company Automattic they rotate whole product team for Support Week. Assign appropriate tickets.
In addition to technical, also need good communication skills. Dont put on the snarky dev who was just hired to crunch code. But might need to look at how hire if no one fits the bill.
Daily commitment? Regular rotation?
Support happy to take ALL TIME
I know at ANOTHER STARTUP FullStory, they rotate people on and off support desk avoid EMPATHY FATIGUE.
Also regular interval to review arrangement and report wins back to the organization.
So harmonize process. Pick the right people. And set clear periods of time to rotate and review.
Theres the plan.
Weve all got a lot on our plates to be sure BUT
with some more hands on deck, I think we can tackle it all.