We're Happy to Help

Welcome to the first episode of Happy to Help, a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout! 

Remember the last time you reached out to customer support and ended the interaction with a smile? It's a rare occurrence, but we are on a mission to make that the norm! 

At most companies, customer service is an afterthought, but we want to bring it to the forefront! In this podcast, we will discuss how to create customer experiences that exceed expectations, as well as how to foster a workplace culture that allows your support team to thrive. 

Whether you're answering emails, leading a team, or shaping a company's support, this is your invitation into a community that values exceptional service as much as you do. So share your stories, ask your questions, and let's transform the art of customer support together!

We want to hear from you! Share your support stories and questions with us at happytohelp@buzzsprout.com!

Follow us on Instagram @happytohelppod

To learn more about Buzzsprout visit Buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Priscilla: 0:00

Welcome to Happy to Help a podcast about customer support from the people at Buzzsprout.

Priscilla: 0:04

I'm your host, Priscilla. In this first episode, we're going to take some time to give you a little bit of background, a little insight into who we are, why we've decided to start this podcast and how this show can help you grow in customer support. So if you're interested in customer support, if you lead a customer support team, or maybe you own a company that has a support department, this podcast is for you. So thank you for joining us on our first episode. Let's get into it. So I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that this podcast is brought to you by the people at Buzzsprout, but if you stumble upon this podcast through your podcasting app, then you probably have no clue who the people at Buzzsprout are. So let me give you a little history. Buzzsprout is a podcast hosting platform and since 2009, we have worked alongside podcasters to help them start, grow and monetize their podcasts. Buzzsprout is kind of an online software that you would use as a podcaster to get your voice out there, and my role with Buzzsprout over the years has been to support our podcasters, from brand new podcasters to the most experienced, and not to pat us on the back, but Buzzsprout is kind of known as being a leader in customer support and podcasting. So let me tell you a little bit more about me. I am the head of podcaster support for Buzzsprout and I have been working in customer support for the past seven years, but I've been doing customer support my whole life.

Priscilla: 1:19

My first job was when I was 16, I worked behind a counter for a bakery in my hometown and it was my first job. I was 16, and I was so nervous about it. I was nervous about messing up. I was nervous about forgetting prices to cookies or the cakes. I was so nervous. But I quickly realized that interacting face to face with customers was a lot of fun and it made me feel good and I got to use my personality to work with people and I realized that people actually balance off of your energy and so if you're feeling good, if you're happy, if you're excited to help them, then they're going to be excited to be helped. And so my nerves dropped really quickly and I realized that people weren't holding me to this high standard that I thought I had to be perfect. So not only was it fun being the person to give them their specialty cookies. But it was also really rewarding to see the impact that great service can have on someone, even at the level of customer service at a bakery. And so over the years I have held a lot of different positions, through college and through my 20s, but all of those jobs have been connected by one invisible string, and that is customer support. And so here we are, seven years into working support for Buzzsprout, and I am just as in love with customer support as I ever have been. I'm so excited to start this podcast and hopefully find others who are deeply passionate about creating a remarkable customer experience.

Priscilla: 2:35

There's another voice you may be hearing from time to time and that is Jordan, our podcast producer. She's going to be joining me on some conversations and she's going to be producing the show for us, which makes me really happy because she has a lot of experience actually recording podcasts, so I'm really excited to have her with me. Hey, jordan, hi. So, jordan, you have some other podcasts that you produce for Buzzsprout and then, on your own, you want to tell our listeners a little bit about those.

Jordan: 2:59

Yeah, so it's funny because I actually learned how to podcast through Buzzsprout, which is a crazy story. It's really funny that I was trained by the company I work for basically from the start.

Priscilla: 3:13

I love it.

Jordan: 3:14

Yeah. So I joined the Buzzsprout Facebook community and I realized that Buzzsprout was just so involved in podcasting and just really loved the people that were on its platform and really supported them in their podcasting journey, and so it just kind of made me, as you can tell, really pumped about podcasting and so I started my own podcast. I also got involved and then pretty quickly I got picked up by Buzzsprout and brought on as a producer and so I have produced Podcasting Q&A where we answer questions, and then I also produce our other biweekly podcast, Buzzcast, where we talk about just industry insights and helping podcasters improve their craft. So I am also very excited to hop on this podcast, happy to help and kind of help it come to fruition. I think that this is just going to be so much fun to do together.

Priscilla: 4:13

Yeah, I'm really excited about it and, if you haven't picked up yet, jordan and I are very similar, and so we have a lot of fun together, mm-hmm. Okay, so now you know a little bit about who we are. Let's talk about what this podcast is going to be all about. At its core, this show is going to be about customer support. Jordan, I have a question for you. Yes, when you first think of customer support, where does your mind go?

Jordan: 4:35

I have to be honest. I actually had a situation this morning where I had an issue with my YouTube channel and I didn't write into customer support about it because I was like they're never going to get back to me.

Priscilla: 4:48

So your initial reaction when you think of customer support is no, thank you.

Jordan: 4:52

Yeah, I don't know what it is. I think that sometimes you just know with some bigger companies that you're just not going to get the help that you need and you just pray that the issue resolves itself somehow.

Priscilla: 5:08

Yeah, I will say, before I started working with Buzzsprout in a official customer support role, my first thought was honestly dread. It was oh my gosh. Ok, I'm now at a place where I can't figure out this answer on my own, or whatever it is that I need, and so now I have to email their support team or I have to call a customer support line, and I know what that's going to mean is that I'm sitting on a phone call listening to hold music for three hours before I actually talk to someone, and then I'm going to spend two hours on the phone with them and nothing will even get resolved and I'll be frustrated at the end of it. Or I'm going to email their support team and I'm not going to hear back for three days, and when I do, it's going to be a stock answer that sends me to an article that I've already read and looked through, and so I think that that was my feeling before I started working in customer support, and to an extent, it still is. When I need support myself and you mentioned you didn't even reach out because you were like this is not going to be worth the hassle to even try. So I think the majority of people would agree with us, but I did pull some facts to kind of back it up.

Priscilla: 6:08

According to Zendesk, over 50% of customers feel increasingly stressed and exhausted when dealing with customer support. I've been there, I'm sure you've been there. I'm sure the people listening to this podcast have been there. A bad experience with a customer support service or with a team a customer support team can sour you on a brand Like one bad experience can cause you to leave. Zendesk also reported that three and four consumers say that a bad interaction can ruin their day, can ruin their day.

Priscilla: 6:35

Of all those stats I just read that one to me hits the hardest Because, as someone who works in support, I don't want to make your day worse. There are plenty of things outside of interaction with a customer support team that are going to ruin your day, and the last thing you want. For me, as a person who cares about people, is to be the reason someone else's day is worse, and so that one really hit me Like three out of four. Three out of four people who interact with a customer support situation. That's not good. They say it can ruin their day. I just felt like that was so strong and I want to change that. Personally, I feel driven to change that, and so my goal with customer support and how I talk with the customer support team at Buzzsprout is that we want to make someone's day better. Ok, so what about the excellent experiences then? Jordan? Do you have any experiences with a customer support team that really made your day better, like was a positive impact?

Jordan: 7:27

Earlier you mentioned not to pat ourselves on the back, but Buzzsprout's known for their customer support and I'm feeling that right now I'm kind of feeling the whole like I don't want to sound like I'm tooting our own horn, but before I worked for Buzzsprout I was a customer and I remember writing into Buzzsprout and literally within seconds of writing, you guys just went in the back end and fixed something and you're like, yeah, it's done and that was it, and it was just so miraculous to me.

Priscilla: 7:58

Miraculous.

Jordan: 7:59

Yes, that's. The thing is you're used to writing in to support, especially as someone who is in podcasting or something like that. You write into these bigger companies and they have these employees that just send can responses, like you said, that direct you to something that you've already researched on your own. Clearly you didn't figure it out. It sort of like insults your intelligence a little bit.

Priscilla: 8:22

Yeah, it can. Yeah, it definitely has the potential to do that.

Jordan: 8:26

Yeah, so when you write into like good customer support, it does feel miraculous is what I'm trying to say here. But yeah, it was just awesome. I didn't even understand what I was asking you guys for. Like that's how technical it sounded to me. I didn't even like comprehend what I was sending to you and I just said I need this done. And you guys just did it for me and we're just like yep, it's done.

Priscilla: 8:48

Well, I appreciate that being your story, but I do want to clarify for anyone listening out there. I did not tee her up to tell a story about Buzzsprout support.

Jordan: 8:56

No, no, no, no, that was just me. I think it's my only positive customer support story, which is why I told it.

Priscilla: 9:03

So yeah, and which is why this podcast is needed right now, when I think of a positive support story, the only thing that really comes to mind is a time when I ordered a piece of equipment and it didn't come in time and I needed it by a certain date, and so I was reaching out to their customer support team saying, like I have three days.

Priscilla: 9:21

I really need this to be here. For whatever reason, they couldn't get it shipped any faster, and it was a pretty painful experience at first, and then at some point I got escalated to a manager and that person, like within 30 seconds, solved it. They overnighted the piece to me, they didn't charge me for it and I got it in time. When I think about that, I'm like that was a really good customer support experience, but it started painful, and so even that like doesn't feel like a great experience all around, and so I feel like, beyond a good experience or having an experience with a support team where you break even, have you ever had an interaction with a support team where you felt like understood and valued and cared for?

Jordan: 10:00

I honestly don't think I have. It's really rare.

Priscilla: 10:03

I think it's rare to have a customer support experience that leaves you feeling better than when you went to them. It's very common to have a customer support experience where you feel bad after interacting, and I think that you can have experiences where you feel OK or you at least feel satisfied, because even in the situation where I got that piece of equipment, I didn't feel great because I had to do a ton of legwork to get to that person who was able to give me a good experience. That's my guiding light with this podcast. I want people to be excited about reaching out to a customer support person or a team or calling a line, because you know that the person on the other end is going to care about you and they're going to value your questions and they're not going to make you feel silly. In fact, hubspot did some research on this and they found out that 68% of consumers say they're willing to pay more for a product or a service from a brand that is known to offer good customer support experiences. Oh, wow, yeah. So imagine if your customer support team right now that's doing passable, serviceable work. Maybe they're not making people feel worse, but maybe it's just passable If they were offering excellent experiences. Imagine how many of your consumers or your users or your customers would be coming to you, sticking with you or bringing other people to you or switching to you and what company doesn't want that, right?

Priscilla: 11:18

Yeah, so at Buzzsprout, we believe that customer support is a vital part of any successful business. Over the last several years, we have really focused on making the support we offer part of the product. So when you pay for your Buzzsprout account, one of the things you're paying for is excellent customer support, a team of people that are on your side, and we show this intentionality in the way that the company values the people on the support team, how the support specialists value our users, our podcasters. It shows in how we develop internal processes, how we hire new people, the tone we use to work with podcasters, and it even plays into how we develop a product, because so much of how we launch features or how we make changes is directly related to how the support is going to be affected or if that's going to cause more support for podcasters, and so I am very proud to say that at Buzzsprout, we offer remarkable customer support, and our goal with this podcast is to be a resource for other people who are working in customer support, so that hopefully, over the time, we can help shift the expectations around customer support, like we were talking about earlier, to give people a different expectation when it comes to reaching out to support.

Priscilla: 12:27

But why now? Why should you focus on strengthening your customer support now? In Shep Hyken's annual customer support research, he found that 41% of customers in 2023 said that, when it comes to customer service, most companies don't meet their expectations 41% so there is a lot of room for growth there. There is a lot of space for you as a customer support specialist or as the person who runs a customer support team. There's a lot of space to strengthen that part of your company. So now is the best time to do that.

Jordan: 12:59

Yeah, you don't want to be part of that 40-something percent, right?

Priscilla: 13:02

No, exactly Right, you don't. You want to be part of the top 10 percent. You want to be the one that people think about as an example for fantastic customer support. And that was a great time to start shattering the expectations that people have of support, and, as support specialists, we are in a great place to start changing that view. We are primed and ready to go. The customer service industry is growing and people are beginning to see the impact that excellent customer support has, and they're investing in that, and so we, as support specialists, are really in a spot to make that impact, and we can make it a positive impact, not a negative impact.

Priscilla: 13:38

Okay, so that brings us to today. We know that it's necessary to invest in a company's support team or your overall customer experience, but how are you going to do that? At most companies, customer support is an afterthought. We want to bring it to the forefront with this podcast. So we're going to talk about all things customer service. We're going to dive into things like how to show empathy through emails, or how to hire people with the right skills for your team, or how to train people to be an expert on your product Everything you need to sharpen your customer support skills and offer remarkable customer support to your users or consumers and community.

Jordan: 14:14

Oh, and don't forget to tell them about support in real life, Brasila.

Priscilla: 14:17

That's why you're here, jordan. In each episode we're going to talk about some real life examples of customer support kind of like customer support in the wild. So I invite you to share your stories with us or send in questions by emailing us at happy2help at buzzbrowcom, and then we're going to discuss them on future episodes so you might hear your question discussed or your story shared. So send those in. I know this is going to be a really beneficial show for anyone working in customer service, so I'm excited to have you join us and together we can learn how to sharpen our skills and master customer support. So thanks for listening. Now go make someone's day.