The Power of Kindness in Support and Leadership

What if leading with kindness could transform not only your team but also your customer relationships? Join us for our 10th episode, featuring Sarah Caminiti!

With over two decades in customer support, Sarah reveals the secrets behind compassionate leadership and how it fosters remarkable customer experiences and builds brand loyalty.

This episode is packed with practical insights for proactive leadership, the impacts of toxic work environments, and how intentional acts of kindness with your team can create a ripple effect of empathy for your customers.

Listen to Sarah's podcast, Epochal Growth, subscribe to her YouTube channel, and find more info about The Kindness Initiative at Epochal Operations!

Links mentioned in this episode:

• Miro Team Charter Template
• Elevate CX
• Support Driven

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. I'm your host, Priscilla Brooke. Today we're talking all about kindness and how something as seemingly simple as kindness can have a major impact on the way you lead your support team, create remarkable experiences for your customers and, ultimately, build brand loyalty. Thanks for joining us. Let's get into it. So today is a big day. Not only is it our 10th episode, but it's also our first official guest episode, which is very exciting. Yes, so up until now we have had a lot of awesome guests from inside of the Buzzsprout world and of course, we have Jordan here every week, of course, but this is the first time that we've had someone come on the show that is not on the Buzzsprout team, and so I'm really pumped for all of our listeners, but also just like for myself to get to learn from our guest. So today we have Sarah Caminiti joining us.

Priscilla: 0:57

I was first introduced to Sarah during an Elevate CX masterclass panel that she did a couple months ago.

Priscilla: 1:05

It was a panel about setting boundaries and customer support, and she just had some really great advice to share, and I knew I was like, yeah, I want to learn more from Sarah, but also I want her to come on the podcast and I want to learn about how she leads teams, and so I did some research. I was digging up on her a little bit and learned that she has some awesome opinions on leading with kindness specifically, and so I'm really excited because today we're going to talk about leading teams with kindness and how that can affect customer support and, ultimately, like, build loyal customers. And so Sarah has been in the customer support world for over 20 years. She has experience both leading support teams but also doing support, you know, directly with customers, as anyone who leads a team probably also has experience doing it themselves. Plus, she has a podcast that she launched just recently called Epical Growth, which is about customer support and leadership and so much more. So thanks for being with us, sarah.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:01

Oh my gosh, I am so, so, so happy to be here. Priscilla, and I did not realize I was officially the first guest outside of the Buzzsprout world. So I'm honored. Thank you so much, and I can't wait to hang with you guys for a little bit.

Priscilla: 2:17

Yeah, I mean it's funny You're outside of the Buzzsprout world but now you're kind of in the buzz sprout world because you recently became a buzz sprout customer. Oh, I'm in and I feel like we've known each other forever. Now. I know it's been a week, but I mean we spent, right before we started recording, we spent 10 minutes talking about Taylor Swift. So I mean, as you should you know we are we're besties at this point, which is really fun. I love it.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:42

No, it's true, and I am loving Buzzsprout. I made it a point to not just gush about how much I love Buzzsprout and everything that I want to talk about today.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:53

But sometimes you do come across a place that you know that the team feels supported and safe to do their job well, and the way that that comes across in the customer experience end of it is one that just kind of sticks with you and you remember it and you recommend people to it because of it. And you're doing that at Buzzsprout and I just want to celebrate you guys any way that I can.

Priscilla: 3:17

Well, I appreciate that, but yeah, it's great. It's been so fun to have you interacting with our support team too over the past week. It's really been great. So one of the things that I've started doing on this show, as we kind of kick it off, is asking people who is someone who made your day recently, like giving you the opportunity to shout someone out or to tell us a story where someone made your day better. One thing we do on this show is we finish every episode with now go and make someone's day. I think that something we forget in customer support sometimes is that we have like a ton of power to make or break someone's day, and so if we're in a place with that power, why not make someone's day better every shot we have? And so I like the idea of asking our guests who's someone that has made your day better that you want to shout out on the podcast as we get started.

Sarah Caminiti: 4:04

Yes, I was so pumped when I saw this question but also, like, so overwhelmed with ideas, because I've been encountering so many wonderful people lately. And I want to shine some light on my four-year-old's teacher, because my four-year-old is a theater kid at heart. I mean, this child will perform Nightmare Before Christmas at the drop of a hat and explain to you the difference between Marilyn Manson's version and the original version from the show by how he does bum, bum, bums.

Jordan: 4:35

Amazing, but so he loves to perform.

Sarah Caminiti: 4:37

And sometimes that means he can be a four-year-old little boy. That is disruptive and this past year he had a hard time kind of figuring out how to navigate being in a classroom while also wanting to make everybody laugh. And he has a new teacher right now for the summer program and she has been making it a point to recognize all of the little things that he does to make people's days better, and so he's coming home with all of these stickers and he's so proud of the stickers and she comes out and tells me how great of a job he's doing and the difference in who he is based on these small little things that this teacher is doing, these small little acts of kindness that she's doing for my little boy. It is making bedtime better, it is making bedtime better, it's making mornings better, it's making playtime better and it just it touches everything, and so I really, really, really want to just shed light on the power of small acts of kindness.

Sarah Caminiti: 5:40

And you don't have to start when you're an adult. You can do it for little people too, because it matters.

Priscilla: 5:45

I love that, I love that I love that so much. I just think it's such a good reminder that we as I mean as customer support specialists, but also just as people have so much control, like over someone else's day and so doing those little tiny acts of kindness she probably doesn't realize how big of an impact that's having on your son, but also on you as the mother who then does bedtime, and so I love that so much. Hopefully she'll listen to the beginning of this episode and hear that, because I think it's a good encouragement for sure. So before we start jumping in and talking about kindness and customer support, I'd love for our listeners to learn a little bit more about you, sarah. Do you mind sharing just a little bit of your background and how you ended up in the world of customer support?

Sarah Caminiti: 6:28

Yeah, I'd love to. So, like you said, I've been in and around support for about 20 years. I'll be honest, I ran away from it for so many years, thinking that this is not a career option that I want to pursue. But then I kept reflecting every time I would get frustrated with the jobs that I was in. Like, what is it that is making me frustrated and what is it that I love? Like, what do I keep gravitating towards? And I keep gravitating towards helping others succeed. Right, I'm always happiest when I'm helping others succeed, and that's in many different ways.

Sarah Caminiti: 7:00

But at the end of the day, everybody's kind of your customer whether it's your boss, whether it is an actual customer, whether it's, I mean, the secretary that's helping you out like everybody is your customer. And I realized, okay, what does this mean for where I can go from here? And I was introduced to SaaS and startups and the way that they were treating customer support professionals as professionals, which I hadn't seen before. And I made my way into this space and have been here for about 10 years building support teams and seeing what's possible with data and what's possible with leadership, but being able to experiment and fail and succeed and all of those things happen in support and it's been a joy to be able to build a career and then remind people how intense of a career but rewarding of a career it can be.

Priscilla: 7:57

Yeah, I think that is definitely something that people don't realize if you're not working in customer support, just how intense it can get. It's intense, it really. It can go in so many. Just how intense it can get. It's intense, it really. It can go in so many different directions, but it can get very intense. You're working with all different kinds of people from all different walks of life. It's hard, it can be really hard to work in customer support.

Sarah Caminiti: 8:17

And then you have to. You don't get to recognize any of it. You move on Like you have a good interaction with a customer and then okay, cool, onto the next thing, moving on to the next person, onto the next, onto the next, and you learn things along the way. But the celebration is not there, and that's one of the reasons why I was excited about my podcast is getting to celebrate, because I think everyone in any industry doesn't celebrate the small and the big good things that we do all the time enough.

Priscilla: 8:45

We should just be celebrating more in general.

Jordan: 8:47

Yes, yes, we should, yeah, it'd make life better.

Priscilla: 8:50

Yeah, there's a lot of hard stuff in life, but we don't celebrate the good stuff either, and so I, yeah, I think we should be definitely celebrating more. So here you are now imparting your wisdom through the podcast here on our episode, but also just to support teams that you're working with, and so I kind of want to dig into what really brought me to you in the first place, which was kindness. Yeah, people might think about kindness as like a really simple topic, and I mean honestly, it kind of is a pretty simple idea, but it's really vital for good leadership and providing remarkable support. It's really important for that, and I really think you're the best person to talk about it. You know kindness has been a big part of your career, and so can you give me and the listeners a little bit of history about your relationship with kindness and what you've learned and how it's first started impacting your career and how you lead?

Sarah Caminiti: 9:43

Yes, I'm so excited to do this. I am someone that is driven by the golden rule, and it wasn't until recently that I realized that that really was like the driver in every single decision that I make, and it's not like anything super deep. I just go about things the way that I would like to have them done and I want people to be kind to me. I want people to understand the context of what's going on in a situation or ask me questions. So why the heck wouldn't I do that to somebody else? And so in every job that I was in and support that's one of the reasons why I struggled so much with wanting to stay in customer support.

Sarah Caminiti: 10:24

I just kept getting so frustrated that every boss I had at some point would do fear tactics or micromanaging or there was an automatic negative assumption made about something that I did or something that my colleagues did, and my heart would just start racing anytime they would walk into the room, and it's one of the reasons I started working in support. It's actually even one of the reasons why my desk isn't facing the door. I don't like that feeling of someone's going to come up behind me see what is going on and then I'll need to explain myself, for whatever reason. And just I couldn't figure out why. Like what are we getting out of this? I'm not the only one feeling this way. My team feels this way too, and we're not performing to our highest capacity because we're stressed and we're panicked and we're anxious and we don't want to ask questions. It didn't make any sense. That's why I kept leaving and then I kept seeing the same sort of thing though everywhere, Like it is just the old way of leading.

Priscilla: 11:34

I don't even like saying leading it's the old way of being a boss or managing it's like yeah.

Sarah Caminiti: 11:36

No trust why you spent so much time trying to find the candidate. Why does that change the moment that they join your team? It doesn't make any sense to me. And so, when I started building my own teams, I committed to an experiment, and the experiment was hey, I've never seen this, is there a reason why I've never seen this before? And let's try and see what happens? For and let's try and see what happens. And so I just started leading my teams the way I wished that I had been led.

Sarah Caminiti: 12:11

All of those years I've been in call centers, I've worked retail general stores, regular customer support, you name it. It's not that I don't understand the realities of the job. It's I understand the realities so well that it makes no sense to not be doing it this way. So when the word kindness comes up, I realize the weight of that word is a lot. It means that you value someone's time enough that your actions are representing your words. It means that you are being intentional with what you're putting out there and thoughtful and purposeful. And there's so much noise right now, or just in general, of buzzwords and key concepts and all these game-changing revelations that people are having all the time, and then you start asking questions about what that means. And no one's doing anything about it. They're just saying things. And what does that tell your team and your customers? That tells your team that you do not value them enough to actually do what you're telling people you're doing. And it means that, as a customer, why would a customer wanna support a company that does not value the people that are supporting them? It all just kind of trickles down and so I tried to be inclusive.

Sarah Caminiti: 13:34

I tried to understand the boundaries of transparency, because when I started talking about transparency initially it was oh no, they can't handle it. No, that is such a terrible idea. Why would you ever say all of this stuff? Have you tried it? What happened when you tried it? And you don't understand where the boundary line is until you try it. And if you don't try it, then you're making an assumption. And I learned that when the expectations are clear, when the boundaries are there and everyone understands what needs to happen, there's no more gray area, that you are a safe space. You can crush it and the customers feel everything, because now these employees are able to pause, and I've learned that pause is the differentiator between all right, this is good, this is fine. This did what it needed to do, and something that you remember, and you have to create a space for that pause, and if you're not, then you're failing. Yeah.

Jordan: 14:39

I actually have a story that totally backs up everything you just said and it was just in my mind and I had forgotten about this. There is this little pizza shop just two blocks from my house and they have the best pizza, but twice when we ordered from them, we would have the delivery driver if they were late. They were nervous and apologizing all over themselves and they would ask us to call the shop to explain that, like we weren't upset about it, and we were like what is going on over there that these employees are just like noticeably nervous and wanting us to call their bosses and we quit ordering from them. After that we were like nope, they don't have our business anymore because clearly there's some like abusive stuff going on here. We're done.

Priscilla: 15:25

We're just unhealthy ways of managing. Yeah, I mean, we probably have all worked in places where we felt this to some level. I have worked in jobs where you're just scared to make anything that isn't perfect or to do any kind of work that isn't perfection, and you feel someone breathing down your neck all the time and you're right that. And you feel someone breathing down your neck all the time, and you're right. That doesn't give me any space to grow. It doesn't give me any space to find something new, to do something better, because I'm so worried about it being perfect or so worried about getting in trouble for asking a question or trying something new.

Sarah Caminiti: 15:57

Yeah, that's it. It's the asking a question thing. It's one of the things that I say to any team that I find myself around, whether I'm employed by them or they just invite me for a hot second. It is if you ask a question, it tells me that you care enough about doing it, right.

Priscilla: 16:12

Yes, that's it Absolutely.

Sarah Caminiti: 16:14

And I will answer the same question over and over again. I mean I will probably end up implementing something so that I do not have to ask the same question over and over again. Yeah, but I'm never going to be upset. I will be pissed off if I start finding mistakes and it's because you were making assumptions and you didn't voice any sort of concern and we had conversations about certain things and you still weren't doing it. I mean, that is when I start to like wonder what the heck are you doing? Like, why aren't you? Why? Like? And when I say I might get pissed, I'm realizing now, no, I probably wouldn't get pissed. I would say why are you not doing?

Priscilla: 16:51

this. Let's figure out what it is that this isn't Right right.

Sarah Caminiti: 16:55

But no, it's intentions. Your intentions are good. What am I doing as a leader, that I'm failing you by not providing you with the tools you need to be successful? That's on me, that's not on you.

Priscilla: 17:05

Yeah, exactly. I read something recently. I don't remember where it was, but it was about confidence, and it was something along the lines of the most confident person in the room is the person who's confident enough to ask the questions for the information they don't know. And the people who don't ask the questions sometimes they just know everything and they don't need you know information, but most of the time it's that they don't understand whatever. It is enough to ask the question, or they're nervous to ask the question in the first place. And so I'm right there with you. I always want people on my team, or really just anywhere in my orbit, to know that they can ask me questions and it's going to be safe and they're not going to feel any kind of shame tied to that.

Sarah Caminiti: 17:44

Well, that's it too, though, for a customer. Think about that for a second. Like, if you are creating a space for your team where they feel safe to ask questions, they are then going to make sure that a customer feels safe to ask questions, and, yeah, the goal is that the customer is not going to need to get to that point in time where they can no longer be successful on their own. I mean, that's the dream, but you want them to know. Whatever question they have, it's a good question, and you're here and you're going to support them and do whatever it is that you need to do to get them to what they were trying to do in the first place.

Priscilla: 18:20

Yeah, without any embarrassment too. They're not going to get any kind of pushback, or. I know I asked this a couple months ago and I don't understand it. Still there's none of that. You know we want to make sure people know. I know it doesn't do any good for anyone for the person asking the question or the person answering the question.

Priscilla: 18:36

So, as I was preparing for this episode, I read through some of your website, specifically about the early days of the kindness initiative that you put together, and now you know Epical Operations, and this quote stood out to me and so I wanted to read it. Let's not be naive. Being kind and saying you lead with kindness will, unfortunately, not get the traction it deserves. It's a misunderstood word and practice. It's the results from building systems that are rooted in the pillars of kindness that make waves. You can't tell people to be kind, especially when they don't understand the value of its power. So I thought it'd be cool for us to kind of transition into talking about the power of kindness and how we can harness that power, specifically when we're talking about customer support and driving these remarkable customer experiences with your team. So how have you, sarah, seen kindness and leadership impact the customer experience?

Sarah Caminiti: 19:35

I think the best way to do this is to compare it to something that actually doesn't work in the context that it lives, but it really does work here. So whenever I'm trying to think about kindness and the way that it works, but it really does work here. So whenever I'm trying to think about kindness and the way that it works in the world, I always go back to the hilarious attempt of wealth hoarding that is, reaganomics and the trickle down economic system where you know the wealthy people will just gift all of those people below them with the extra money that they have and it'll rain down on them, which never happened, but with kindness. Kindness is one of those things that touch others with kindness and to approach situations with kindness. And, like I said before, that means being intentional and thoughtful and purposeful. That doesn't mean being nice that you are present and clear and utilizing this space in a way that values yourself and values the other person. It is so powerful and beautiful and moving to see what happens when you start to incorporate little, tiny acts of kindness into your space. I mean, look at my, the example of my son. That is the perfect example of it right there, that kindness. He is kinder at home he is. He is happier to not just be on his tablet. He wants to play, he wants to paint, he wants to do all of these things, hang out with his little brother, because he felt that kindness during his day at school.

Sarah Caminiti: 21:25

And so, starting with something small and I make it a point to a few times a week, sometimes every day, depends on the situation, but no matter what, I am letting everybody that I lead know that I'm thankful for them and that's a quick message on Slack, on Teams, on whatever it is that you use. Hey, I want you to know you're doing a great job. I'm so happy that you're here. That's it. Like I can remember messages rare as they were in previous spaces today, like I can remember where I was sitting, I can, which tells you how rare it was, that it was like this, like humongous deal, I know, but why does it need to be something that has that kind of a game changing impact on you, when they just took this passive moment to say thanks? Like why don't you want someone to feel that like high all the time?

Priscilla: 22:20

All the time. Well, and also, it's kind of like you never want someone to come to you and say, how do you feel about how I'm working or how do you feel about me being on the team, and then you go oh, I love it and I didn't make you know this, like I didn't do a good job of making sure you knew it. I, for some reason like this, caused you to question it. For whatever reason, you never want that to be the outcome that someone comes to you and says, hey, I don't feel valued when you're like I do, value you so much I need to be doing a better job of communicating that to you. That's you know. Just, I never want anyone to question it, ever.

Priscilla: 22:54

It's like the saying hurt people, hurt people. We've heard that it's like the opposite of that. Right, it's like kind people are kind people. You know, yes, if you're kind to the people on your team, if you foster a space for them to ask questions, to feel safe, to try new things, without all of this you know management and breathing down your neck and all of that then they're going to turn around and be kind to your customers, which is ultimately what you want, because they're the ones working directly with your customers. You want them to be kind, but also, just in their life, they're going to be kinder people because they're in a healthier work environment. I have had some pretty bad work environments and in those times of my life I was not a kind person and it's crazy now, when you're working in a healthy work environment, when you realize, wow, I am nicer, I'm kinder, I have more empathy and more grace for people because I'm getting that myself. It's a huge, huge, huge part of leadership.

Sarah Caminiti: 23:52

Isn't that? Just when you think about it, when you reflect on your journey and the way that you presented yourself, the way that you viewed the world, the way that you entered into any space, the impact that others have, especially like your boss, your self-worth and your ability to value you as a human being, and what that does, and the amount of time that it takes to like climb out of that hole? It is the most just discouraging thing to think about the amount of wasted time people have to deal with in order to find a place if they ever do where they're able to feel empowered and valued and just treated with respect because they're a human being and sometimes you don't even realize when you're in that space, that oh you usually don't.

Priscilla: 24:46

And so it's. I mean, for me. It wasn't until I look back that I went wow, I really for those. For that stretch of time I was really unhappy and I didn't even realize it. Or, you know, I was always in arguments with people and I didn't know where that was coming from and it is crazy how much that can have an impact on you without your knowledge, without even knowing it.

Priscilla: 25:04

One thing we say you know a lot at BuzzFront Support is we're happy to help. I mean, obviously, the name of the podcast is happy to help. It's a pretty common phrase in customer support but it's funny because we actually are happy to help. It's like I think it's called like the helper's high, it's like a runner's high. When you're helping someone else, when you're being kind to someone and giving that off, it makes you feel better. So it's kind of like we actually are happy to help you. When we're helping you, when we're kind to you a customer or someone on your team that makes you feel better. You know there's all these studies around it. You're releasing endorphins, you're like all of these things are working to actually make you feel better when you're kinder to people and I just love like thinking through that like this is actually like a science thing that when we are kind we feel better and the person we're being kind to they feel better.

Sarah Caminiti: 25:54

Yes, and then they will go on in their day and be kind hopefully you know, in some way shape or form to someone else.

Priscilla: 26:01

Pass it along. But you know, sometimes kindness does not come naturally to people, I mean for us. Sometimes we have to work at it. I know it's definitely especially coming out of like a difficult work experience and then coming into where I am now, like the transition time can be tough. So when new people come on your team and they're not used to that kind of environment, it can be hard to make that transition into kindness. Do you have any tips, sarah, for people who are trying to figure out how to foster that kindness mentality when you're leading a team of people, when there's someone maybe new or someone struggling with that, what kind of tips do you have for them?

Sarah Caminiti: 26:39

I'm so glad that you brought this up because, especially working in support, I think there is so much trauma from past experiences and it is a very, very hard thing to break through unless you are committed to it from the interview stage and you have to set the tone from the very beginning of who you are, how you lead and what your expectations are. And the best way to do that is you've got to build a foundation. You've got to build a foundation of trust, you have to build a foundation of inclusivity, and that happens through facts, and the only way that you can get facts like that and prove your value is by proving yourself to them from the very beginning. One of the things that I have come across is context is nuts Like. Context is like kind of the root of anything and everything, and we usually don't spend enough time to ask questions to understand context.

Sarah Caminiti: 27:41

In many situations, even in support, we don't have the ability sometimes to understand context which is the biggest like mistake you can make, because someone could be presenting something in one way and it is something totally different, and then you're really just wasting time because you have to go back and start fresh once you understand things a little bit more.

Sarah Caminiti: 28:01

Same's true on your team, and if you are having them enter into this space, everybody's already nervous and excited and anxious when they join a new company. You have invited them into your space and how do you treat your guests? You treat your guests with kindness and you treat them with respect and you give them a lay of the land, the tour of the house, and if you are that house, what are they going to learn about who you are? And the best way to do this I've found is to write it down. Miro has a really cool template that has these four different boxes of how you approach teamwork, how you approach work in general, how you communicate. There's one other one that I can't remember and I should have looked this up before the podcast.

Jordan: 28:45

We can find a link to that for the show notes.

Sarah Caminiti: 28:47

Yes, Okay, good, thank you, great idea. I love this. But you just kind of dump it all in there, and not only does this provide context of what they should expect when they enter into situations with you. Go about it this way.

Sarah Caminiti: 29:12

If you've made a mistake and I've already explained, I am doing this from a place of curiosity and sincerity, there's no malice behind it I want to understand where in this journey things kind of went off course or went south.

Sarah Caminiti: 29:25

Yeah, because it's my job for it not to happen and I know that you are doing your best. So how can we make it so that you don't find yourself in these situations in the future? If I already have that in writing, that I've shared with them, that we've had conversations about it, then if I do it and they're like whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? Asking me this question, then you can be like hey, hey, hey, hold on, hold on. Remember, this is how we figure this stuff out together, like this is a journey together, and then you can have those conversations where you then don't have to explain all of this extra stuff about your approach and about why you go about things in certain ways, and start talking about that during the interview. I usually just talk for like 30 minutes when I'm interviewing someone for my team, of the realities of the situation and this is how you spend your time. This is what I expect from you.

Sarah Caminiti: 30:22

I expect you to brainstorm with me. I expect you to. You know, push back if you don't think something's right, but then give me what you think the solution is. Support is an interesting space because we are presented with problems constantly. Everything is a problem, and so it's not like with a lot of these project planning teams where you never can present a solution. You always have to present the problem. We get hit with the problem all the time. We have to connect the dots to a lot of problems and then we come up with solutions, usually because we're scrappy, but sometimes because we're going to present it to the product team, and that's how our brain works. So we are capable, more capable than a lot of other folks.

Sarah Caminiti: 31:05

I feel to be solutions-driven folk and come up with very creative ways to go about situations, and I want to just lean into that on my team as much as I can, and so that expectation is clear. Boundaries are clear when we go to, when you get here with a customer and they are treating you in such and such a way. If you feel this, and even if there's nothing that is obvious, if something inside of you just feels a little off that you don't feel great about continuing this conversation with a customer, it's mine. Pass it to me. That is not yours to deal with. You deserve respect. You deserve kindness and if a customer is doing anything that feels weird, that's my responsibility, not yours. You don't have to take that. No, no, take that weight.

Sarah Caminiti: 31:56

Understand what someone's purpose is on that team. Make sure they understand what their purpose is on this team and what your purpose is on this team. And if you are a leader that has decided to test out this whole new way of doing things, I think that's the first thing you have to assess. What do you know? What do you not know and why don't you know it? And what is your purpose?

Sarah Caminiti: 32:20

Can you define your purpose for the people that you lead, for managing up for the customers, for the other departments? Do you understand the relationships you have with other departments and what they're expecting from you? If you don't ask questions, then you are choosing to have gray area. You are choosing for your team to have ambiguity. You are choosing to not value their success enough to bring clarity in any way that you possibly can. And it is time consuming and it is work and it is manual, but what you will gain from that is a level of confidence in yourself and your space and empowerment to then provide that empowerment to those that you lead, who will then provide that empowerment to the customers.

Priscilla: 33:09

Right, that's amazing To the customers right. Well, and it's you were saying about, like when there's an angry customer Right and you want to make sure everyone on your team knows that, as soon as they feel uncomfortable with it, they can pass it to you. Someone who's coming into your team from a environment where that was not the case, Give them two or three times where you follow through on that and you actually take it from them and they will start to realize oh wait, she's not just saying this, she's actually following through with it. Like I am actually safe, Like it might take a little time for someone to get comfortable and realize that oh, you're saying this, but you actually mean it.

Sarah Caminiti: 33:44

Well, and you do it, you have to go in. That's another that I'm so glad you brought that up, because when people are nervous like that, when they've not been in these environments before, their gauge of what is respectful and what is not respectful and what is appropriate and what is not appropriate is messed up. It is not. It needs to be recalibrated.

Priscilla: 34:04

Yeah, and you have to do that, so you have to be proactive about it.

Sarah Caminiti: 34:08

Yeah, In my last job maybe a little bit overkill for a lot of people, but I manually QA'd every single ticket, every single ticket that came in. I scrutinized and I pulled trends, I pulled opportunities for knowledge-based articles, sales marketing, anything that I could extract. Because there's so much data in there and it was time consuming, but it made me better and because I was looking at everything at all times, I was able to say hey, when you talk to this customer, why didn't you come and get me? That's not okay that he was so short with you, or why did you have to explain yourself six times to this person? We all know and support you just dump a title on something I'm sorry if this is industry secrets. You put a title on yourself, say the exact same thing that someone else has been saying, that they refuse to accept, and suddenly it is that ticket of greatness and everything they could ever need in life in an instant.

Priscilla: 35:08

I've never done that, ever, never, never.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:10

Neither have I.

Priscilla: 35:10

I've never done that, ever, never, never, neither have I. It is funny Early, early years of doing support for me I was, you know, one person doing support, and when people didn't believe me, I would make my name Patrick and then they would believe me.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:25

The beauty of being a woman in this world, we could have a whole other conversation about that.

Priscilla: 35:31

Oh, I know, but it's so important, like being proactive as the leader and looking for those, especially when they're new and they don't know that they have the freedom to pass that kind of stuff onto you. Like, if you're coming from a place where you're used to just absorbing that kind of treatment in a support role, you're not going to think, oh, this is a situation where I can send this on to the person who's leading me, and so it really is important, as the leader, to go and be proactive about finding that and actually practicing what you preach and making sure that they know that this is truly something that you want to take from them.

Sarah Caminiti: 36:05

it's not just that it's possible, but that you want to be the one that absorbs that exactly, it makes a big difference and it's a little yeah, it is a little act and it carries a lot of weight.

Priscilla: 36:14

And I think another thing, too, that's really good to remember when you're leading a team and kindness is a driving factor is reminding your team to be kind to themselves. Yes, I think you know, in support specifically, we do so much, pouring out of empathy and pouring out of kindness and patience and grace, and I do think it's important to remind people that they need to be kind to themselves in that too, and part of that is passing on an email to someone in leadership because it's not kind to yourself to keep working with this person, or maybe it's taking a break in a certain way and giving yourself, you know, a week vacation to. You know, restore your mental empathy reserve, you know that kind of thing. I do think it's really important that we remember that we're talking about kindness for people on our team, kindness for our customers, that we also want to make sure we're talking about kindness for ourselves, too, and having grace for ourselves.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:05

Yeah, support's hard. Support is so hard and it is something that I mean I still struggle with actually taking time off.

Priscilla: 37:14

So do I.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:15

And taking the time off With my new job. I didn't put anything on my phone for a reason to establish that boundary.

Priscilla: 37:22

So healthy.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:23

It's so healthy and it's so necessary. I do sometimes pull it up on Safari.

Priscilla: 37:27

But it's still putting more roadblocks. It's putting more roadblocks in there. You're not just checking it right away. You actually have to be intentional on the like little notification thing, but it is.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:38

I mean, what is? I feel like there's like all of those like live, laugh, love things out there about, uh, about like loving yourself. But the weird thing about that is it's like just because how are you supposed to find that space for yourself to treat yourself well and love yourself and be proud of yourself for the work that you're doing? And that's why leadership is such an important thing to have success in. It carries a role that impacts every corner of somebody's life.

Jordan: 38:23

Yeah.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:23

And it's a mentorship role. I read parenting books and it gives me tips for how to approach leadership situations, because sometimes learning how to have hard conversations about boundaries or about mistakes with a toddler gives you so much clarity on why things have not been successful when you've been trying to establish boundaries with others, because it's very black and white and you're usually trying to overcomplicate it and you're not saying what you want to say. You're saying what you think you're supposed to say, and all of that plays into being proud of yourself and celebrating yourself. And if you have a leader that is celebrating you or a leader that is saying, hey, you seem like you're a little bit distracted. What's going on? Oh, you've got your kids home today. One of them's sick. Why didn't you tell me Just take the afternoon off, let me know if you need anything.

Sarah Caminiti: 39:16

This is not like that's life. Life is a heck of a lot more important than work, and you can't do work well if you've got stuff going on outside of work. And it's another thing that I drive home in the interviews. It is I don't want you here if you're stressed or you're not feeling well, if you've got things that are going on in your life. Not because I don't think that you would do your job well or you're not taking up a quality amount of work or anything like that. It's because what does that do to you? That's not fair. You need to be able to be all in at work, just like you should be able to be all in at home, and that's boundaries and you have to establish that and remind it and teach it and live it as a leader.

Priscilla: 40:04

Otherwise you're just paying lip service that context is knowing the people on your team and knowing the customers that are writing into you and having that kind of an understanding. I mean, in my early years of leading, having people on my team that I, you know, it's kind of the idea of say, hey, let's jump on a call. And then, as a person who gets anxious about these kind of things, if that was someone saying let's jump on my leader, saying let's jump on a call, I would go, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? I'm going to get fired? Yeah, this is not going to be good.

Priscilla: 40:45

And I remember, as in my early years of leading a team, I would say, hey, let's jump on a call, just so you know this is a good thing, no need to stress out.

Priscilla: 40:51

And they would be like, oh my gosh, you don on your team and how that kind of a hey, let's jump on a call is going to affect them. And tailoring the way you lead them a little bit, specifically because you know them and you're known by them. And the same thing it applies to customers and knowing the kind of people that are using your service, the kind of people like we. You know we work in podcasting, so knowing that the people who are creating podcasts on Buzzsprout they're working a lot of times on their own in a silo. They're not in a big team. Sometimes they are, but sometimes they're not. And so having that context allows us to serve them better, because we can be that team for them. And once they know that we're there for them, it makes the interaction so much better and so much more personal. And having that context about your team, about your customers, is so important and really fosters the ability to provide a remarkable experience for someone on your team or someone using your product.

Sarah Caminiti: 41:57

Oh, I agree 100%, and the impact that support has on a brand is not celebrated enough.

Jordan: 42:07

I mean, we could have when.

Sarah Caminiti: 42:07

I was making my notes I kept putting like oh, this could be seven episodes oh, maybe we can do a follow-up one on this one. But the series with Sarah, I love it. But we have so many products that exist that do the exact same thing, and we've got things like Reddit, we've got things like LinkedIn, instagram, all of those places. Then you've got like glass door reviews about the employee experience. There's a bajillion ways to understand what the key takeaways are as an actual customer and just like with metrics and surveys and CSATs, you are either getting somebody that's angry and that wants to be loud and angry and never usually provides the context of the realities of the situation, but still they're allowed to be angry and feel all the big feelings Right. And then there's the other people. Those are the people that you made such an impact and it's usually for doing something as simple as I forgot my password that they want to celebrate you.

Sarah Caminiti: 43:15

It's seeing those sorts of experiences and seeing like I lost my email address and I was so stressed because I was not going to be able to do this for my job, or I couldn't get on a plane to go and see my mom for her birthday because I couldn't access this, like we forget the lives of the people that we are interacting with and support, just like leaders so often prevent themselves from realizing the lives of the people that are on their team. And if we allow ourselves to be reminded that we are people we are all just people that are trying to succeed. And no one wants to write into support. I mean, I do like writing into Buzzsprout, but that's probably just because we're going to be sitting. Taylor Swift gifts.

Priscilla: 44:04

We're going to be sitting in pictures of my kids dancing to Taylor Swift.

Sarah Caminiti: 44:07

There's a thief. But really, like, you have to be vulnerable. You have to be vulnerable to reach out to support when you don't know when you're going to get an answer. You don't know what that answer is going to be, and so if someone is able to provide you with a level of service that not only meets your needs but usually because they're able to pause and look at the entire situation give you what you need to answer those questions that you did not anticipate you were going to have. But it completes the picture for you to do what you need to do and does it in a way where you feel proud of yourself at the end of it for doing this on your own, and also safe to come back and ask a follow-up question. Holy crap, like you have done your job well, and there are so many great teams out there that are doing this over and over and over and over again, and it is so important to recognize that, because that's something to celebrate.

Priscilla: 45:04

And that's where the brand loyalty comes in right, because when you write in and you have a personal connection with the person who is helping you log in or helping you make that flight, when you know that that person on the other side of the email or on the other side of the phone call, when they care about you and they're treating you with kindness, you see that whole company, that whole product, that whole service as caring about you, because that one person did it. And that's where the brand loyalty comes in and that's where the differentiator between companies that do the same kind of thing comes in, because you know that with that service or that company or that team, they care about you, they're treating you well, they're treating you with kindness. That team, they care about you, they're treating you well, they're treating you with kindness. And the only way that someone on your team is going to be able to do that is if you, as a leader, are leading them with that same kind of kindness and that same kind of empathy and understanding and knowing them and allowing them to know you.

Priscilla: 45:56

And I just think it's so important and I think it's not talked about enough, and so I'm really happy that we have had this conversation about it. You know, when I was working through the outline, I wanted to get into more about how to find jobs that foster this kind of environment, but I think that's probably going to be an episode for another time because we've just had such a good conversation about this and I really appreciate you coming on, sarah and being here.

Priscilla: 46:25

So now I want to transition into our support in real life segment. Oh, here we are in support in real life and Sarah's still with us, which is really fun. So usually at the end of every episode, sarah, we will talk about either a question from a listener or a question that we find online, or a story from a listener or a real life support story, and we kind of spend a few minutes talking about it. So I'm really excited that you're going to stick around with us for this segment. Me, too, I was reading a support driven Slack channel yesterday and came across this question and thought this would be a really cool one for you to talk about, specifically because I think you'll have some really great advice. So yesterday in this support driven Slack channel, someone named Sarah asked what are some professional development courses or events that you would recommend to a new support specialist interested in growing their skills? Do you want to kick us off with some tips?

Sarah Caminiti: 47:18

Yes, yes, I love this and I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of folks about this very thing, because it is really hard to find places that totally let you level up in support. There's nothing black and white about it. It is something usually that you have to figure out on your journey for a lot of these skills that you take with you. But the best thing that you can possibly do is find the community that fits your space.

Sarah Caminiti: 47:47

And there are so many like support driven. Priscilla and I were unbeknownst to us at the same. Support driven expo the only ones either have us have ever gone to.

Priscilla: 47:56

Yeah five years ago, so random yeah.

Sarah Caminiti: 48:00

But they are places that remind us that we're not alone and that the questions and the worries and the frustrations that we have, everybody is experiencing those, and talk about a group of people that creates a safe space. Elevate CX is one of the most powerful sources of knowledge, of support, of empowerment that I have ever come across, and I am so proud to be active in that community and get to know these people. That are just the specialist people. Most of them have been guests on the podcast If they haven't been on there for one that I have released yet, it will be happening because I've got them all recorded and Elevate has a couple of events a year and they are very focused on just making you the best that you can be in your job and realizing the realities of your job. And right now I'm working with Sarah Hatter, who is the founder of Elevate, on an event in London that I'm going to be talking about in November.

Sarah Caminiti: 49:06

So much fun and I'm taking over some of the masterclass hosting duties for her, which is going to be a blast, and so if any of the listeners have things that they would like to hear in the masterclass, like Priscilla said, I did one on boundaries. I also did one on starting a career in support. Like Priscilla said, I did one on boundaries. I also did one on starting a career in support. There's ones on data and metrics and all sorts of things. So if you go to the Elevate CX website, you can find all of those masterclasses. Those are just real people talking about the realities of the situation and they're not just, you know, blowing smoke up your butt, and if you have any questions, you just reach out to them. Yeah, and then they reply.

Priscilla: 49:42

Yeah, and we can link those videos too in the episode's description so that if you are listening to this and looking for that, you can get to it easily. I think when I started doing support, it was brand new to me. I didn't come from a place where I had done this kind of support before and I felt very in a silo and not knowing where to find these kind of resources. And so I just think about eight years ago, if I hadn't had these, it would have been so much more just helpful in growing those skills. And so I'm you know, I'm excited that people listening to this. That's part of the reason why we wanted to start this podcast in the first place is because I wanted to be able to share with people that are in the boat I was in and give them a way to like grow their skills in a very tangible way.

Priscilla: 50:27

And one thing I'll say too is when you're looking for these kind of resources to grow your skills, it doesn't all have to be within the world of customer support. You might find that you want to grow your writing skill, and so you might go find a masterclass. That's not even about support writing, but about creative writing to grow that skill. Or maybe you find that you really need to work on your patience and your empathy and that that needs to be more natural. So you look for something like that. It doesn't have to be within the bubble of support, it can be outside of that and that can really help you grow in your support skills as well, oh, what a great point.

Sarah Caminiti: 51:02

Because I mean, what is support? Support is communication, that's it. That's what it is. It is, how can I communicate effectively?

Priscilla: 51:09

So simple. The end, that's it. Do I have the resources to?

Sarah Caminiti: 51:11

communicate effectively, and that's it, and that is something that does not just live in support, it does live elsewhere, and there's a lot of really cool things that do exist. But Elevate is a great place to start. I do have to agree with you, priscilla. I too spent years not utilizing the resources around me because we are so in this, like we are, so like all in, like we are, we can't breathe, we can't come up for air, usually when we are starting in support, especially if you're by yourself- in a support team or in a small team.

Sarah Caminiti: 51:42

it's so hard to come up for air Getting through the day like the thought of like going and asking a question what, no, that's that didn't even cross my mind until, honestly, like a year and a half ago it was 20 years or like answering the question Wait a second, I might have knowledge that someone might find use. Wait what?

Priscilla: 52:05

No way.

Sarah Caminiti: 52:05

And so it's you know more than you realize. Always you have to trust yourself, yeah, and you have to be vulnerable. And once you can get to that space, find yourself a community like Elevate CX. Find yourself an event like the one in Denver or the one in London that's going to be coming up next year. I'm also going to be putting together a women's summit, so be on the lookout for that. But we are cheerleaders, it is our job and we want everyone that is in this field to be successful, and we will figure out a way to make sure you're successful. So just find us. We're here. I love it.

Priscilla: 52:39

Well, thank you for sharing that and remember, if you're listening and you want to share your stories or a question, you can email us at happy to help at buzzsproutcom, or you can text the show through the link in our description that says like send a message to the show Before we wrap up. Sarah, how can our listeners find you? Where would you like to point them?

Sarah Caminiti: 52:58

Yes, please find me. I would love to hear from anybody, especially if it's someone that's curious about kindness and leadership, whether it be in customer support or otherwise. Yeah, I have a podcast, epical Growth. Like Priscilla said, it is through Buzzsprout. You can find it at epicalgrowthbuzzsproutcom or anywhere that you are listening to your podcast. I also have a YouTube page.

Sarah Caminiti: 53:20

I've become a little obsessive with pulling clips that highlight the incredible words of wisdom that the folks that gift me with their time on the show share with the listeners, and I want to make sure that they're able to see how wise they are and we don't just glaze over it because they say some pretty remarkable things. And you don't have an hour because I'm a talker if you haven't noticed some pretty remarkable things. And you don't have an hour because I'm a talker if you haven't noticed to spend listening to the show. Find those nuggets and we will. We will cheer you on in little one minute clips. But also, I'm on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn, follow me, connect with me. Usually, if you do follow me, I will connect with you because I think it's weird that I would not also want to know you. If you want to know me and say hi, or find me on Elevate. I'm around and I'm happy to help.

Priscilla: 54:10

Awesome, and I love that You're happy to help, sure. Thank you so much for being here, sarah. This has been really great. I'm so happy that I got to come. Thank you for having me, yeah, and Epical Growth is great. So if you're looking for more podcasts to learn either leadership or customer support, go listen to Epical Growth and subscribe. Share that with people, share your thoughts and your feedback with Sarah, because it's really helpful. As you know, a new podcaster I know I speak for myself and Jordan, but you know probably for Sarah too that it's really nice to hear feedback from people about what works, what doesn't, what you're enjoying, so that we can kind of help provide content that you're enjoying and learning from. So that's it for today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it and can go into, you know, your work week leading with kindness and interacting with your customers with kindness. I want to thank Sarah Caminiti again for joining us on today's episode, and thank you to everyone for listening. Now go and make someone's day.