One of many first hires we made at Buffer was for our buyer help group, and that was intentional. We have all the time wished each one that reaches out to really feel genuinely valued and heard, striving to set the bar for distinctive buyer help. That dedication to excellence in buyer help hasn’t modified within the almost 15 years we have been in enterprise. Over time, we have constructed a group the place everybody takes possession of the client expertise and actively seeks new methods to ship stand-out experiences.
Buffer’s buyer help group contains 18 gifted teammates from seven international locations, and the typical tenure for our group is 9 years. Via considerate planning with our four-day work week, we preserve 24/7 protection for our prospects, and this steadiness displays our dedication to each our group and our prospects.
Learn on to be taught extra about how we method buyer help and the way we work collectively.
“We consider within the exceptional energy of giving individuals greater than they count on.” -Will Guidara
A key piece of Buffer’s Buyer Advocacy group is our hospitality mindset. We adopted this mindset to stage up the help expertise and to offer readability to our why, how, and what.
A hospitality method in buyer help implies that we attempt to create standout, above-and-beyond, and private experiences in each buyer dialog. Whereas lots of our help conversations stem from buyer friction or frustration, we consider we are able to nonetheless ship an encounter that leaves an enduring impression. Our purpose is to be the corporate that we’d wish to go to for buyer help if we wanted one thing.
To maintain this method high of thoughts, we begin by being curious and intentional in each buyer dialog. This mindset additionally implies that we search for methods to personalise and join throughout every interplay.
We’re working towards having fewer conversations about person friction and bugs by prioritizing product high quality much more than traditional proper now. Our purpose is to sooner or later have extra conversations with prospects who attain out as a result of they wish to join with us, whether or not to learn to get probably the most out of Buffer, discover social media methods, or share their successes and challenges. We all the time love fixing issues for our prospects, however the connections are what make our work significant.
We draw quite a lot of inspiration from The Frictionless Group, a e book written by Invoice Worth and David Jaffe.
Our guiding ideas
For every buyer interplay we have now with prospects, we even have three guiding ideas:
Consciousness (I perceive and see you): Taking the time to actually see the client permits us to look between the strains for areas of frustration, alternatives to empower prospects additional, or doorways to construct a deeper relationship.Readability (I wish to be sure you perceive me): Our communication is our solely medium to point out our character and guarantee our buyer is sorted. We offer the clearest path towards a decision doable, specializing in how we are able to make it easy for patrons to get to a solution.Empowerment (I may also help you): We goal to be specialists, not solely as customer support professionals but in addition as specialists at our product and the way prospects can efficiently use it. We go above and past to search out data for patrons, and we’re neither afraid to ask for assist nor lean on one another to offer an above-and-beyond expertise.
Every firm approaches buyer help otherwise; right here’s what we do at Buffer.
A group constructed on belief, possession, and suppleness
What makes our tradition really particular is the inspiration of excessive belief, excessive possession, and suppleness. Our group feels a excessive stage of possession of the client expertise at Buffer and have a deep understanding of their very own impression as a help group member.
We belief our teammates to create significant connections with each particular person they work together with. Most significantly, we belief one another to observe our instincts and make selections that put our prospects first. Whereas we have now a complete inside FAQ and Wiki, we encourage our group to do what’s proper for the client. This mannequin means everybody has vital autonomy in how they handle their work and relationships with prospects.
This stage of possession over the client expertise is uncommon and transformative. We acknowledge that possession and decision-making abilities come simpler with expertise, and that is not one thing we take with no consideration. We work carefully as a group to help one another with questions, intestine checks, and “second pair of eyes.” This occurs throughout Slack, Zoom calls, and even in notes in HelpScout. As group members construct up a deeper understanding of our product, our prospects, and our tradition, their confidence and independence naturally develop.
When somebody is newer on the group, they have an inclination to ask for extra recommendation, which we welcome and encourage.
Quite than having inflexible processes in place, we lean closely into trusting our group and the collaborative help method we have now in place. This basis of belief we place in one another comes by means of within the service that we offer. It’s a pleasure to do the correct factor by prospects and that’s one thing that I genuinely consider of us discover.
How we function with out complicated hierarchies
Our group operates with out escalation processes or complicated hierarchies. We work alongside one another within the Advocacy group and with different groups to ship the very best expertise. By growing communication and collaboration, we consider we are able to enhance each the help and product expertise.
We goal to be distinctive
We now have three pillars which might be the inspiration of how we work and the expertise we wish to ship:
Exceptionally FastExceptionally PersonalExceptionally Knowledgeable
These pillars information our work as a group and assist us with purpose setting, each as a group and as people.
Working remotely and making a collaborative tradition
Our group spans a number of time zones, and this has created one thing fairly particular: we have realized that distance does not should imply disconnection. We have constructed techniques for seamless collaboration that really feel extra like having teammates proper subsequent to you than working throughout continents.
An ‘open workplace’ method
Slack serves as our digital workplace, however it’s excess of only a messaging platform. It is the place group members pop in to say, “Has anybody else seen this come up?” or “I am engaged on this difficult dialog — any ideas?” Consider it as that open workplace setting the place you’ll be able to faucet somebody on the shoulder or name out a query to the room, figuring out somebody can be there to assist.
We’re intentional about chatting transparently and overtly about any conversations or help points we’re struggling to resolve. There’s one thing highly effective about this vulnerability — when somebody admits they’re caught or not sure, it creates area for all the group to be taught collectively. We have discovered that the conversations we battle with individually typically grow to be those that train us probably the most collectively.
Open communication is not simply how we clear up issues; it is how all of us get higher at what we do. Group members know they’ll attain out for assist the second they hit a roadblock, and there is by no means any judgment — simply real eagerness to determine it out collectively. Whether or not somebody wants assist understanding a technical subject or desires to brainstorm one of the simplest ways to reply to a pissed off buyer, group help is all the time there.
Collaborating carefully throughout Buffer
Collaboration is on the coronary heart of the whole lot we do. Quite than working in silos, we associate carefully with groups throughout Buffer to establish friction factors, improve the client expertise, and ship distinctive help. This cross-functional method fuels steady development, each individually and collectively, which instantly interprets into higher experiences for the individuals we serve.
Our group often collaborates with Product, Engineering, Design, and different departments, making certain buyer insights movement naturally by means of each choice we make. This connection helps all the firm keep grounded in actual buyer wants.
How our Buyer Advocates develop at Buffer
We consider that buyer help is each very important to our enterprise and a satisfying profession alternative for group members who genuinely care about serving to of us and love fixing issues. In our Buyer Advocacy group, everybody interacts with prospects no matter their stage or position. We give attention to creating pleasant buyer experiences, each by supporting the profitable adoption of our product and by digging into bugs and UX points that want consideration.
Because the group that connects most with our prospects, we have now an immense impression on our enterprise. We have constructed our group round the concept that buyer help professionals can each develop and specialize inside this space. All group members want a broad basis in our buyer help fundamentals, however from there, they’ll select their very own development path. Some stay generalists who excel throughout many areas, whereas others develop deep experience in specialisations like AI, our Assist Heart, buyer schooling, billing, technical troubleshooting, product growth, and inside documentation.
Inside our group, particular person contributors (which means teammates who aren’t managers) have a profession framework to offer readability of what development appears to be like wish to help furthering their careers and creating their abilities. It is vital for us that there are development alternatives past the normal administration monitor. The framework should not restrict anybody to at least one path—we lean into self-led development the place every group member works with their supervisor to stipulate what private development appears to be like like for them. The purpose is to have readability about the place chances are you’ll belong whereas encouraging everybody to search out their very own position and development trajectory.
There is a real pleasure that comes with being a part of Buffer’s help group. Buyer expertise is not only a division; it is a company-wide precedence that everybody values.
When you recognize your work instantly impacts individuals’s success and that your organization really invests in help excellence, it creates a way of goal that is onerous to search out elsewhere.
