Elevate Podcast Sarah Hatter, Colin Flanigan, Michael Labrecque-Jessen

We're back with Val Liberty from Balsamic, talking about having interactions with hard customers. You know...those people you can never please. One way to combat the burnout of dealing with terrible customers over and over, Balsamiq has created a culture of trust and boundaries in their employees to empower them even in the worst of circumstances. It's worth a listen just to hear how they de-escalate and diffuse and send people off with a smile.

Sarah has a great conversation with Stephanie Lundberg from Abstract about the opportunities in the customer experience world. There are helpful insights about growth from support to product. Stephanie shares her own experience exploring the two paths of support, the leadership, and technical side, and speaks of the importance of all teams working together in a company.

Sarah sits down with Carter Gibson, an internal community manager at Google. They discuss what a community manager does, the importance of a strong community in a company, and fostering a strong culture. The two have a wonderful conversation about cultivating a strong community with consistency and transparency at the largest tech company in the world.

Sarah speaks with Mike from Trello about having difficult conversations with customers. The two chat about the fine line between customer advocacy and company loyalty. Mike provides insight on dealing with pushback, building up trust with customers and your team, and understanding the importance of team policies, especially with larger teams.

Sarah sits down to talk with Lance Conzett from Uber. The two discuss customer support as a great resource to learn how the customers interact with a company’s product and services and how that translates to working in all departments. Lance shares excellent stories from going through a massive merger that Uber went through in 2020.

Sarah speaks with Matt Patterson from Help Scout about making customer support better for not only the customer but also for the support specialists. Matt and Sarah discuss customer-centric mindsets for companies and their products. The two share thoughts on building the right team with effective recruiting and avoiding the pitfalls of building a team.