Introduction

Starting the first day, first show of the series called Voice of Customer Support.

Just 3 questions and answers to CS leaders, to keep it short.

To learn from the leaders who have been there, done that, to understand what things they have done in past, what they're doing currently, or what challenges they're facing, and how they foresee the future the industry going direction.

So here's is the three questions for today's speaker. We have Alex litov from Virtru, so he's been in customer support and tech industry for over a decade. He has been in experienced in different roles of CS.

Summary transcript of Question & Answers

Harish --

So just to pick on your past experience, you know you have supported customers, from small companies to big companies in different varieties, right? So what was one uncommon method you used to delight a customer, right? Like, so just curious on those nitty wiki things like, Hey, I haven't thought about it, or, Hey, this the right or a different way to do so anything, if you can share on that.

Alex --
Yeah, it's a really good question, and I'll give kind of at two examples.

And so you know, number one is, you know, we've from some of the people, because we all know them in support, particularly those of us in B to B support, like, there'll be that contact at a big customer that's, like, always reaching out about stuff. And so rather than shying away from it, we would just lean into it. And like, a customer success manager would do, we would like send them, like holiday gifts or like swag from our company, so that, like, you know, the temptation is, oh, here this person comes again. But we just kind of leaned into it and let them know that, like, hey, we appreciate them reaching out. We appreciate the opportunity to help them. And so we almost kind of took a page out of the Customer Success book of like, who are the people interacting with support the most? And like, how do we turn them into like, friendlies and advocates, rather than the squeaky wheel who's always complaining?

The other thing we've done is just like, customers want to be updated. Like, there's a lot of data and science. Behind. They want a fast response more than they even want a fast solution, which is like crazy to us support people who are problem solvers at heart. So like, I've gone so far as to, like, tell big customers, or like, we do stuff when we're in and, like, even if it's not an emergency, but the customers clearly worked up. Hey, I'm going to update you every hour, and literally just like, go down to that level, because it's like, what they want, even if it feels like overkill to us in a non emergency scenario, like, they love that stuff. Like, it's amazing how just communication can be the difference between a really happy customer and a really pissed off customer. And can sometimes just have nothing to do with the technology.

Full Interview

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Harish --

So there's the past. The other question, which we have on the present moment, as things are changing. What's the biggest challenge you were you as you know, as a customer support leader or your team is currently facing?

Alex --

You know, I wouldn't call it a new challenge, but it's a perpetual challenge. Of, you know, how do you divvy up the work and handle it effectively, like a lot of SaaS companies, once you reach a certain level of scale, like you've got some really big customers, you've got some really small customers, you've got multiple products. And so, you know, something we perpetually a challenge we're perpetually tweaking and working on is, is, you know, how are we handling that work effectively? How are we doing it up? How are we balancing speed and quality, right?

These things that at times are at odds, you know, where can we go fast and be really transactional and really use those canned responses. What's the stuff where, you know, okay, it's a really nuanced question from a big customer, how do I get that to the right person? How do we give them that VIP experience and and, you know, really, the workflows, the team structure, the segmentation, the processes that allow you to kind of handle a wide range of stuff effectively, and it touches a lot of areas. And you know, for me, you know, particularly as we get close to planning for next year, that's always something a challenge that's top of mind.

And you know, even if I think I've gotten it right, I always have to put it back under the microscope and look at it, you know, have I structured the people the right way? Am I, you know, have we align them with the product in the right way? Are we, you know, have we created a differentiated experience across our customer base that makes sense for the customers and for us? Like those are always things challenges that are top of mind and they'll never go away as much as I'd like them to

Harish --

So the third question is more into the future, right? So lot of things are changing, yeah, the new AI, all this AI bots type of things, or all this personalized experience, which we know on each account, on each customers, and more data, right?

More analytics, type of insights, and also many of the things, hey, auto resolving type of I mean, there's so many promising trends, but how do you foresee, say, 10 years into the future? What things you are seeing customer support is heading towards more for practitioners and for customers themselves.

Alex --

Yeah, I think it's, that's a great question. I mean, you mentioned that AI is obviously the huge one. You know, we're experimenting with that. You know, when I think 10 years in the future, I really think where a lot of the power and how the industry is going to evolve is it's not going to go all AI like, there's this temptation of, let me use AI for everything. But particularly in software, there's always novel stuff that, like, I don't know that AI is going to be able to solve.

And so really, the way I think about it is, you know, the future, I think, is going to have a world where AI is handling most of the repeatable transactional stuff, enabling customers to self serve and get the answers quicker as it gets smarter, and being able to handle that stuff check multiple systems like that, versus a human taking 10 minutes to go check them, right? But then those new, novel issues, those more nuanced, specialized things that these language models haven't hit before. There's always going to be a need for a human there. There's always going to be a need for humans to calibrate it. And so the way I really think about, you know, where do I see the industry going is, I think I see it going to a much more healthy balance of letting the humans focus on what they're good at, and letting the AI do the rest, right? And really thinking about, Okay, where can the human input or experience deliver the most value to the customer, right? Where can it help with speed and quality? Where can it help with the great experience? Right?

And how do we augment the artificial intelligence rather than this temptation of AI is going to take all of customer support jobs. That's not going to happen. I'd be shocked with at least from what I've seen of AI. Yet, we got a long way to go before the AI could do everything the human rep can do, but there are a lot of things that can do better, and I think that balance is what I'm most excited about when I look 510, years down the road, both from a support and more from just a customer experience standpoint, that's where I think a ton of options open up.

Harish --

Makes sense Alex. The topic of the future is always interesting in many more. And, yeah, so that's pretty much wraps the three questions. And obviously it's supposed to be very short. And then, you know this, each of this has a word topic of discussion, but you know, if you need to discuss with him, or you know, any of the career tips, Alex is very useful, and I enjoyed always conversation with him. Please reach him how LinkedIn support driven. He's open to any of questions. Thanks for joining. Awesome.

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Conclusion

You can reach out to Alex on Linkedin or Support Driven channels.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-litoff-6025a516/

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