Support Breakfast

We're back with a new season of Support Breakfast and we’re shaking things up! This season we hope to explore a wide range of Support-centric topics, share the experiences, ask difficult questions and hopefully answer them! We’re still on our own journey of discovery so there will likely be some bumps in the road - thanks for coming along for the ride. This month, we’re tackling worth and value - how to know your own worth, share what you’re doing, continually strive for excellence and champion the value of your team to rest of the company.

We're back with a new season of Support Breakfast and we’re shaking things up! This season we hope to explore a wide range of Support-centric topics, share the experiences, ask difficult questions and hopefully answer them! We’re still on our own journey of discovery so there will likely be some bumps in the road - thanks for coming along for the ride. This month, we’re tackling worth and value - how to know your own worth, share what you’re doing, continually strive for excellence and champion the value of your team to rest of the company. Check out the show notes here: http://supportbreakfast.com/2018/04/12/season-2-episode-1-proving-the-value-of-support

The Support Breakfast podcast is: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) London Support Labs is happening on the 16th of May - sign up for more info, here: http://bit.ly/2GexpUK

Episode 56 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) This week we chatted about a lesson we learned, or something that we realised about ourselves, this week. hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie @supportbrekkie @sarahleyh @gentlethorns @davechapman @conorp

Episode 55 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) This week, we’re chatting about customer personas. Making decisions based on a customers behaviour, skill level or goals are often used in a marketing context. Does this approach have a place in support? Links mentioned: - Diego's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diego_the_boston_terrier/ - Ellery Bow: https://ellerybow.com - Minor Figures Cold Brew: https://www.instagram.com/minorfigures/?hl - Jobs To Be Done (JTBD): http://www.jobstobedone.org - Wistia - Not phone first: https://wistia.com/blog/scaling-support-why-we-removed-our-phone-number-from-our-website - Getting curious with Jonathan Van Ness: http://gettingcurious.libsyn.com hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie @supportbrekkie @sarahleyh @gentlethorns @davechapman @conorp

Episode 54 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) You get support, you get support, everybody gets support! This week we're talking about how to support your self, because self-care is especially important for folks who are always looking out for others. We've got some tips for looking after your team mates and how to get the support you need from your manager or company. hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie @sarahleyh @gentlethorns @davechapman @conorp

Episode 53 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) You get support, you get support, everybody gets support! This week we're talking about how to handle free or "low value" customers; do we do anything different and how do those customers fit in to our business and product plans. hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie @sarahleyh @gentlethorns @davechapman @conorp @sarahleeyoga

Episode 52 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) This week we're talking about change management, how to help customers navigate a new feature or "improvement" and (hopefully) avoiding the pit of despair. Get in touch with us! hello@supportbreakfast.com www.supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie https://ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie Find us individually @sarahleyh @davechapman @conorp @gentlethorns

Episode 51 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) This week we're talking about the tools we use to support customers and the pros and cons of each. Links mentioned: * Huel: * Ribena ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IHF3yvSpM0 * NZ commercial with modesty leaves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqZZOb1aJEk * The origin of the Dashboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashboard * Help Scout/Docs/Beacon: https://www.helpscout.net * Intercom/Educate: https://www.intercom.com * Vanilla Forums: https://vanillaforums.com/en/software/ * Front: https://frontapp.com * Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com * Freshdesk: https://freshdesk.com * Reply: https://buffer.com/reply/ * Statuspage.io * Uservoice: https://www.uservoice.com * Wistia: https://wistia.com * JTBD: https://jtbd.info * Chase: https://m.signalvnoise.com/a-new-approach-to-feature-requests-21bea562c083 * Ask Nicely: https://www.asknicely.com * Looker: https://looker.com * Write The Docs (Prague): http://www.writethedocs.org/conf/prague/2018/ hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie @davechapman @conorp @sarahleyh @gentlethorns

Episode 50 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) - Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) This week we're reflecting on 2017 as a year and what we’re going to do differently in 2018. Links mentioned: * Veganuary: https://veganuary.com * You Tried: http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/facebook/000/325/934/060.png * Ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie * Episode 16 | Kill your darlings: https://soundcloud.com/supportbreakfast/episiode-16-kill-your-darlings * Episode 43 | Everybody’s gotta learn: https://soundcloud.com/supportbreakfast/episode-43-everybodys-gotta * HeadSpace: https://www.headspace.com * Vitality 10K: https://www.vitalitylondon10000.co.uk * Lisa’s Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/thetoreadpile * Conor’s Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/conorpendergrast * Sarah’s Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book-e-monster hello@supportbreakfast.com supportbreakfast.com @supportbrekkie @sarahleyh @gentlethorns @davechapman @conorp @sarahleeyoga

Episode 48 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) - Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) This week we're chatting about building and managing customer/partner/developer communities. Links mentioned: * Geckoboard Developer Community: https://community.geckoboard.com * Buffer Chat #bufferchat: https://buffer.com/bufferchat * Community.Expensify.com * GeckoBoard are hiring generally: https://www.geckoboard.com/careers/ * So are Timely: https://www.gettimely.com/careers/ * MozCon Code of Conduct: https://moz.com/mozcon/code-of-conduct * Mom Community guidelines: https://moz.com/community/blog-disclaimer * Support Driven: https://supportdriven.com/support-driven-chat/ * Job here: https://jobs.lever.co/geckoboard/d367e252-9acf-40f4-b5b2-8b9679946f49 * Ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie

Episode 48 of the Support Breakfast podcast with: - Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard) - Dave Chapman (Buffer) - Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely) - Conor Pendergrast (Expensify) - Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) This week we chatted to Abby Armada from Clubhouse about preventing yourself from getting in a rut and keeping things fresh in your support career. Links mentioned: - Clubhouse https://clubhouse.io/ - Auror https://www.auror.co/ - Camille Acey - Where To Next? Evaluating Opportunities For Growth https://vimeo.com/202061452 - Radical Candor https://www.radicalcandor.com/ - One Direction (mwaha) http://www.onedirectionmusic.com/gb/home - London Support Lab https://twitter.com/ldnsupportlab - Aspire https://supportdriven.miraheze.org/wiki/Aspire:_Career_Mentoring_by_Support_Driven - Family Anti-Matters https://familyantimatters.simplecast.fm/ - When ambition and anxiety collide: https://medium.com/geckoboard-under-the-hood/when-ambition-and-anxiety-collide-finding-support-at-work-when-the-waters-get-rocky-ac9113c6396a - Support Ops https://supportops.co/ - Support Breakfast Ko-Fi https://ko-fi.com/supportbrekkie

Episode 47 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Conor Pendergrast (Expensify)and Sarah Chambers (Supported Content). This week we chatted to Ilemi Arrindell from Akkroo about life as a solo Customer Support Unicorn.

Episode 46 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Conor Pendergrast (Expensify)and Sarah Chambers (Supported Content). This week we were joined by James from GoSquared to chat about "all hands" support, why it's important and how to make it work.

Episode 44 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Conor Pendergrast (Expensify)and Sarah Chambers (Supported Content). This week, we talked to Andra from Zapier about scaling in support teams and retaining knowledge in teams of varying sizes.

Episode 44 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Conor Pendergrast (Expensify)and Sarah Chambers (Supported Content). This week, we talked to Derek Honmann from Median about everything live chat. We hear a little about what problem Median are trying to solve, some pros and cons of live chat, a guide to when and how to use live chat in your business, as well as some insights into starting up a business!

Episode 43 of the Support Breakfast Podcast with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're joined by guest Patrick East from GitHub to discuss the skills necessary for support and how to learn them.

Episode 041 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week, we talked about what's in a name? Is there a difference between Customer Support and Customer Success? Or is Customer Support just a dirty word that we want to rid ourselves of?

Episode 041 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week, we talked about Chatbots, and AI (Artificial Intelligence) and what all that automation means for our jobs. What are chatbots, how can you use them in Customer Support and what the future holds.

Episode 040 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week, Kiwi Sarah and Lisa talk about tagging. How do we classify our tickets in order to get insights or a bigger picture view from them - and how do we use that information to make our support, documentation and product better or to help other teams.

Episode 039 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week, Lisa is joined by Guest star Chelsea Stroh (Recruiterbox)to talk about how we bridging the communication gap (or chasm) between support teams and the developers who build, maintain and fix the products they support.

Episode 038 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we’re talking about how we bring new team members into our respective companies. Do we have a formal process for introducing them to the company, or to the Support team, and do we just like to throw them all in at the deep end.

Episode 037 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week featuring guest star Kelly O'Brien from Kayako. This week we’re talking about writing for support. We're always writing - emails and chat messages to customers, internal and external documentation and even slack threads within our teams and companies. How do we find the right tone and type of language to use - especially when we don't have much to go on - and who decides which content belongs to which team?

Episode 036 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week featuring guest star Mat Patterson from Helpscout. This week we’re talking about support as a career and resources for teaching support skills. How do we become great at customer support and where can we go to learn from the experiences (and mistakes!) of others. There's also an existential crisis or two about our own levels of skill.

Episode 035 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week featuring guest star Brittany Ferguson from Fracture. This week we're talking about the processes we use and what happens when we review them. How frequently do we take a step back and look at our processes (both internal and customer-facing) and how do we communicate with customers when we’re making changes that will affect them?

Episode 034 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week featuring guest star Alison Groves from Highrise. This week we're talking about user onboarding. How do we introduce our customers to our product and convince them that we're worth their precious time and money?

Episode 032 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week featuring guest star Dan Feeney from Buffer. How do we assign our tickets and who owns the interaction - is it better for our customers to build a relationship with a single person or potentially receive a quicker answer by talking to more than one?

Episode 032 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). We all want to make our customers happy but this week we talk about those times when you just have to say no.

Episode 031 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week talked about a great article from HelpScout on the six different types of burnout, how to recognise when you're burned out and what does it mean for your career in Support.

Episode 030 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week talked about the concept of "dog-fooding" (ew) i.e. using your own product. Do we use our own products (aside from supporting them) and were we customers before we were employees?

Episode 029 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we couldn't organise ourselves out of a paper bag, so we scraped together three of us and decided to talk about how we structure our working day and manage our time. Irony!

Episode 028 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we headed abroad to see the sights in beautiful Paris! We left behind Conor and Nomad Sarah, but acquired another long-time Support Breakfaster Katie Oswalt (Expensify). It seemed fitting to make this week's episode about managing time zones and providing support to our increasingly global customers.

Episode 027 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're a couple of members down, so Dave and Sarah deep dive into a popular support metric, Churn!

Episode 024 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Dave Chapman (Buffer), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content)and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week Lisa and Dave are on their own because we've all been too busy for podcasting and they're talking about their routines and setups in a not-so-lightning "lightning" episode. See full shownotes at:

Episode 024 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Geckoboard), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). Ft. special guest star Ethan Walfish (Salsify). This week we're talking about crushing bugs and how we manage, escalate and communicate issues with the software. See full shownotes at:

Episode 024 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're talking about being part of a distributed team doing customer support. Interesting, eh? See full shownotes at: https://supportbreakfast.com/2017/05/18/support-breakfast-podcast-episode-24-how-to-be-remotely-happy/

Episode 023 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're talking about how to start, or take your next step, in your support career. We cover what to look for in a company, what are stock options, how do you prepare for an interview and ugh, LinkedIn. See full shownotes at: supportbreakfast.com

Episode 022 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're talking about what skills we think are required for a career in Customer Support. See full shownotes at:

Episode 021 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we're talking about situations in which we may have failed our customers. We discuss how to approach those conversations, especially when they're in a public domain, and how not to feed the trolls. See full shownotes at:

Episode 020 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we sat down to record our podcast and couldn't bring ourselves to discuss the one we'd chosen. As we're all a bit tired and it's Easter, we decided to stray from the beaten path and share a little more about what we nerd out about, outside of support. See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/?p=2383

Episode 019 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about books, baby! We each select 2 books that have helped shape our support careers and for good measure, some of our favourite fictional reads - we like big books and we cannot lie! See full shownotes at: http://bit.ly/2oqhGqv

A bonus episode of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). Lisa reports back from her time at Supconf Seattle and talks to members of the Support Driven community about their favourite breakfast foods and advice for their younger selves, plus interviews with Scott Tran, Matt Dale and Christina Jones. See full shownotes at: https://supportbreakfast.com/2017/04/04/support-breakfast-supconf-seattle-special/

Episode 018 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about everything documentation, internal, external and extraterrestrial(?!). What should you do? How do you do it? Where do you put it? See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/2017/04/06/support-breakfast-podcast-episode-17-whats-up-doc

Episode 017 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about delivering happiness, or the WOW factor. How to set expectations with customers and give them a little something something on the side. See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/2017/03/30/support-breakfast-podcast-episode-17-the-wow-factor

Episode 016 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about sunsetting features, killing your darlings or the euphemism of your choice for saying goodbye to things that customers may love. See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/2017/03/23/sunsetting-products-killing-your-darlings

Episode 014 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about company culture - the good, bad and the ugly! We recorded this version all together, live from Lisa's house - hilarity ensued. See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/?p=1577

Episode 014 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about our how to be more constructive with our feedback, as well as how to take it after you've dished it. See full shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/?p=1436

Episode 013 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about our what metrics we use to measure our progress and which ones we can safely ignore. See full shownotes at: http://wp.me/p898ME-kb

Episode 012 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about our personal and professional #goals and how we got into our support careers. See full shownotes at: https://supportbreakfast.com/?p=967

Episode 011 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). This week we talk about chasing that promotion and progressing your career in Support. See shownotes at: http://supportbreakfast.com/2017/02/16/support-breakfast-podcast-episode-11-im-ready-promotion

Episode 010 of the Support Breakfast podcast, with Lisa Hunt (Moz), Sarah Ley-Hamilton (Timely), Sarah Chambers (Supported Content) Dave Chapman (Buffer) and Conor Pendergrast (Expensify). See shownotes at: https://supportbreakfast.com/?p=723