Customer Support Leaders
Customer Support Leaders
270: Mastering Leadership Communication in Startup Support; with Andrew Rios
Mastering Leadership Communication in Startup Support; with Andrew Rios
How do you transform data into compelling business narratives? Join us in Episode 270 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast, where Andrew Rios returns to share his invaluable insights on building a robust communications plan for new roles. Andrew explains the power of a "support report" and how starting with basic data points can evolve into a comprehensive tool that enhances decision-making and staffing forecasts. Discover why placeholders and "coming soon" metrics can be your best allies in gradually painting a complete picture for your organization.
Ensuring that your reports are not just created but also read and understood is a different challenge altogether. Listen as we discuss strategies to make these reports engaging and accessible. From brief summaries to personalized content, we delve into techniques to capture your audience's attention and build a culture where these reports are anticipated and valued. Andrew shares how finding allies and leveraging social proof can significantly boost the engagement and impact of your communications.
Wrapping up, we explore the art of effective leadership communication, especially in the fast-paced world of startups. Transparency, tactful feedback, and regular reporting are just some of the strategies we discuss for building trust within your team. Andrew and I also touch on the importance of quickly understanding historical decisions and spotting potential frictions between teams early on. This episode is packed with practical advice and actionable insights for support leaders looking to make a real impact in their new roles. Join us for a conversation that promises to leave you inspired and equipped to handle your next big step.
Hello and welcome to Episode 270 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today I welcome Andrew Rios to talk about how we build a communications plan when we step into a new role. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today Andrew Rios. Andrew, what a pleasure to have you back again. I've got so many good memories of our last few conversations. I've already started my own own. I've rebranded my support report, my support stories, my support thing, support data debt. I've rebranded it as support report.
Andrew Rios:yeah, I think we were kind of we were both.
Charlotte Ward:We're both building on the same thing there. Well, like we both arrived at an organization and started to put together that support report that you talked about. I think was it a couple of recordings ago, a couple of conversations ago, I think we were talking about that, right? But, um, yeah, so I'm now. I'm now a follower of the support report my my very own version of it, you know. Uh, so sorry, so good to have you back, anyway, um, and we are talking about those early days, aren't we? So do you want to say hello and dive into what we're talking about?
Andrew Rios:Yeah, absolutely. Just thanks for having me back. Always great to chat with you and then always great to go into these little topics we talk about that are really simple, yet they change and they grow over time and we make them ours and, you know, personalize them for the business. But, yeah, I love hearing when people you know uh embrace the power of a support report. You know I've always said that that's um one of the support leaders, best friends, something I was fortunate enough to have an early mentor coach me on, and then um being able to tell the story to the business of what the numbers mean beyond the numbers and then really celebrating the, the men and women behind the numbers that are providing all that great support so I love hearing that.
Charlotte Ward:Thanks for for embracing it and making it yours yeah, I mean I mean like every every uh good support leader out there, I have a ton of data. I've got a ton of stories and helping the business interpret that data. But you definitely gave me a couple of ideas and a new title and I think everyone should just get going, which I think is really what we talked about last time. You know, I've been in my current role for like four and a bit years now, so my support report under its new name, has been four years in the growing. But yeah, you've just got to get going. If you're not doing this already, if you've been in your role one day or one decade, just pick up some data and start playing around with it, right?
Andrew Rios:Exactly, I think right now. Luckily, this is quite an opportunity. I'm in my third month now. It feels like third year probably. I'm only getting ready to release my second report ever. It's going to be basically a recap of the month of May. I have a few more data points than the first report had, which was a recap of April, which brings me to about maybe six data points that I'm just starting with to show the business what we're looking at, what are KPIs, and then you know really what I like to use it for now is you just got to start, but then start to show the team the work that we're getting right so that they understand the processes that we're going to start working on and what those processes are going to lead to. And you know my support report right now has a lot of placeholders, a lot of, dare I say, coming soon, coming soon.
Andrew Rios:But what I tell my team is every time we're going to take away one coming soon, right, every time one's going to disappear, then, a year from now, it's going to look completely different and it's going to start to tell our story yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlotte Ward:I I feel like this that we're going to digress from the intention of this discussion, but I've got to ask you, now that I know that you've got a bunch of coming soon what, what coming soon are you most looking forward to filling out?
Andrew Rios:oh, arrival pattern, the arrival pattern of our support contacts in our two channels. Um, as we're planning for growth in the future, as we start building, um getting bringing fiber to more homes in orange county, city by city. That brings up the potential contacts we're going to take. So I want to be able to start to forecast that and then also be able to start balancing out the staffing right With just getting that arrival pattern. That metric for me does the forecasting, does the staffing for the future allows me to then start seeing how other folks can take on other projects and project time in the schedule.
Charlotte Ward:So so is that. Is that arrival pattern effectively like your common user journeys into support effectively?
Andrew Rios:where's the most volume coming from? What time of the day does it come, and is it more email versus phone? And then you hit it kind of right there. Then we start to kill it back a little bit more and say, okay, what kind of contacts are coming in? You know, and it's for me as someone who kind of already sees and knows that final report and numbers, and you start to see the end solution. It's like, okay, let's just take it step by step.
Charlotte Ward:So then let the let the teams see it, but that's the one great question, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I it's a question I've never asked before, so it felt worth asking right no, it's great because there's every.
Andrew Rios:Every metric has its importance, but the order in which it's important for me changes at every location and every report at what you're working on. So you kind of got to get a sense for that. So here, because I can see, the overall volume is mind numbing and it's not mind blowing it's like, okay, I could do some napkin math for the first few months Right now.
Andrew Rios:What's more important, then, is let me rebuild my cues a little bit. Let's change our phone structure a little bit so we can get a little bit more uh, clearer uh data set on the type of calls that are coming in, and then we're going to work into that next level of data, and it also um gets.
Charlotte Ward:Allows me to see what's that the first five pieces of content that we need to create for the team or for our customers so yeah, yeah, yeah, and I think that's where you deep dive onto that arrival pattern and you're looking at things like not just channel and you know, uh, time of day and all of that kind of thing, but what were they doing just before they got to you? What?
Andrew Rios:are they looking at?
Charlotte Ward:right, yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. I feel like, even though it felt like my question was going to take me away from what we were talking about, I feel like we segued nicely back in to the topic for this conversation. So what actually is the topic of this conversation today?
Andrew Rios:I think it's getting a support leader and getting in and starting a new opportunity and how we communicate, how we understand. You know, I think there's a lot of phrases people use First three months, 100 day plan, first 10 weeks, I think. But as a support leader, how do you go in Maybe new industry, new team, small team and start to assess, you know, ask those questions and then start to plan. You know, ask those questions and then start to plan.
Charlotte Ward:and then the phrase I've been using a lot, is start to really establish a communication compass within the company. I'm uh, I definitely need to understand what that is. So, yeah, diving in. So we've almost begun. We've almost begun because you've stepped in. You're in month three. You're already six data points in, I think you said, with lots coming soon. So, clearly, the support report is an important communication tool. It's one that you're prioritizing, going into a new role. So, as a tool, as a platform, the support report carries some of your communication needs and therefore, really because you're crafting the stories that you want to tell around that report, I'm assuming that you're lining up that support report with what you are establishing in the early days to be the needs of your peers in the business.
Andrew Rios:Yeah, exactly. So when I look at that report it's also going to answer some questions for marketing. It's going to answer some questions for sales. It's going to answer some questions, in our case, for our network operations center and our network team, as we deploy more products and services. What do we need? A little bit more content and a little bit more support in what might be having a little friction right now. It's going into starting to tell a very early stages of cost, right, how much does it cost?
Andrew Rios:You know I'm setting the breadcrumbs for the possibilities of maybe a tool enhancement down the road. Right, I use the phrase of maximize your tool first, nail it before you scale it. So showing the report's going to show the business at some point that we're nailing it Now what does it take to scale it? And it's kind of those conversations that I can then start having in the hallways right with the tools folks, with the engineers. It also gives you know, those of you who worked with me before, you know you've heard my I love bringing in doses of reality, so bringing in the business to come and take support calls, so the more that you feed that, that, um, the business with information. Right, set some carrots out there, some breadcrumbs? Let the questions kind of start. Then you can kind of start asking for things and start that partnership is what I show and then it's numbers as well.
Andrew Rios:It's just the numbers, the data, but with the story behind it. And that answers the question to the business what is the support team doing, how are they doing it and are they meeting their expectations? And then what I like to say is what's next right?
Charlotte Ward:What's next for us? Like the Navy SEALs, right I think it is. They say good, what's next? What now right? Good, what now right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the support report you produce it, you're lining it up with the needs of the business as you see it in the moment. I'm sorry to bang on so much about the support report, but it's a really powerful tool and, as somebody who's been doing something similar for a long time and feeding in your ideas from last time we talked as well, it's really powerful. Right, that breadcrumbing is really useful. One thing I've often wondered is do people read it? You know, how do you ensure and I guess this is a more meta question, it's part of our wider discussion today so sort of widen this out of just writing the report and into that communications in the early stages. How do you ensure people read it?
Andrew Rios:Oh man, how do you ensure, if you look at it, what I like to use it as is, it's the anchor that we can point anyone back to. So one of the methods is getting your team, my team, the support team, our team to buy into it, really understand it as well and coach them that when they're having conversations with their peers, other folks in the company, teach them where to go fishing, teach them where to go get even more. Oh, that's a great question and we actually answered that in last month's report. Or, hey, that's a great observation. I'm going to bring that back to the real staff meeting. We're going to put that on the agenda to see what we can get it. So it's almost like you constantly kind of say, support report, oh, go see this. Oh, your answer's there. Oh, if it's not there, maybe it could be there. Yeah, that's one method is kind of the power of the people and word of mouth, right, and then it's just consistency and getting it out right. I think it's consistency and getting it out and making it fun. So for me right now, the goal is uh between now, you know, between now and uh q4. I want to get it out every month and then coming into q4 there there's some big events happening, plans and say, okay, that's my target, to now start going weekly.
Andrew Rios:But then it's not just about hey, here, it is Teams. Thank you everybody. Have a great day either in email or Teams or Microsoft House. It's about now giving them that little 30-word clip of here's what you're going to read today. Here's the biggest takeaway today and and I try to make that one positive always, always meeting a customer, like right now, what's big for us is, you know, we're in the 90s and c-set and that's awesome, right, like awesome, and I want, I like to highlight that, but in our early days. But they're not just the number. But you know, I start with and this is what our customers are saying about us and specifically when they call out names. So what happens is you make it personal. So that's the other way we try to make it personal. We're lucky, we're less than 40 right now. So it's kind of momentum's on my side when other places I've gone to and you're like 500, it's like okay how do I?
Andrew Rios:But it's still the same tactic, but this might take longer. And then I'll say this too this is what I always say to every support leader as they take their 100 year journey too. When we talk about this stuff is find an ally. Find someone outside of your department it's not your boss, right that also believes in that and is going to look forward to it, so that you know she or he can be your champion and help you carry that.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, that's super important. Finding allies for so much of this stuff is important anyway. And I small confession, like sometimes I will just ask my allies or my team to just, you know, so I'll put, let's say, I'll post the report in Slack. You know, I'll put it in our all house channel with that little like hey, everybody here's our support report or our support, you know, support update for this month and did all that. And if you get radio silence I will backdoor some interaction into that thing if I can help it. So I'll go off to my team and I'll say team, I just posted it. Could you just go and like, stick a few emojis on there I hope no one from my current role is listening to this but just just go and like it like that's all I'm asking, just improve. I mean not that slack has an algorithm, but like if there was an algorithm, I want it improved, you know yeah, yeah so, so and and then allies, exactly as you said, outside of my immediate organization.
Charlotte Ward:Did you say you know product, hey, pre-sales or professional services or whatever? Did you see that thing? That was what you were asking about last month, or any of that stuff. Right, just get somebody to come along and stick a thumbs up on there or ask a question about it, or just, uh, yeah, and that route that you're talking about, constantly sending people back to it, just gives it social proof, I think exactly, exactly.
Andrew Rios:And then, um, I always say too, as a, as a support leader, as you're building towards it too, don't be afraid to iterate it and if your feedback is coming in one direction, very heavily satisfy them. If it makes business sense, it makes team sense, it's not a loss, it doesn't take you backwards. Adjust that, because now you're putting chips in the bank. Yes, you're listening to us, you know, and it's also you know. Yeah, you get it. That's how we have to do it, and I always talk about it. Right, I always keep talking about it. Hey, we're going to put that in a support report. No, no worries, so that people just keep it. Just, it becomes a natural thing. They wake up in the morning going is the support report coming out today?
Charlotte Ward:Oh man living with the dream, the day they're looking forward to it, yeah, yeah.
Andrew Rios:I also say this too this is my. I guess it's not a caution or anything, but it's no surprise. And I'll share a story very quick for you, which is earlier in my career, back in my early, early days, right as a program manager, getting ready to start pivoting into leadership team building, I used a report one week to surprise a team and show that they weren't performing or they didn't hit their action items. And I did it candidly. I was young, right it was. There was some conflict in this and I wanted to keep it professional but also say, no, I'm going to do something and I did it and I'm great. I'm glad it happened because I learned quickly.
Andrew Rios:My boss at the time he was very good at in the room reprimanding me in front of everyone without reprimanding me in front of everyone. But everyone knew, oh, there was going to be a conversation after that and he slid right in and he was hey, what I think Andrew meant to represent here was an opportunity to, and he went into it and I just was. I was feeling this small right. First I came in thinking it was going to be. Then I felt this big, but I was watching and learning from him going. Okay, no surprises, never again.
Andrew Rios:And that's how you coach someone in front of people. And, um, that was a moment for me that I said I always tell support leaders because they'll have that, oh, I'm going to show this and I'm like, ok, I'm going to show 10% bug, customer impact on that bug, and there's OK, but go tell the team first, let them know that they're going to be the highlight there, but then spin it with. And this is what we're doing and I'm looking for this collaboration because we can get us support leaders, because we're we're passionate right, everyone's passionate, but we have what I like to be biased and say, a different level of it. Um, which which makes us great support leaders is don't surprise them that, just don't and you'll get more out of that sure yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Charlotte Ward:I think I'm with you 110% on as much positive, pure positive commentary as you can give. Be realistic and honest about the negatives no surprises for sure. But wherever there's a, and elaborate on what you're going to do about it. And and I think that, um, that comes across as improvement, right, which is just another positive. It's a, it's just a way of saying we're aware and we are doing things.
Charlotte Ward:I think there is a um, I think there is a third direction for some of this data, and it's not a nice one, but it's kind of when you know there's a problem but don't make sense to do anything about it right now. You know the roi one way or another on the on doing anything about this problem, whether it's engineering time, whether it's tooling, whether it's your time because you've got bigger fish to fry, thank frankly, um. I think sometimes there is a third way, which is using, whether it's the report or whether it's some other communication channel, to say we also know this is a problem, but we're not doing anything about that right now, because and it's the because thing that's important, I think because, yeah, it shows your awareness, which I think is really important, because if you don't demonstrate you're aware of the problem. Someone else is going to come and tell you about the problem you know been there but but like, demonstrate awareness and and give your reasoning why you're not doing anything.
Charlotte Ward:You know, and I think that's that's the flip side of like we're aware of this thing and we're doing something, but you can't fix everything in day one right. So you have to prioritize, you have to strategize, you have to look at, like, the cost and benefits of everything and, frankly, some things you've just got to kick down the road and it's okay so long as you're able to say why exactly.
Andrew Rios:I think you hit it with the, with the wide part, because one of what's one of the biggest things that our team say is nobody's listening to us. They don't listen to us. Well, it's the difference between, like you say, yes, they listen, the decision which is not, or ours, elaboratively, we decided not to. Here's why we don't have to always agree with it, but we got an answer. And here, you know, and um, that's an important conversation to have with the team because it makes, when they do listen and there is collaboration, so much sweeter and it gives us. But they are listening even more, right, they are listening even more, and I think that's something I'm here is like.
Andrew Rios:I take a step back in my weekly report. That's another report, I said, but it's more just an email to my boss every week that says, hey, here's what went well, here's what could have gone better, and here are the priorities for next week, and it isn't a regurgitation of the calendar or anything, it's just a pulse check, a temperature check, and that's where we would put some of those items, you know, and um, I think that's another. But between those two things, you're able to communicate with the team. Here's what's happening, here's what we're doing. Here's what we're not doing. Here's the why. If we have to go deeper into it, let's go deeper into it.
Charlotte Ward:So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So we've talked quite heavily about platforms. You know your weekly report, your support report and the conversations and the mechanics of of leveraging that. Um, there is a wider topic here, I think, which is just general, like going into a new role and like how you communicate what um outside of platforms, how you talk to people, how you build relationships, how you uh, you know, I mean, frankly, there's a little bit of like, uh, I don't want to call it staking your claim, but, but it is like.
Charlotte Ward:You know, I've been hired for a reason this is I'm the expert here. I guess it's confidence building, it's trust building. Actually, that's what it is Right and I think that. So there is an element of that like how you achieve that. Particularly, you know, particularly in startup land, things move really quickly. You've got to hit the ground, you know, running fairly quickly, right, um, so you have to build some of those relationships really quickly and say it's okay, I've got this, I know what I'm doing, right. Yes, how do you, how do you build that? How do you build those relationships? How do you open those communication channels outside of the platforms that we're talking about?
Andrew Rios:yeah, it's just having those conversations with as many people as you can, right, and and planning them with the intention of really learning the current state and not just, oh, this is the current state of how we do it today, but the current state of how it got there, like, okay, kind of what was the decisions made, what was the thought process, because when you understand that you'll kind of understand, maybe when you bring your experience and what was missing. Oh, okay, now I understand, okay, that makes sense, and then it helps you myself. You know, prioritize what's the first change that needs to happen, right, because change is hard and it's that first change that really starts to make change harder for everyone. So, really trying to understand and get there and I think I also and this is one of those things I use a four-character approach I like to use, which is you have to, especially being an experienced leader in a function, you have to enjoy being a tourist, you have to enjoy learning because you're going to go in there and I felt it.
Andrew Rios:You know, day, week three and go. Oh well, we just got to just hear.
Andrew Rios:But it's like OK, but doing that now, do I get more? By doing it six weeks from now, is there any difference? Is it a showstopper? Is it a customer killer? Is it a brand killer? And if the answers are no to those it's like okay, continue to understand. And then you switch into what I say be a detective. And you want to be a detective to really find out who's going to build with you, because you can't build it all by yourself. Right? That's something I learned.
Andrew Rios:If you started to go as much as I think I can. I can't do it by myself. I need some people along with me, and not everybody wants to what I call call work on the business.
Charlotte Ward:They're happy just working in the business, and that's awesome too.
Andrew Rios:But identifying which are which and then saying, okay, what's my first change, what's my first little project, and start to see how that culture navigates. Do we use a project name? And then, at the end of the day, also the third approach question that I always say to the transfer is how much coaching do I have to do holistically, how much coaching do I have to do individually and then flip the coin around, how much more?
Andrew Rios:do I have to go, because I still got to learn here too, right, either the product, the service, the language, maybe the industry. And then what I like to say is, like you know, after those first couple months and it's going to seem sometimes like forever, but really when you look at it, oh, it's only been, oh, yes, then you're going to start humming and running, you know, and I think that's, and but I always say that starting with those communications too, verbally talking, and then writing them down, right, I think I've already finished one notebook since I've been here, but just notes and you know, line parts and just kind of know, okay, what about this, what about that?
Andrew Rios:and then going back to it, so okay, what else happened? Right?
Charlotte Ward:and I think?
Charlotte Ward:I think that's a great opportunity for, like all of that note-taking, and that touring is a great opportunity for correlation, isn't it?
Charlotte Ward:Because you know understanding where dysfunction is happening between two parts of the business that, frankly, as any support leader will tell you, one way or another, it's going to land on your desk Because you're downstream of everything.
Charlotte Ward:So if product and engineering aren't working well, or product and marketing, or sales and marketing, something's going to get missold, like built without the right narrative or the right dots, whatever it is, it's going to land in front of a customer, which means they're coming to you. So I think, while you're touring, like it's a good opportunity, coming in fresh, to listen to everyone's narratives and see, kind of, if they line up or if there are frictions, because you as a, as a tourist, can ask the questions that are probably they've all given up asking because they've been around. Like this is just how we do it around here in this team, you know, um, and there's another team on the other side of the wall saying the same thing. It's like understanding that as a new leader is kind of interesting, I think, and it's an opportunity to kind of spot things that are going to cause trouble later on and you say that's a great.
Andrew Rios:You know, remind another thing that's experienced recently. And even. And then there's going to be that day where you think I thought, oh, I think I got it, I think I got 85 percent of it, good, and then two days later, I find out three things. I'm like wait, how come no one told me this? And it was because they just didn't know, and they was like I don't know. So then and this is where, like you as leaders, we got to like pause and go. Okay, I got to coach this, so they know why the next time as we bring a new person on, or why it's important to share this information, or why we want to put that out there and maybe not accept that decision and maybe think about changing it, or maybe celebrate that that was a good move, or whatever it may be, but those things still occur. I think that's why we probably call it 100-day plan, right? I don't know.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. And I mean, I think the 100-day plan, or 30, 60, 90, or whatever it is you're doing, I think the tourist time is the time where that probably changes most.
Andrew Rios:Yes, yes, you know.
Charlotte Ward:I mean, did we ever get 30 days into a 30, 60, 90 without changing the 60 and the 90?
Andrew Rios:quickly, quickly, you know, and I and I have those notes and I go back to my weeklies I sent to my manager, right. So there's been I don't know eight of them, nine of them, and I look back at them and I go, oh, yeah, there's been a oh wait, no, this way, oh, we're gonna go here now. But what I've noticed as I come in now to this, as we're gonna kind of redo our ticketing instance and we got some things coming and I feel like, okay, we're about to lay our first couple of bricks, right, it's like. But we're still I in this more of a humbleness. The experience just goes. We still got here. It wasn't the way I originally thought, but we still are getting to this first hurdle. We're going to overcome it, yeah, and we're going to be better for it, and I learned about it, right.
Charlotte Ward:So and sometimes, sometimes, yeah, sometimes, you just have to have patience for that as well, don't you? You know, sometimes you've just got to say you know what the time for this will come. You know, like you can't, absolutely, absolutely you can't do it all alone, you can't do it all on day one or day 30, but some of those early discoveries, it's like something's got to be done about that, but it's not now, yes, exactly.
Andrew Rios:Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, something's got to be done about that, but it's not now.
Charlotte Ward:Yes, exactly yeah exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, andrew, thank you. This has been uh a joy, as it always is, um, and you could certainly give me some, some more food for thought, uh, and I hope, our listeners too. Um, what are we going to? I'm going to get you on a promise now. Promise me, you'll come back and have another conversation.
Andrew Rios:Absolutely Always, always. I'd love to be back.
Charlotte Ward:Awesome, awesome. Well, I look forward to that. I won't pin you down to a topic on that yet because I think we just we demonstrated, if nothing, at the start of this that it's not very good. I'm not very good at sticking to a topic in the opening hour, opening minutes of a of a recording, like you could go anywhere, but I think we got there. We. I think we covered it all like it's, it's it's relationship building, it's it's discovery and, uh, building confidence in, in your understanding of it, but confidence in you within the business as well, and I think there's so many facets to that. So I think we covered a lot of ground in a relatively short time. Thank you so much.
Andrew Rios:Absolutely, we did. It's always great to talk to you. Always great to talk to you. You're always so inquisitive and thoughtful with the questions. The conversation is always so natural. So thank you for giving me the gift of time and letting me come on and talk about all things. Cx oh my goodness.
Charlotte Ward:Oh, my goodness, you're so sweet. Thank you so much, andrew. I will talk to you again, I promise. All right, thank you so much. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaderscom forward. Slash 270 for the show notes no-transcript.