Customer Support Leaders
Customer Support Leaders
From The Archives: 36: Looking Beyond the Numbers with Ash Rhodes
Unlock the secrets behind the spreadsheets and discover the hidden complexities of customer support with me and my special guest Ash Rhodes. Ash brings his seasoned perspective on the pitfalls of reducing support staff to mere numbers, reminding us of the importance of understanding the real-time dedication required to resolve customer issues. Together, we explore the nuances of ticket handling and the dangers of setting unrealistic performance goals. Ash sheds light on the often-undocumented tasks like research and troubleshooting that contribute to the intricate web of support functions. This episode promises to transform how you view your support team and their invaluable human contributions.
Ash also introduces us to the intriguing concept of "social complexity" in the world of remote work. We discuss the critical role of team dynamics and the challenges of maintaining authentic, empathic communication in virtual environments. Learn why allowing time for social bonds to form can lead to a cohesive and productive team, and how unstructured moments of chatter are not just fluff but fundamental to effective collaboration. Whether you're a support leader or part of a remote team, these insights offer a fresh perspective on fostering a more human-centric and effective work environment.
Hello, welcome to the Customer Support Leaders podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today we're listening to one of my favourite episodes from the archives.
Ash Rhodes:Today we revisit my conversation with Ash Rhodes, when we were discussing what you can read into a spreadsheet and what you can't read in a spreadsheet to a spreadsheet and what you can't read in a spreadsheet when you spend a certain amount of time not interacting, and it's not even from the point of view of the customer. When I spend too much time not dealing with tickets, you forget how long it takes to do a ticket. And so you're like how long it takes to do a ticket, and so you're like, eh, the reps can do it in. You can do a ticket in five minutes, so reps should be able to do X number of tickets a day on average. So you start setting really unobtainable type of goals basically Not.
Ash Rhodes:Basically. You start setting more and more unobtainable goals. If you are not in there doing tickets, you start forgetting about burnout or needing to troubleshoot things and so on and so forth, Whereas if you are actually in there doing the tickets once a week or once every month or something, you remember like, oh shit, no, this is really something that is much harder than that, Like there's a much broader story.
Charlotte Ward:Because when you start looking at individuals as numbers on a spreadsheet, you're effectively reducing them to robots Cogs on a machine, Right yeah, Cogs on a spreadsheet you're effectively reducing them to robots.
Ash Rhodes:Cogs on a machine, right, yeah.
Charlotte Ward:Cogs on a machine exactly so if that's how you view them, you're only ever looking for efficiencies.
Ash Rhodes:Exactly. You are saying it's so much prettier than I could, but that is exactly what I would If anybody in my life takes anything away from. Anything I say is that don't treat your employees as numbers. Please, for the love of God like treat them as human beings and don't do that, please.
Charlotte Ward:And there are, um, there are a couple of other uh aspects to this. You talked about the complexity of the task, which are often hidden. If you do reduce your employees to numbers on a sheet, to lines in Excel, you hide all of the task complexities that aren't necessarily documented, by which I mean research time and all of those things which if you're diligent as a support organization and you're correctly using every aspect of the wonderful support tool that you've bought into, then probably there are ways to track all of that time. But who does right? So you lose a lot of that task complexity. But I think also I heard a great term recently, which is social complexity. But I think also I heard a great term recently which is social complexity, which is that there is a backdrop to any team, which is just the time and complexity needed.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, just communicating with each other, just responding to each other, just not even the communication. But finding ways to communicate, finding ways to build bonds, just interacting with each other socially has an overhead that nobody ever accounts for. What was that term? Again, Social complexity.
Ash Rhodes:I love it. I definitely need to take note of that because it is, yes, that is incredibly key and, as you know, I am an enormous remote work advocate, and that especially adds additional time. Typing takes longer than verbalizing, and so every single time you want to communicate with someone, you're using fingers. So, yes, big time.
Charlotte Ward:Yeah, it's about speed, but it's also about the time that it takes to build the relationship necessary to have efficient and empathic communications, where you really understand what the other person is trying to communicate to you. And it's also just about the logistics as well. It's getting on each other's calendars and it's allowing for time, you know, to build human bonds beyond the work. So we've all been in a meeting where it's, you know it's a 30 minute meeting. If you're lucky, the first 10 minutes are everyone just chatting, everyone just chatting, and it's easy to think well, that was a 30 minute meeting and we haven't accomplished anything that we set out. No decisions were reached, and that was because really, what you needed was a 45 minute meeting to allow for 15 minutes of chatter at the start, because people need that. That is the social complexity of building those relationships within a team, right?
Ash Rhodes:Absolutely, and I've worked in those companies where there isn't any of that chatter and it always makes me so sad. It's just people clearly just work there. They don't. I'm not going to say live there, because there's something in between and I don't have the words for it. But yeah, it's tough, yeah, but I agree with you 100%. So I'm right there with you.
Charlotte Ward:Thank you. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaderscom. Forward. Slash 36 for the show notes and I'll see you next time.