217: Building a Team from Scratch with Hilary Dudek

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode two hundred and seventeen of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. The theme for this week is building a team from scratch. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Hilary Dudek. Hello, Hillary. Now we were just talking before I hit record about how long it had been since I last spoke to you. So I mean, shockingly, here we were both thinking, oh, it's probably six months, but it's a year. I mean, where did that time go? So it's such a pleasure, so nice to have you back to talk about building a team from scratch. We'll get onto that in a minute, but welcome back. It's been so long. Would you like to reintroduce yourself?

Hilary Dudek: 1:05

Yes, I would. Thank you so much for having me back on. Yes, like you, I thought, oh, you know, we talked right around Christmas time, January, even, I think. You know, we've we've spoken in 2021. Uh no, we haven't. So I actually started a new role in August. Um, so we determined that we spoke right before that. Uh so I am now in a director of member support role for Sana Benefits, which is a healthcare startup company um based in the US, obviously. And um, yeah, it's a very good topic because that's what I've been heads down doing for the past year is just building a support team from scratch. So this is a very timely topic.

Charlotte Ward: 1:44

That's the big clue, isn't it? That's why we haven't talked for a year, is because you've been doing this, I suspect. Yes, exactly. So it's keeping you busy then. So um, well, let's talk about the beginning. Like uh, as you joined Asana and um what was the situation you walked into? You were you for their first support hire? Was there a couple of people in? Were you brought in as a first lead? What was the situation and like what could you see needed doing?

Hilary Dudek: 2:14

Yes. So I was brought in, I guess technically I would have been the fourth support hire. So um they already had two member advocates and they had an interim manager. Um so the interim manager was just there until I came on. She was actually moving laterally to a different team. So she's still Lasana, um, but just wasn't doing support. Um, so I inherited these two wonderful um member advocates as well. So it was just me and them. And we got to hiring almost immediately. Um, so we can get more into that down the line, but uh it didn't remain the three of us for very long. Um and both of those um member advocates are still with me as well. So um it was a very bare bones operation, but it was very good bones. So um just looking at their tooling, looking at we use Zendesk, um their Zendask setup. It was very simple, it was very bare bones, but there wasn't a ton of garbage that I had to clean up or processes that I needed to break and rebuild. Um, there's just nothing. So it was a blank slate, which was fabulous.

Charlotte Ward: 3:20

That's kind of a nice position to be in in some ways, isn't it? Were you was there a sense of overwhelm with that though? Because that is a lot that needs building.

Hilary Dudek: 3:29

No, because it wasn't cleanup. I didn't have to understand all of these legacy settings and all of this legacy workflows and and try to make some sense of it while learning health insurance, which I've never worked in health insurance before. Um, and the US does a very messy job of of it. Um, so no, I I wasn't overwhelmed with that. That was pretty exciting. Like, okay, like you're you're using Zendas very simply. Here I can teach you some things, like actually no thing. It was very good for any imposters under my head. It was great.

Charlotte Ward: 3:59

So great, yeah. I I mean that's the utopia, isn't it, for a support leader just to be able to go in and shape things how you want them. Um I'm very jealous. I'm very jealous. I'm in, I have been in the role I'm in now for about a year and a half, and I I stepped into a relatively small team, not in dissimilar in size to yours, but very complex environments. So lots of unpicking, lots of understanding, lots of deep dives, and I'm still discovering stuff. So it's it's scary, scary. While growing a team, good time.

Hilary Dudek: 4:33

Right. That is terrifying. That would terrify me, yes, even now.

Charlotte Ward: 4:39

Feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing talking about it. So given that you've got this opportunity almost to roll out the ideal support scenario in terms of tools and people and structure, what's your what's your first step?

Hilary Dudek: 4:54

Uh, the biggest one for me was looking at Zendas because it was such a blank slate. Um, so for example, I started very simply ticket fields. Um they had some very basic ticket fields to collect the information they needed, but nothing was conditionally formatted. Um, so you had to scroll through everything anytime. And we support multiple user types, I should clarify. We support members, providers, admin, which is like the employer group. If we get a random broker or salesperson, we're gonna help them too. So um you just scroll through all of these fields to get to the appropriate one for that appropriate user type. So that was one of the first things I did. Um, building out cleaner groups within Zendus so you could route a little bit better, build some better views. And so it was a lot of Zendesk.

Charlotte Ward: 5:39

And uh and were you building processes to support that, or was it really just about the user experience for your agents? Do you do you call them agents or advocates? Advocates. Advocates, right. Was it was it more about their experience in those early stages, or were you building processes that would help you scale? I get did you know at this time that that level of scaling that we were talking about before we hit record uh was coming?

Hilary Dudek: 6:05

I didn't know it would be so steep immediately, um, but I did know it was coming. I mean, we were growing rapidly and with two agents on the internal side. And gosh, I think I think we only had six total on the BPO side. So we use an outsource team as well. So they were relatively small as well. Um, so I didn't realize the growth would be that steep as far as people. Um, so at some points it was almost a balancing act because here I am building out, you know, I want to build out this view for for subject matter experts in this area, but I only have two people, so I'll have to wait till I get experts for this group. Um, so it's a balancing act between the processes and what I was building in the infrastructure.

Charlotte Ward: 6:47

Yeah, yeah. I when I joined my current role, I kind of and I still do have this view of what we'll need a year from now. And I try and I try and have that in mind, and you know, obviously it evolves, but in my experience, we tend to get to the year from now and be grateful for having put that some of those early pieces in place. But you're so right, it's kind of cyclical, isn't it? There's there are definitely things I've come to experience, come to understand that I know have a lead time to them. I always talk about the lead time to when they'll be there most useful and the or the build time or the you know time to value, whatever you want to call it. It's kind of we need to build this now because we need it in a year, or we need it in six months. And and so some of the cycles that you have to go through, and and and definitely what you said there was kind of figuring out how far you could take something before you'd have to switch off that because you didn't have the next piece ready yet. And and that's quite often people, or or a bit of tooling that you don't have funding or investment to implement yet, isn't it? So I fully appreciate the cycles you're talking about.

Hilary Dudek: 7:56

Exactly. And that's a very that's much more succinct way of describing them. So thank you for that. Um but yeah, Sauna does a really good job of um building OKRs, objectives, and key results for the company that also make a lot of sense and apply down to the team and department level. Um, so we do always have those goals for not only the next quarter, but just sort of a year end. Okay, here's what we want to be. Uh, here's where I have a general sense of where I want to be in 2022. Nothing crazy, but um, they do a really good job, leadership does of setting us up for success. And here's generally where we want to go, start planning. Um, so yeah, and then I have wonderful recruiters on my side. So I have a good sense, since I've scaled so much, what the lead time for hiring someone is. Um on the partner hero side, on the BPO side, same thing. I understand their their lead time as well. So um, yeah, it's just a matter of getting it all into place.

Charlotte Ward: 9:02

So after you've invested in Zendesk and gone through those Zendesk slash people slash tool like process cycles that we just talked about. Um and and you do have a good set of OKRs in place that allow you that longer vision. What's the interim been like? You have, you know, pretty you've you've you've gone through some amazing growth and are expecting some scary growth for the reason.

Hilary Dudek: 9:28

Yes. Yes.

Charlotte Ward: 9:31

Um as you begin to hire then in these roles, and and like we we've talked about hiring elsewhere on the podcast. So this isn't necessarily like a hiring episode all of a sudden, but I am interested in did you at the same time as all of this build a hiring process as well? Or was that already in place before you arrived? You know, that's one of the constituent parts of building a team from scratch, is understanding who you need to bring in, isn't it?

Hilary Dudek: 9:56

Yes, yes. Uh that process was already pretty well put in place. Um, we have a fabulous, well, at the time it was just one recruiter. Uh, she was the same recruiter that hired me. So she knew very well support and the support mindset and what they were looking for. Um, so she's been fabulous to work with. And then um, not my direct manager, but my VP of operations came from a support background as well. So he was very um key in getting that sort of profile set for the member advocates that we wanted. Um, so I didn't have to do too much there. I definitely had my own two cents, um, but I generally aligned with my VP, which I took as a really good sign. We've been on the same page for the most part. So um tweaked the case study, you know, did it did a few things, but nothing crazy. The the biggest things came in for a while. We thought, I thought I needed a support operations manager. Um and so that role was posted for a while this year, actually. And so I built out the job description, built out the case study, was doing the recruiting and the profiling for that. Um, and we determined ultimately, I don't think, I don't think we're there yet. I don't think that's we don't need a person there. We need a tool like a workforce management tool, we need a team manager, we need some other pieces in place before we move forward with that part of the team growth. Um, so to answer your question, the basis for hiring an advocate was already in place and was really solid, but new job descriptions, I tackled myself.

Charlotte Ward: 11:25

Yeah, yeah. I think I'm in a similar place now. I'm I'm deciding at what point it makes sense to bring in a support ops person because again, building from scratch, you know, the operations are such a key part of it. You have the luxury of a fairly greenfield Zendesk site to build on in many respects, but but it comes to us all eventually, doesn't it? You just need to invest time in operations, and uh yeah, for for me with the the I mean this sounds awful. We have a term here, I don't know if you use it in the US, but the opposite of greenfield is brownfield. Okay. I have to have to stress at this point that the brown is more, think of it as construction, dust, and dirt and stuff. It's something that's it's an area that's been developed, it's not any other sort of brown substance. Okay, it's my info.

Hilary Dudek: 12:16

I was gonna say, I have children, so that's where my brain went.

Charlotte Ward: 12:19

Yeah, yeah. Um, I'm I I'm not entirely sure how I ended up on this, except say that I am I uh I am in an environment where there's been a lot of development already operationally, particularly within the tools. Um yes, and and so I want I'm wondering whether I need support ops in a little earlier because that can be a lot to deal with. And and as I say, it comes to us all eventually. But do you think that's a tie a future higher for you still?

Hilary Dudek: 12:47

I do. I think we have more growth to do before we get there. There was just other opportunities that we hadn't taken advantage of yet. Um, I can't write SQL, uh Read SQL, any of that, but we do have a data analyst on the team. She's not really a ZenDesk person, but she she can create things in mode from ZenDesk. Um, so there's an opportunity, you know, maybe I can outsource some of the reports I need to build. Um, another big one was the workforce management tool. Like just I don't have time if I'm in meetings all day to shift people from the provider phone line to the member phone line because of staffing coverage issues. Um, but now I have a manager who is very well versed in ZenDest. So between her and a workforce management tool that'll tell me where I need coverage, I think I'm good. Like I've bought myself some time there. And the other big part was I mean, we all struggle, I think, to some extent, forecasting. Um, and this tool should hopefully be able to do that. I haven't implemented yet, but it's I've got approval for it. So I'll keep you updated on that.

Charlotte Ward: 13:51

I just I need to get I need to speak to your leaders because or maybe to you. You've got some huge powers of persuasion there, I think, with your leaders if they're investing where they need to invest in the tooling to save you the headaches later on because because everything you just said there, everyone listening to this podcast will recognize uh the early pain points. I am I am still doing my forecasting in a complex spreadsheet. I'm still doing scheduling in a Google Calendar and a series of spreadsheets. Yeah, same. We've all been there. We've all been there.

Hilary Dudek: 14:28

Yes, yes. I I think I like to think it's a combination. I've I'm not green, I'm not new to this anymore. So I've I've learned where to apply some pressure, what points to bring up. But at the same time, I think it's just I know everyone, you know, typically loves their company a year in, but I I still feel like I I'm on day one here. Like everyone is just amazing and they're supportive. And I don't know, they just use common sense. Like if I can present a good argument for they're like, yeah, absolutely. Like you need this, let's do it. So um I've I've joked with my VP before. I'm like, I know someday you'll tell me no, but thank you for saying yes so much. I appreciate it.

Charlotte Ward: 15:07

Yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe it helps that he comes from a support background, right? That definitely comes with that definitely increases that understanding of the of the challenges. Uh and whatever support team you're in, whatever support team you're leading, the challenges are pretty consistent, particularly when you're growing. Yes, agreed. And uh and and I guess then, you know, as we round out this conversation, which has been largely about your journey with the sana, thinking about other people's journeys, uh what would you say to someone else? Or even let's let's pretend we've got a time machine and you can travel back a year as we've established it's been a yeah, to do to give yourself some advice in this situation, maybe. Um doesn't sound, I mean, it's uh you you've clearly had challenges, but you've also had a lot of successes. But what's the what's the piece of advice you would give yourself or anyone coming to this situation right now?

Hilary Dudek: 16:06

Yeah. Um two things I would have done differently, or just done sooner, rather. Um, hiring, so because we are healthcare slash health insurance, um, you know, open enrollment on January 1st is a big thing. So yeah, it starts ramping up at end of Q4, beginning of Q1. So I would have had people in place sooner. I thought I timed it right. I did not. It was I had people onboarding or brand new, right, when I needed them to be really at their peak. Um, so that's a lesson learned for this year. Higher end of July, end of August. Um, the other thing I would have done since I have an internal team and a outsourced team is make sure that you have a quality QA rubric that is um universally interpreted. So we were interpreting interpreting it different. It also super wasn't super robust. Um, so between that, um, we were seeing like, you know, some misalignment as far as sauna values and tone and that sort of thing. So I would have had that in place sooner. Um so yeah, take a look at the quality rubrics that you have in place when you're first starting, assess all of your tooling in general, and then get a good sense from the people that have been there, what hiring ramp up time looks like, and when you're expected to be busiest if you don't have a forecasting schedule already in your in your hands.

Charlotte Ward: 17:32

There are just all excellent pieces of advice. I wish uh I wish I, you know, I could have had a time machine to go back at myself many times in my career and and just told myself very much the same things. Hire early is such a key thing, you know. It's um it's painful if you hire too late because you're already overstretched, and then the hiring and onboarding itself is a burden. So that's a big one for me. Yeah, yeah, lovely. Okay, thank you so much for joining me again today, Hilary. Can we not leave it a year next? Yes.

Hilary Dudek: 18:07

I'm coming up for air. Yes, I would love to come back and talk to you. So let's do it soon. We can dive into maybe some of those other aspects.

Charlotte Ward: 18:16

Would love to, would love to. Some of the I there's three solid conversations on those pieces of advice. So let's get those, uh let's get those recorded for uh everyone else listening because there's there's um there's a lot we can unpick there, let's say.

Hilary Dudek: 18:30

Let's see what you get. Thank you, Charlotte.

Charlotte Ward: 18:36

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash two one six for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.