Charlotte Ward: 0:13
Hello and welcome to episode three hundred and fourteen of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today, Alec Maloney talks about support as a final destination. Today I'd like to welcome back Alec Maloney. Alec, lovely to have you back. Um, how are you doing? Would you like to introduce yourself?
Alec Moloney: 0:41
Sure, great to be here. And I'm doing well. It's been three, four months since we last chatted, so not too long, at least on the podcast. We talk practically every day otherwise. Um I right, so at a very high level, I'm sport manager for the Australian team at my current company. I've previously worked for sport for near on a decade. Um yeah, on and off since pretty much I was a teenager. As I am approaching 30, it's been quite a few years.
Charlotte Ward: 1:14
Wow, milestone coming up. Milestone growing up in support, huh? I suppose that's what we're here to talk about, actually. See what I did there? See what I did there? It's like it's it's uh I'm such an expert at this now. Um we are here. Um we gave this the kind of slightly cheeky uh title of support as a final destination, which I think you might have thought was funnier than I thought, but here we are, we're talking about millennial humour, what can I say? I know, I know. Um I I think I'm I'm just about if you scrape the barrel of some some websites out there that claim what the um what the age bracket for a millennial is.
Alec Moloney: 1:52
I think I'm I'm about a year 90 sixty to two thousand rather.
Charlotte Ward: 1:57
Something like that. Yeah, I'm definitely not a millennial, not really. Um anyway, yeah, millennial humour. Um, but support as a final destination. We were just chatting before we started recording about, you know, um a lot of the conversations I've had on the podcast around support as a career and the position of the function in the business and all of that kind of thing. I've had quite a few chats with a lot of leaders over the years about that sort of um the culture and the place and the career side of support as as much as AI and the business of doing and being support. But um, like this this idea
Charlotte Ward: 2:35
of support as a final destination, as funny as it is, what do we even mean by that to start with?
Alec Moloney: 2:42
I think it's a fair question, right? And from experience, at least here in Australia throughout my career, support hasn't been when I first started out in full-time commercial, it was very much seen as those people on the phones. And that was the way that support was seen. It was very still that mentality of it's a call center esque kind of error. Like we hadn't yet evolved to what the modern support was. And I think seeing support as a final destination for me, it's understanding that it's no longer just the first step in the door. It's about how do we take support and how do we make sure that the perception of our teams as they evolve, no like you know, it lets go of those sort of tropes that they persist everywhere, because there's a lot of established organizations that have been running for multiple decades where support was a call center and then it's grown into something more. And I think as leaders, the challenge for us and for our teams as well is understanding how support is no longer just that first level into a company where you then jet set off into product or sales or marketing wherever else that you want to go. It can in and of itself be a career, be a final destination for people, and also people within companies that are looking to step into different type of customer-facing work or different type of operational work, it's also a destination to not necessarily just be seen as you're coming into support to go somewhere else. It can also be you're coming into support from somewhere else. And I think that's an important and valuable thing we have to build.
Charlotte Ward: 4:36
Yeah, I I couldn't agree more. Um, and I think so. I think just to be clear, like, and as someone who has had a career in support, you know, we have talked on the podcast um a few times over the years about building careers in support, but those have been very much focused on the individual and what the individual can do to build the skills, to climb the ladder, to navigate, um, you know, from a very personal level, their um the the longevity and how they make themselves kind of uh um how they build themselves a ri a rewarding career in support rather than kind of seeing it as a place where they just happen to have landed and and are kind of sat on that treadmill. Um, which I think it sort of speaks to partly what we want to cover. And I I think we've established this is probably going to be a two-part conversation. So there'll be a follow-up to this at some point in the very near future. But but if we break out of this as like something that where the onus is on the individual and think about it more as the function and how that um both is perceived as a place that people want to move to and stay, um, and how you build that inside the team. I think those are the sort of two facets that we're talking about here, right? And we'll cover one of them today and one of them next time, perhaps. So, where do you want to start today? Are we talking more about the perception or are we are we going to dive onto the uh the inside the team facet first?
Alec Moloney: 6:15
I think perception is driving a lot of how teams see themselves at
Alec Moloney: 6:20
the moment. So let's start with the sort of external outside in view, and then we'll cover the internal view in the next episode.
Charlotte Ward: 6:28
That's actually a really good point because yeah, the the perception, um, how support is seen and behaves in the business really drives the culture inside the team. Yeah, so great, let's start there. So so traditionally then this idea that support is that stepping stone. Um you're right. I think you know, the uh ancient history, I've been in it in support even longer than you. Um ancient history, yeah, the call centers, the big support teams, the early tech companies, and I'm going back 30 years or more. Yeah, they would build this as a place where you would come and ticket bash, and um you would have a few seniors who would be there for quite some time and then probably move into um into, you know, some like deeply um customer-facing, bespoke like you'd move into professional services or something like that, quite a typical path. Actually, I I think probably more a more typical path back then than into engineering or product. They seemed much more closed doors um in the 90s than they are now. Um, but certainly we see that pattern still be quite pervasive today in in much smaller companies. You know, people move into support and then they go on to professional services and then product or customer success and then, you know, um account management. Like that, these are well-trodden paths, aren't they?
Alec Moloney: 7:52
Definitely. And I I think the challenge for us is customer support is very customer service heavy. So it does have a relatively low bar to entry when it comes to if we're gonna use like level support sort of language, like level one support, where it's you're engaging with customers, you're delivering CX experiences. I know neither of us love the model inherently, and we much prefer the mixed mixed layer support models, but for the sake of sort of typing the types of work, it does have a lower barrier to entry where you can take effectively a graduate candidate, throw them into the role with you know the appropriate level of enablement documentation materials to support them. And the focus when you first get into the role, right, is learn how to engage with the customers in you know the right manner and deliver good, you know, sort of like good customer experience, good customer outcomes, secondary to learning technical and like the problem-solving skills. And then as you get comfortable with those aspects, you then grow into those sort of intermediate skill spaces. And what I found the challenge we have is as you start to grow into those intermediate skill spaces, and especially once you exceed them, there's a lot of I guess it's habitual still where people go, oh okay, so you know, you get those questions of well, what do you want to be? Like, where do you want to go? And I've I've had managers myself sit me down and go, okay, what do you want your next step to be from support? And it's been a really interesting conversation. Even like through through like once I became a support leader, I've still had those types of conversations where I was thinking, well, you know, do you want to go and become an engineering manager or do you want to become like a product manager? And it it stuns people, I think, when you have people like you and me who are like, well, actually we're happy in support. And that's because it's been so ingrained that we have this pathway where you get to that sort of like intermediate advanced skill set, and then you go and do something else. And I like to I like to think that I've got a team right now with some incredibly long-tened team members who have been there for over a decade in support, and they're awesome. And I think it goes to show that there's definitely people who want to stay in support. And I think it's on us when we talk about how is the team perceived and how do people see the team that people recognize it isn't just a one-step destination for someone to come out, you know, into the market as a graduate and then step off somewhere else. It can also be a place where yes, you build successful careers, you build long-tenured, long-term environments for team members that offer meaningful progression, which brings us to kind of our first topic off the slide. But I think a big part of what forms the perception of support is it comes down to how you market within your company to the rest of the company as much as within the team itself. What does progression look like? I've been in environments where like a snowplow, we have you know effectively read for melting levels, and that was a good way to frame it because you didn't come into support and go, okay, I'm just gonna be a support engineer forever. It was as I improve, as I progress in my skill sets, I can grow into new roles and vary the complexity of the work, but also the project work, the operational work that you pick up. And I think that's a really good starting point. I think there's a lot of teams that still are living in the I'll call it the old world model of right or wrong of okay, you're doing level one work, you're doing level two work, you're doing level three work, and those are three roles, and those are the only three roles. And I think that really caps people because if you've got someone who's excellent customers at level two, they're never going to get to a level three role. But for their progression, they're not seeing, hey, I've got an opportunity where I can continue to grow vertically inside of like a um, I guess a horizontal job layer, like a job family, whatever you want to call it.
Charlotte Ward: 12:01
Yeah.
Alec Moloney: 12:01
And I think that's something that as leaders we need to think about is how do we make sure that our teams know I don't have to keep getting more and more technical. I can just
Alec Moloney: 12:10
keep getting better and do different types of work at the same level.
Charlotte Ward: 12:14
Yeah, yeah. I think um I think so much of the onus is on the leader. I think you use the M word there, the marketing word, and that's something that I've always like quite deeply believed is quite a big part of my job. And I mean, marketing sort of maybe is a different word than I might use, um, because I think that makes it seem kind of um all about you know, fluff and influence and and and not about substance. And um, and so I I would say maybe influence is a better word, um, and uh even better from my point of view is advocacy. Um and so as a leader, when I think about how I want my team to be perceived, the people in my team to be perceived, but also the function to be perceived. I see advocacy as a huge part of my role as a leader. Yes, I have to deliver the function, yes, I have to get the job done. Um, and that's that's the primary part of my role is ensuring we're delivering against our KPIs and we're doing that in a in an effective way. Um, and then, you know, that we're meeting customer expectations, we're meeting our contractual obligations, and then beyond that, that like, you know, that sort of thing that quite often forced to support teams is the cost management, so sort of the compelling kind of nature of being more efficient over time as well. Um, but you know, like the uh the um the kind of basics of delivering the function, you know, uh the commercial risk, then the uh the uh, you know, are we are we are we doing the work well and then doing it efficiently? I think after that, the second facet of my role is to be a cut cut is to be an advocate for the function internally as the leader. And it it's not it's not secondary to everything else in a tiny way. It's actually quite a big part of my role as well. Um, assuming I've nailed the first part, the next biggest thing is advocating. And and that that can be everything from like making sure we're hurt, we're we're heard in other leadership meetings to making sure that the numbers are being read in the right way, to making sure that um the the what the language that's used about support in the business is the language that I want to be used about support in the business. And uh it's showing up and like relentlessly advocating for the function does a goes a long way to to that perception, changing that perception.
Alec Moloney: 14:56
Absolutely. And I I think the other word I'm sure we've used it in the past is narrative, right? It's yes, what's the narrative that is being told in the business about support? And you know, if you've got teams sitting there where the narrative in the business is well, people come in and then they leave support, that's not going to shift the way that the business sees the department, the function. It's going to continue to perpetuate the well, this is how it works. And I think exactly to your point, as leaders, yes, we've got to make sure the operational engine hums with the you know finite sort of tones that it needs to deliver all outcomes, but there's very much reality where for both I think, like what I'm gonna call the people and perception component, as well as the operational component, we need to have compelling narratives that are well understood to your point. We want to make sure people are saying what we would like to be said about support is our functions as our teams, and it's not detracting from where we want to go in the future. Yeah, yeah.
Charlotte Ward: 16:07
Um one of the one of the um things that has been more valuable to me in terms of beginning to because I think you know, going out into the business as a leader and kind of advocating, you know, into the ether, you know, shouting into the void to a degree, um without firm ground to stand on is um is counterproductive. And um I think what we shouldn't lose sight of is is that in order to advocate well, you need firm ground, and firm ground can be um it built, create it firm ground is created in all of the things that a good leader is doing anyway to get the job done. And so the machinery can be humming, and then the next the next step is how you talk about it. So the groundwork has to be there, you have to be effective. Um uh and the um there are just some really simple things that I've I've done over the years, and some of them have been learned by some of the awesome people I've spoke spoken to on the podcast, actually. Um, and uh, you know, and have changed and evolved over the years. But but like the marketing side of this has to begin with delivering well, and then you can then you can
Charlotte Ward: 17:40
build the kind of um the uh channels, the facets of communication that allow you to do that marketing, build those narratives. And one of the biggest things I've put in place very early at Snowplow, which was something that another support leader suggested to me probably seven years ago at this point, was a support report. So just just building the stories you want in a repeatable way that you can talk to the business about over and over again. Because I know we've talked um occasionally occasionally about the importance of like telling the stories repeatedly, you know, and and like it does people aren't gonna learn something from you when they hear it once. This is a big marketing ploy, right? It's a sales tactic, it's saying the same thing three times. And and so um from my point of view, that perception begins in building building the muscle yourself, getting the numbers, and then telling the story over and over again and getting better at it. That that that is ultimately what earns you the right to be heard.
Alec Moloney: 18:43
Yeah. No, definitely. And I think you're right about I'm gonna say that support report from my time at Snowflood was a really big takeaway for me. And I think anyone in any business would benefit from that practice, just in virtue of even if it's only your own team, because there's so many teams sitting out there going, Well, how is support actually doing? And it's really hard to demonstrate change over time when things are on fire because you always feel like you're running and you're firefighting. And I think inside teams and also like the rest of the business to your point, it's really tough to get that sort of like perception right ahead of trying to guess, you know, get it to be a place you want to be, it needs to not be like it's on fire to start with. So building that narrative to go, hey, it's on it started on fire, but it's actually getting better. And then obviously once you're better, demonstrating, hey, it's better now and we're actually now improving, that's that's really key.
Charlotte Ward: 19:41
And the other thing I would say is like support isn't often well uns understood outside of support. So so being able to draw those longer form narratives is a is a big part of it as well, right? It's a big uh it it's an education as much as an advocacy or marketing exercise.
Alec Moloney: 19:58
Yeah, no, 100%.
Charlotte Ward: 20:00
So so if you if you put all that effort in as a leader then, what what um what are the um How are the different functions going to relate to that, do you think? How how do you think that um a product person or an engineering person or a customer success person? Um what are the what are the change let's say what are the changing attitudes that you're hoping to inspire in those functions beyond the high level of oh support is actually a place that looks interesting.
Alec Moloney: 20:42
It's a good question. I think the crux of it brook it's gonna give you like one of those fun it's got many facets to the answer. But I think it really comes down to the individual people, right? And I think it's about building understanding across an organization of what support actually offers in terms of a role. I think there's a lot of people that, right? They see support as, oh God, I've got to deal with the customer, or oh god, I'm just gonna be on the the end of a phone line with very unhappy customers all day, I'm gonna be saying no all the time. Like it's not necessarily a place that people, I think, in immediately can, you know, you think of like some big telecom call center, you don't think of solving interesting problems as the core foundation, I think, in a lot of cases. And yes, you're always the person that everyone comes to to ask for help. But I think when you're outside the sort of engine looking in, it support feels like that place that everyone just descends upon. And I think it's building that understanding across companies of favors progression opportunities. So you have to demonstrate progression. Nobody wants to think, oh, I'm going into that role and I'm gonna be stuck in that same role for a decade. They want to know they can progress still with a career. And then I think the other half of it, right, is being able to demonstrate that like for people who are relationship led, there are opportunities, there are spaces inside support teams and how we operate that let you demonstrate and have that sort of capability. It's not all purely transactional, it's not all purely relationship for you know the engineering types that like solving tough problems. It depends on the profile of your products, obviously, but there are spaces where you can get like snowblouse the infrastructure knowledge server side where you can stretch those muscles, and it's definitely not the equivalent of going
Alec Moloney: 22:40
and being, you know, a SRE or a DevOps person writing, you know, Kubernetes Terraform launch modules, but you've got the equivalent exposure and that equivalent how do I troubleshoot this when the thing goes bump in the night environments. And that's what I hope anyone in a wider business takes away is no, you're not really doing a lot of sales, but there is commercial awareness. And it's often a blend of those skills. And I think there's I know probably quite similar in that regard if we both enjoy the blended sort of skill environment that we find and support. But I think there's other people seeing out there who probably enjoy that as well. And I think it's not something we necessarily, as an industry, is I guess like market well right now in terms of hey, it's not just some place that you start as a generalist before you become a specialist in another role. It can also be, hey, if you want to, you know, be a if you're a jack of all trades sitting as a product manager, you've got opportunities to come and work in support in different types of roles if you're looking for a different change of pace, different type of operational environment to you know stretch your muscles in. So I think I think that's the big takeaway there.
Charlotte Ward: 23:55
Yeah, you use the G word, you said generalist, and and I think that actually is a really good um a good uh thread to pull at because in my experience, generalists in any organization are often um misunderstood, um, underpaid in the uh in the fabric and uh and you know not um not necessarily um recognized, right? And I but I do think, and I think that is part and parcel of the support role generally in most organizations. Support is full of generalists, it's full of people who can flex one way or another, can de-escalate a customer and then go and solve something fairly gnarly the the following half hour without finding that change of direction jarring. Um and uh and and in fact finding it invigorating. Um and uh and and I think that this idea that support is a transit place is you know a place where you only come in and then move on from, um, perhaps means that the generalists out there that have found themselves in other roles don't currently consider it a place they would move to and actually be able to scratch that itch, as you say.
Alec Moloney: 25:22
Yeah, absolutely. And I I think that's I guess my core call out is when we talk about how do you make support attractive, it's have progression, but demonstrate what does support actually offer. And like I put in my nose here, right? Like understanding the role of support. But I think that role of support thing is the sort of the critical hinge for me, where there's a lot of people out there who are like, oh, well, support just answer questions, and it's like but it's way more than that. It's yeah, when when you get into like QA and specialist stops roles and side support, you're suddenly blowing the lid wide open. And I think that's something we need to always be mindful of and you know market internally as much as we do externally when we're advertising for roles and make sure that people know there's a lot more to it than maybe written on the label.
Charlotte Ward: 26:11
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, that sounds
Charlotte Ward: 26:15
like a thread we need to pull at next time then. Uh support from the inside uh as a uh as a final destination. So um thanks so much for this chat today. Um I know you're gonna come back, uh, so I don't need to ask you to come back. You're gonna come back, aren't you, Alec? Because we're gonna have part two, if nothing else. Um so I look forward to that. Uh thank you so much for joining me.
Alec Moloney: 26:40
No worries. As always, thank you for having me. We'll be back for part two.
Charlotte Ward: 26:45
We'll be back for part two, indeed. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash three one four for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.
