Charlotte Ward: 0:13
Hello and welcome to episode three hundred and sixteen of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. Today Alec returns to talk about support as a final destination. Hey Alec, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me for part two of our conversation on support's final destination.
Alec Moloney: 0:41
Tyler Speed here, thanks for having me.
Charlotte Ward: 0:44
So we uh we had quite a chat last time about how support was perceived from the outside, and uh, you know, how leaders have a job in terms of advocating for support inside the business, uh telling those in narratives, building the brand and the reputation and the place for support inside the business, getting it a seat at the table is a term we've so often heard, isn't it? Um using things like the support report. But but today we're gonna pick up that thread from the inside of the function, from the inside of the team, and talk about how we build a team that people want to stay in and even maybe migrate to, right?
Alec Moloney: 1:28
Ideally. Ideally, yes. Ideally. I think, you know, like I ideally, right? Like I I think the sign of any good team is especially support, is we get a lot of long-tenued status in successful teams, and that's both a reflection of those situations where the team is a first-class citizen, it's somewhere people want to stay. And I think the other side of that is making sure that it doesn't become somewhere that people feel trapped as well. So people aren't running towards the exit from inside the team, so you don't get that sort of come in as a first step and out as quick as they can possibly get. It's building that the culture within the team to let people know, hey, this is a place you can sit down, you can stay for as long as you like and find what do you want to do, or in some cases it might be where do you want to go, but it doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna come in and six months you're gonna learn the role, and a year's time you're gonna be out of the role and into a different part of business. I think it's people understanding it's not like bulk machinery where we still see it a lot in call centers and like large-scale enterprise where they bring a cohort in by the end of you know, sixteen weeks of training six people out of a 30 cohort are still there, and those six people are who then stay in sort of the customer experience support side of things. And I think in SaaS and like B2B environments where we come from, it's much more common for people to stay long-tenued. There isn't as much of that machine. But I still think we see people will last about two to three years and then move on to either another role or move on to another business. And the challenge for us is how do we build a culture that keeps people in the same business with opportunities to progress inside support, and then as we talked about last episode, and then also what is it culturally in terms of support? I was being a first-class citizen, but what makes people stay beyond that when you're inside the team looking out rather than outside the team looking in?
Charlotte Ward: 3:36
I think I think you picked up a couple of things there, which I think are really important, and and like different facets to how we make that environment feel one where people aren't feeling trapped, like you said. Um, culture is an important one. Structure is an important one, I think. Um, and then opportunity, I think. Um, and I'm sure there'll be other things we but I think we should try and touch on each of those because those feel like three key parts to ensuring people don't feel trapped. Um
Charlotte Ward: 4:05
let's talk about, let's talk about um what I think is the easy one to be honest first, which is the structure. It's something that um I I've um personally kind of um put in place or experienced a number of times in really successful support teams where I do see people stick around for a long time. Um and uh and I think that the structure is an important um piece of groundwork for the other two, for the culture and the opportunity. So so I think if we could pick up on structure first, and I know you and I have touched on an a number of different times things around job levels and tiered support and things like that. So so what what what role do you think structure plays first?
Alec Moloney: 4:57
It's an interesting question, and I'd almost I'd almost say culture and structure are equal for me. I think either either all plays quite a big part. In terms of structure, though, to your to your to your point, and we've both had the similar experiences in the past and saying, for instance, snowflowers you have job levels, is sort of an easy way to say a shortcut of everything we could talk about here, right? To say you need to have a meaningful way that people see it as I'm not trapped as the junior person in the company. It's not even just beside support, but in the company. And I think that's a really common experience when we look at support structures that people go, well, I'm level one, or I'm just you know, support representative, and therefore what does my opinion matter? I don't have a lot of influence. I'm just here, you know, on the ground floor of the like organizationally, the organization structure itself. But I think building teams structurally where you go, hey, yes, the role may be that in reality, but the other part of structure, right, is what is the responsibilities, what is in scope of that role. It's not just uh are you answering questions? It's ideally in support, right? It's not just about answering questions, it's about solving problems, and it's about solving tough problems for customers. And you can be in a level one role and solve incredibly tough problems and deal with customers that are in really, I guess, like high-risk churn situations in the B2B environment where you can be level one and still having a really big impact. And I think structurally, it's about being able to recognize that inside of your role descriptions, it's about being able to connect that role level to the outcomes that's driving at a business level. And I think that's where I guess if we're talking like KPIs and how do you actually get into the mechanics of that structure and how it all sort of filters through. It's about understanding how do you connect the people to that in a tangible sense, not just you know, through like a values and a mission, like the cultural side of it, but the actual tangible this is where your role actually fits inside of what our company delivers to customers and for customers. So I think that's a few different pieces I've kind of covered, but summing it all up, I think from a like purely structural standpoint, that's where I'd see it having the most impact because you can be level one, but still actually contributing a lot. You don't need to be a senior in a sport team to have huge impact. You can be fresh in the, you know, fresh in the door six weeks into a role and hailing a major incident.
Charlotte Ward: 7:36
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And we've seen it, right? We've seen that happen. The uh I think it's really from a point of clarity. Um, you know how strongly I feel about single-level support models where we aren't passing tickets back to a second line somewhere. So frontline and second line doesn't exist in my world as far as possible. There isn't a there isn't a set of support people who talk less to customers than people on the front line. Everyone has an equal stake in the success. And so when when we're talking about, or at least from my perspective, when we're talking about levels here, we're talking about job levels, we're talking about the ability to progress from that entry level up to a senior and so on. But but the other part of that structure, you touched on it a bit, not quite a lot there, is is the the breadth of the role, effectively, the opportunities that you create to do complex and interesting work, whether you've been in the organisation six weeks or six months or six years. Um, and really that tenure is probably ultimately what's going to speak most to whether you are an entry-level support person or you've acquired a senior title and so on, but the breadth can be there really early on. Um and the the way that you structure your job titles and and how people can achieve the next rung on the title ladder, not the not having level support, is um is an outcome of the opportunities that you give them early on as well, I would say. So which which then talks to the breadth of the role and the opportunities you create. So so the ability to solve interesting problems, putting interesting problems in people's paths, opportunities like managing an incident, dealing with an escalation one way or another. Um Is it possible even early on to formalize that those opportunities and therefore recognize and reward those opportunities down the line, would you say?
Alec Moloney: 9:41
I
Alec Moloney: 9:42
think it is. And I'd say the foundation of any good thinking of word here, like I don't want to just say like HR process, right? But the ability to capture those moments, and I know Power uses High Bob and my current company does as well. I've been saddled to the store now for two and plenty of three jobs in a row. So but you know, it has kudos features, and I think it's those moments of being able to, as leaders, it's on us to go, hey, that person might be six weeks into their role, but they've handled that ticket really well, or they've spent that half hour extra to stay late and deliver a great outcome for a customer, or whatever that kind of moment is where they've had that impact, it's making sure that we make a note. We ideally you celebrate it, which is a bit of a cultural side, but it's making a note so when it comes back in six months' time and you're looking at how someone progressing through, let's say it is a more lateral structure, and we're talking job family title progression rather than strict sort of complexity tiering. I think you get those moments right where you can look back in six months' time and go, this person is really zooming through here, and in another six months' time, they're probably going to be ready to actually take that next step and get that recognition. And I think that's where it's it's kind of important to make sure that you take stock of those moments and you celebrate them and you recognize them and you document them. Because then that person can look back in six or twelve months' time and you can look back in six months and twelve months' time as well and go, yep, they're ready for the next step or not.
Charlotte Ward: 11:18
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The um the thing about um managing um and documenting opportunities that you've that people have uh taken advantage of, whether you know, they're opportunities that you've created for them or that the environment has created for them. Um let's face it, the environment you created has created for them. Um uh the uh what the documenting of those successes is is great from a kind of um personal satisfaction, personal um sense of achievement and growth. Um but when we're talking about handling escalations, handling incidents, staying half hour late, to to go the extra mile, those are less tangible achievements at review time to actually index a promotion to. So I think it's important to say that in in this environment, hitting those KPIs is still important. Um and so making sure the job is measurable and therefore that you can actually recognize against measures as well, as well as the opportunity. Um, that's how I've I I I just you know it's it's absolutely I'd absolutely agree.
Alec Moloney: 12:39
You've got to hit the core role before you Yeah. The current framework at RMMS is we effectively recognize the concept of an outstanding contribution against a core performer. And I think that's where you're gonna get your core performer from someone who turns up, can meet those KPIs to sort of like the current standard of the team, right? And then and it's those people who are gonna have those extra moments on top that you can start to go pushing beyond that into that sort of next promotion-ready category.
Charlotte Ward: 13:10
Yeah, exactly that. And and like this is where it's important as you as you put that structure of the job family and the job leveling in place to work with HR to ensure that they are working to the same framework. So when it comes to end of year and you're justifying those promotions, you can say, and and this will be familiar to every HR person who might be listening to this, but I think it's less familiar, particularly to support people, that that is fundamentally how job leveling works. And I think that my experience over decades now of speaking to like, you know, new support people, support people, particularly fresh coming out of college or whatever, into industry. They don't understand that I've hit my numbers and therefore why aren't I getting promoted? And it's like you you're hitting your numbers, which is the job that you do now. And you do like you need to find those extensions, and it's our job as leaders to create those opportunities to extend and be an outstanding performer.
Alec Moloney: 14:09
Absolutely. And I I think that's a really good call out as well. And the the other pitfall, I know all the HR people are gonna laugh when I say this, is hopefully we've got some HR people listening, but the the other pitfall, right, is people they presume based on tenure, you're just also going to get a net a new title. And I think that's it's a pitfall I think as leaders we can fall into as well. We go, oh well, you know, they've been here two years, they're confident. Yep, you know, here's a bump from the base to like a specialist roles level. And I think it's it's sometimes hard when you've got team members who, you know, they're core performers, but they don't stretch. And it's like you want to give them that opportunity, but they won't reach out and take those opportunities for that extra bit of extension into the next level. And I think cultivating that is challenging. And some people don't get me wrong, I there's nothing wrong with people who do come in and just go, I'm a core performer, they maintain the numbers, they keep the tickets moving, the engine running. And I think that's fantastic. But you're gonna have people that you know will ideally want to reach and take those opportunities, and that's where you can help them progress and feel like there's a career in support, and it's not quite as you just come in and do tickets each fair and go home at the end of the day. There is more to it and more that you can explore and discover as a role.
Charlotte Ward: 15:32
Yeah, yeah. How do you manage those uh core performers at review time if you know they really are just solid year after year after year? Um, do you do you see that? I mean, I I find that I reflect on quite often at review time for those people. I I have a bit of self-reflection about whether I'm doing enough for them sometimes. And and it's quite a hard, it's a tricky situation to manage, I think, because you want to you want people to progress. You create, you go, you go above and beyond yourself, like to create this environment where there's all these opportunities and you put the effort into your job titles and descriptions and levels, and um like you're invested in this yourself, right? And then there's people who do just want to come and do a great job, and do a great job, but don't don't have any interest necessarily or ambition in uh in progressing, and I find that really hard to manage. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
Alec Moloney: 16:39
Yeah, I've I've I I've had a couple of cases of this in the in just for the past couple of roles, right? And I've got a lot of reflection myself around this. My kind of like my my views probably changed. Initially, I was really worried that the first person I've managed like I just was like, am I doing something wrong? I was like, this feels really unnatural. Like I I know we've talked about quite a bit obviously out of the podcast, but we're both quite ambitious people. So that concept of wanting progression and wanting to move forward, so wanting to, you know, bring everyone with us and be like, hey, come on, you know, the rising tide carries all ships kind of vibe is it it's it's a happy place. And it's really weird, I think, when you encounter people who the happy place is really different. And that's probably the way where I've come to sort of reconcile as understanding, okay, that's actually their happy place. They uh you know, they're achieving their goals financially, in terms of their work life balance, in terms of whatever that looks like, and they're happy just to turn up, do a great job, and go home at the end of the day. And I I think it's a challenge when especially in today's job market, right, where you're trying you know it's challenging, I think, to manage it in regards of when you're hiring versus long-tenued employees in that position. I think that's a real challenge because salary expectations evolve rather rapidly in the last 20 years, probably compared to the last 40, right? So whereas someone who's been in the company 15 years is probably not going to be leveled necessarily at the same mark as someone you'd be hiring today. And I think that's that's where I find that quite challenging is you know, you have these little crises of conscious conscious God, that's a difficult word, consciousness, um, at times. And I I know in the in like in the same region it's often difficult to try and manage that, and you sort of have to steal yourself against like the you know, overwhelming sense of empathy for people where you're like, if you really could just push yourself this little bit more and stretch it and do this one little thing extra and then this other little thing extra, you'd be able to get like a you know a title bump and a bit more of a you know, like sort of you know, comp compensation in terms of the base salary just because you set up a level. But at the same time, I think it comes back to the happy place. And if you've got people who they're happy to turn up, they're enjoying their job, they're not falling behind, they're they're happy and they're living their lives. I think that's that's all we can ask of anyone in our employee and in our teams is you know, are you happy and healthy? And that's very much a line I've used with my team at RMS since you know, coming into the business. We've gone through a lot of transformation and the past couple of months. I've really focused on like, is the team happy and healthy? And as long as they're saying they're happy and healthy, I'm going great. You're happy and healthy, and that's all we can ask for. So I think, and I think in past roles as well. Like that's that's the approach I've ended up landing on. That's kind of the way I look at it now.
Charlotte Ward: 19:41
Well, you you've grown more in that respect than I have then, because I do I do fall foul of like the projection of uh like I project my own. We are I know us both, as you said, to be very ambitious people. Um but but I've grown in the uh you've grown. I I still struggle with like projecting my own ambition onto other people in my team. And uh I mean it's a very human, a very human response, is like we assume people must see the world or should see the world the way we see the world. And unfortunately they don't. I keep finding out day after day. Um they don't. But but but I I I look at people who are healthy and happy, and I think, well, where is that ambition that I have? I don't see it, and so I'm struggling to understand that frame of mind. But by reflection, I've had I've certainly had plenty of people say to me over the years things like, you should try and achieve work-life balance and things like that.
Alec Moloney: 20:39
And I'm like, I've definitely never given you that advice.
Charlotte Ward: 20:43
Never. But but it's different. To your point, it's different people's happy places, isn't it? You know, and I I I love to I love to sit and work, and when work runs out, I'll find more work. And that's that's just my happy place. Uh I have to reconcile that with how other people want to move through through an organization uh in their happy place. Yeah. Um the uh so so we create all these opportunities and uh some people find their happy place, some people are gonna stretch and push push at the edges.
Charlotte Ward: 21:16
Um the the thing that I um just want to touch on before we finish is culture. If we've created the opportunities to do interesting work, whatever level people are at, whether they're happy to sit in their happy place and just pick at the edges of that and do good work, or whether they really are stretching at it. Um the we've put all of this work, as we were talking about last time, on perception in the business. Do you think how much do you think, let's say, uh the perception of what support is, how interesting it is. How important it is, all of that work we've put inside the business. How much does that drive and influence the internal culture in the team in terms of like feeling that importance, feeling that influential, feeling like there is opportunity and progression? Does it drive it? And if so, how much?
Alec Moloney: 22:27
I want to say yes here, but at the same time, I also want to say no. So I'd say it depends. And I think this is really the challenge. I I especially experienced this and have experienced this in my career where you can be selling a narrative positive or like you can have a positive or negative narrative circulating about the team and the business. And I find you end up with a separate narrative regardless inside the team. You could have the business thinking supports doing a fantastic job, and inside the team, it could still feel like a slug every day, right? If it's product teams not building feature capability and it's it's human in the loop, left, right, and center, it's always just, oh, that's fine, support will fix that, I'll support or fix that, I'll support or do that. If you don't have good operational systems, if you don't have good operational structures, it can feel like the team could be delivering really, really well. But they could also feel like they're running from, you know, one end of a ship to another while it's rolling through a storm. And I think that's where the external perception, when it's positive, it certainly helps people you know feed on the good morale, right? From outside the team. But I also think inside the team you have to be really conscious that you're building an environment where people strive for excellence. There's people that really need that, they'll feed off that and they'll buy into that vision. So you need like on the more cultural side, right? You need a really good vision of sport. I think you need to also be able to translate the strategy behind getting to that vision. I think that's something that probably I think we undersell inside of teams. It gets to a point where the teams are either going, I know where I'm I know where I'm going and I know why I'm working on this thing to get there, or they're going, I know there's a plan, but I don't really know why we're doing this thing at this time to get there. And I think when it comes to that uncertainty, that's where you start to breed people looking for an exit door because they're like, What am I going to be doing in two months time or three months' time or six months' time or twelve months' time? And I think that's a big part of it. And that's also where you need to work across the business, right? I know we've solved a lot of human and loop problems together in the past, but I think that's really critical. So the team don't feel like I'm just doing a meaningless job where I'm pressing a button that isn't in the product. It it becomes more consultative, it becomes more value-adding where they're able to serve customers quickly and serve customers in ways that I need a human to actually do the work, to have the creativity, to have the problem-solving approach, to apply experience and logic and wisdom, all those human things that can't be, you know, solutioned with an AI or a product feature. I think that's where we need to make sure our teams are sitting so then they see that value, they feel that value, and they get those moments where they feel like there's wins, real wins on the board. And I think culturally, I think that's the big driver for it. It's making sure they can see not just the structure of them progressing and feel like those opportunities exist and they can embrace them, but also they've got the time to do it. They feel like the work they're doing contributes towards the ideal land state, which I think for any team in the world would all love to say we deliver well-class support at least some point in the future, even if we aren't there yet.
Charlotte Ward: 25:59
Yeah, yeah. I think this is where the the work that we talked about last time of the leader in doing that internal marketing, doing that internal relationship building, um, building, you know, expectations around what support is and how it in what that end state is, where we want to get to, having a goal, having a vision, and then working with the business as a leader to make the connective tissue to make that happen. Um, but then using that, using all of that advantage, using all of that work you've done, all of that connecting if connective tissue, so the team can do that as well at every level, I think is really important. And that's how you get the team to believe they're part of a you know bigger, a bigger goal is like they ride on the relationships, you build the relationship, and then you help you foster that cross-functionally for everyone.
Alec Moloney: 27:05
100%. And I, in my very systems thinker way, I often call that learning to build mechanisms. And anyone who has well, you've worked with me in the past, but anyone who works with me at the moment is an incessant. Yeah, I'm like, we need to build a mechanism to allow the team to do this themselves. And I know empowerment can be like it's a bit of a buzzword, but my view of like empowerment, and when we talk about, yeah, we take all the ops wasteland stuff away and we go, how do you go and solve with customer problems that need all of that stuff? It's like you've got to have mechanisms. And it's maybe it's a payboard to give them confidence, maybe it's to your point, it's a cross-functional relationship that we've codified in some aspect to go, this is how you go and engage with that team. And it just gives them the avenues, the pathways, the mechanisms to go and actually achieve that. And I think that's that's really critical. Something else you said, which I'm desperately trying to remember what I was thinking about two minutes ago that I've forgotten.
Charlotte Ward: 28:07
But but but okay, but I think mechanisms is a really good way of putting it because as a as a leader, you get used to over the course of your career build on relationships just for relationship's sake. And this is why leaders in a business, particularly senior leaders and and you know, their calendars are full of just spending time with other senior leaders. Um, that and and from the outside, it can just look like a bunch of meetings, which is basically what it is, but you're building the groundwork for it, all of the mechanisms that you're talking about. And so when you think about mechanisms, the groundwork that you lay as leaders allows allows things like a great product feedback loop to be built, which can be carried and improved and iterated by the team. And that can be as simple as a monthly meeting or you know, that happens. And and so sending your team out there without the frameworks and the mechanisms in which to spend time with other teams to make things happen and do that even at a very human level. Um, it's hard for them because they they they don't have, they haven't built up the um the muscle of building relationships for relationship sake. And and frankly, there's not a lot of leverage in just spending time just for spending time's sake, um, particularly early in your career or early in your tenure. So so having the mechanisms to do that, I think is is a big part of like feeling part of the bigger machine, feeling part of a feeling the contribution.
Alec Moloney: 29:40
Definitely. I remember the thing I was forgetting. I think the other half of this, and this is probably a bit of relationship stuff, but it's also, I think it's helping people understand, I guess, is kind of a bit of a culture thing company-wide, but teaching people how to say no, I think that's really critical to support people. I think it's easy. I see it with my team at the moment, other parts of the business, because I've got a team where we have people in quite specialized roles, and I won't even know it's happening. They'll just get C-speed and on an email chain or send an email, and suddenly they're pretty much in a customer escalation, firefighting out of an inbox, no tickets, no nothing, no oversight. And it since joining, like the biggest thing I wanted to sort of like try and teach the team cultivated to a point where we're really starting to get the ground with it now, is going like, hey, you actually you can say no. It's like if someone comes and brings you this thing and your reporting line has no idea about it, it's not something we're meant to be owning in terms of like our scope of support. You can bat it away. You can forward it to your manager, you can go, hey, can you pick this up with my you know team lead? Or hey, I'm not quite sure if I'm meant to be doing this left check first. Like having those tactics and being able to like, how do you prevent the ops wasteland from growing from support shadow ops? Teach your team to say no so they can in the right way, so they're not just like shoving it back at the rest of the business. But there's there's like a polite, gentle way to say, hey, hey, this isn't really my remit. Let me go find out who I should give it to. Or let me find out if I should own it. And I think that's really critical as well as part of the culture to give give the team like not just like empowerment and mechanisms, but give them ownership and go, you understand the scope of your role, you understand the scope of what we're intending to deliver and support. Go say no when like when it's appropriate.
Charlotte Ward: 31:38
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And this this comes back to you know, making them equal stakeholders in the business, equal stakeholders in any of those uh relationships and you know, partnering with with other functions in the business, um, getting them off the ground floor, right? And and I think that that's ultimately, that's ultimately what drives a place for them and a place for support in the business that that is is you know worthy and critical and contributory and all of those things. And uh and hopefully that's a place where people want to stick around.
Alec Moloney: 32:13
That's it. At least that's the plan.
Charlotte Ward: 32:17
Thank you so much for joining me today, uh, Alec. Um let's do this again soon.
Alec Moloney: 32:22
Sounds great. Thank you for having me.
Charlotte Ward: 32:28
That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash three one six for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.
