Build Your SaaS

Justin sits down with Helen Ryles and Michael Green, the two people behind almost every chat, email, and demo call that comes into Transistor, to talk about the company's secret weapon: the thing that converts 75% of trials to paid and keeps people around for years.

Chapters:
  • (02:13) - What did Helen do before she joined Transistor?
  • (03:00) - What did Michael do before joining Transistor?
  • (05:05) - How does Transistor do customer support different?
  • (08:04) - What have we learned by doing demo calls with customers?
  • (12:32) - What are some of the emotions of starting a podcast?
  • (16:15) - What can startups learn from being a customer led company?
  • (18:44) - How do we approach AI in customer support?
  • (22:50) - How does customer support translate into sales?
  • (25:49) - What else does a customer support role do at a Saas?
  • (33:41) - How do future generations learn how to be on a team?

Quotes:

From Helen:
"The bar with customer support is really quite low across the industry... If companies are setting the standard of getting back to people in three to five business days, we don't have to necessarily adopt that. We can set our own standards."
From Michael:
"There is an emotional side to podcasting, to using a product, to creation, and we help on that side as well. People are often excited or nervous or panicking or something feels urgent, and we can help alleviate all of that emotional side. It's not just about questions and answers."
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Creators and Guests

Host
Justin Jackson
Co-founder of Transistor.fm
Editor
Chris Enns
Owner of Lemon Productions
Guest
Helen Ryles
Customer Success at Transistor.fm
Guest
Michael Green
Customer Success at Transistor.fm

What is Build Your SaaS?

Interested in building your own SaaS company? Follow the journey of Transistor.fm as they bootstrap a podcast hosting startup.

Justin:

Michael, I can't do a podcast with you. I just decided. It's done. We're done. I'll say, man, we got geese in the background.

Justin:

What is going on here?

Michael:

Oh gosh. It's my door. Sorry. One second. Sorry about the geese.

Justin:

God. Chris is gonna have a ball editing this one.

Justin:

Welcome to Build Your SaaS. This is the podcast where we chronicle the journey of building transistor.fm, a podcast hosting platform. I'm Justin Jackson, one of the co founders.

Justin:

And today, I want to talk about what our secret weapon is at transistor, something that sets us apart. And to do that, I've got on the show Helen Ryles.

Helen:

Hi.

Justin:

And I've got Michael Green.

Michael:

Hi, everyone.

Justin:

And Helen and Michael do customer success here at Transistor. Helen was our first hire ever, 2019. Is that right, Helen?

Helen:

Yeah. I started part time in 2019. And I think it's 2021 when I joined the team full time.

Justin:

And what's interesting, I think, is I mean, when Jon Buda and I started Transistor, I was doing almost all of our customer support just like I'd wake up at six in the morning, start answering live chats, and just answer live chats all day. Eventually, said, Jon, I need some help. And then Helen came on and started helping us. And then I I fully extricated my extricated? Extra

Michael:

Yeah.

Justin:

I fully removed myself when we hired Michael in when did you start working? Has it been two years now?

Michael:

Part time in 2023 and then full time in 2024.

Justin:

Good Lord. Good Lord. So time is just going super fast. Before we get into why I think customer success is our secret weapon and really one of the main things that sets us apart, I was wondering if you could both go into your background. Like, how did you get here?

Justin:

What did you do before Transistor? Helen, do you want to start us off? What what's your what's your background?

Helen:

Yeah. Sure. So it's a a long and winding road to get to this point. Yeah, so my original undergraduate degree was computer science information systems. Spent a long time as an IT field engineer, became IT manager, project manager.

Helen:

Worked in a lot of educational institutions, colleges, schools, and also the housing industry as well. And then over the past five or six years, a little bit before joining Transistor, I was working with a few different startups. And yeah, that kind of led to the world of SaaS, and here I am.

Justin:

And here you are. Here you are. Michael, what's your background?

Michael:

Well, I actually spent over a decade working in retail groceries for a big grocery chain. I won't say which one. I did that for over ten years. Was in store management. I took an MBA because I was going to keep going with that, and then they asked me to move to Prince Rupert.

Michael:

I said no. I was looking for a new career at that point, which wouldn't move me to Prince Rupert. I took a web development bootcamp in 2022. Yeah, in my 30s, transitioned into tech. Then we met up locally at some local tech events, and this position sort of drew on my background in tech and customer service and things like that and sort of came together.

Justin:

Mhmm. That's right. That's right. I think this is what really sets Transistor apart is I got my start in the tech industry doing customer service. My boss, Greg Oldring, who's now he's now a Transistor customer, was just so instructive to me on how to build a great business based on good customer service.

Justin:

And he took it so seriously. Everybody at that company from the CEO, the whole team, engineers did customer service, and some of us were doing more than others. But he just showed me, this is how you win. This is how you set yourself apart. I don't think I'm And not good at everything, but one thing I I think I have been good at is finding great people for our team that just operate at a really high level.

Justin:

And folks are continually surprised that we're able to serve, I think, about 36,000 users with a team of six people and really with you two doing the bulk of customer service. So let's start with you, Helen. What do you think what do you think sets our philosophy apart? How are we different than a lot of other SaaS companies that do customer success? Like, what are we doing different?

Helen:

Yeah. I think to start with, I think the bar with customer support is really quite low across the industry.

Justin:

Oh, it's in the basement.

Helen:

Just be mindful to kind of aim to be better than the general standard. So if companies are setting the standard of getting back to people in three to five business days, you know, we don't have to necessarily adopt that. We can see what margin we've got. We can set our own standards. We can try to offer something that's better than the norm.

Helen:

And people seem to be overwhelmingly surprised that that's something that people can choose to offer and that customer support is a key part of what people are paying for. That sort of helpful, friendly advice that, rather than sort of leaving people unsure of what they're doing or having somebody to be able to answer questions quite quickly makes a big difference and is a key part of retaining customers as well.

Justin:

I mean, it's the first Here's what always kind of blows my mind. Customer success and that live chat is often the first experience somebody has with your company. And so the idea of, like, offshoring that to entry level poorly paid people or giving it to some sort of AI that's going to help you figure things out, it just has never made sense to me. Michael, you often tell me about how people coming to Transistor from other our competitors, you know, they have stories. Can you share some of those or some of those experiences, how people react to our customer success as compared to what they've experienced before?

Michael:

Well, think often when people are coming from elsewhere, there's pain points. And so just getting someone getting a person immediately, there's probably a bit of relief. And yeah, I think the other side that say AI can't replace is there is an emotional side to podcasting, to using a product even if it's an online product, to creation, and we help on that side as well. Like people are often excited or nervous or panicking or something feels urgent and we can help alleviate all of that emotional side. It's not just about questions and answers.

Justin:

Yeah. And the other thing that both of you have done is, Helen, you do a lot of the onboarding demos for folks, when they request like, big companies might request the demo. You're doing those over Zoom. And Michael, you are doing a Zoom call with anybody who signs up that wants one. Maybe we'll start with you, Helen.

Justin:

What have you learned by doing those demo calls just about people? What motivates them to start a podcast? The emotional side of podcasting? What are you seeing on that front?

Helen:

Yeah, I think it's really good to connect with people when they're in that starting phase. They've got a lot of unanswered questions, and just to kind of see the excitement that people have. We kind of sometimes, in support, we're relatively removed away from people and their personal motivations, whether they want to keep in touch with a friend, whether they want to build their authority in their industry. There's not always just one single reason to start a podcast, whether that's monetization or improving public speaking skills or getting to meet with people in their industry and a podcast is the way to do that. There's lots of different reasons why people choose to start a podcast.

Helen:

And those are kind of brought to the forefront during demo calls. Just getting to know people's background, where they're kind of hoping to get to, what success looks like for them. And it's not always monetization. So yeah, it's nice to kind of remember why people are doing this. And also the kind of common sticking points where people get stuck, where people feel stressed.

Helen:

And just to have somebody to be able to walk through that with you makes them realize that they can get started really quickly.

Justin:

Yeah, yeah. And what about you, Michael? What have you learned by doing those Zoom calls?

Michael:

I think the thing that tickles me most of the time is remembering how global we are. So obviously we're largely based in North America, but I jump on calls with people in Australia and New Zealand and all around the world. Helen, I'm sure, with people across Europe. It's actually just fun to see what people are making. I like hearing, especially first time podcasters or obviously we get a lot of people switch to us when they're starting a second or third show and just what they're making is super interesting.

Michael:

But I suppose the other thing is it's nice to jump on those calls because people are pushing the boundaries of what Transistor can do, and they're really pushing the API as far as it can go and every little feature we have as far as it can go. So I often find I learned something on those calls because I'm hearing about what can be done elsewhere or, you know, find a way that we can do something at Transistor that perhaps we weren't aware that we could do.

Justin:

Mhmm. The thing I always try to remind myself of is what it feels like to be a new creator putting themselves out there for the first time. I mean, even Michael before this call, you were kind of joking like, you're not sure how comfortable you feel being recorded. Yeah. And I I think that's pretty universal.

Justin:

And there's something about being with somebody on a Zoom call and you just immediately see the emotionality of what about to experience. Helen, you mentioned sticking points both, I'm I'm assuming you meant, like, emotional sticking points, but also with the product and also just in terms of unknowns. What are some common ones that you've seen?

Helen:

Yeah. Just to kind of an expectation around how long it sets takes to set up a podcast. You know, if somebody, you know, I've heard of people on demo calls saying, right, well, it's April now, we want to launch by August, is that possible? It's like, well, you could launch today if you wanted to, if you've got, you know, ready to go. And yeah, just kind of the things that are needed to get started.

Helen:

Just having kind of a workflow or a plan, like a publishing and a promotion plan. And also the expectations around how distribution works. People kind of don't necessarily understand how RSS feed works, or how podcast apps will pick content up from RSS feeds, and just kind of explaining the kind of fundamental technologies that podcast hosting is built upon just gives people just a bit of an insight into managing their expectations and how long things should take, really.

Justin:

Yeah. It's funny how like, again, we've been working here for a while, and we started off when we got into podcasting not knowing anything. And now it's just second nature to us. And it's funny how we just assume naturally that everyone knows what we know. Right?

Justin:

And then you see that in the calls like, oh, wait a second. Like, we're a lot of people just need a lot of background information to get them up to speed. What kinds of things have you noticed, Michael? Any kind of emotional things or things that people are feeling as they're getting ready to launch a show?

Michael:

Oh, I think it's that erring to publish the first episode. Because we know that you publish that first episode and it goes to the feed, but no one's looking at the feed, you've only just created it. But this idea that people live to the world and there's something that feels official about being on Spotify and being on Apple, and you can be there within a few hours. I think it's that idea that you need to be people sort of feel like they need to be dressed in their Sunday best, you know, like they need to turn up to play, and there's fear of judgment. And then that's where really the journey just begins because then you're out there, but you've got to get people listening to it.

Michael:

But yeah, I think there's a feeling that they have to turn up looking and doing their best. And you don't necessarily have to when you're just getting going.

Justin:

Another common one I hear all the time is the fear of judgment. Like what if my coworkers see this? What if my family sees this? What if my friends see this? I even have my cohost on the panel, Brian Castle, says he doesn't want any of his people from the real world to see his podcast.

Justin:

Like, he doesn't want his family to watch it or his friends. He just wants, like, you know, anonymous people on the Internet to watch it. And I again, I've gotten over that now, like, because I've been doing this so long. And the stakes, it's just so helpful to be reminded the stakes for people. Like, for a lot of people, this is like jumping across a a gap, you know, like jumping over a cliff.

Justin:

And just the courage it takes to say, I'm gonna put myself out there, it can feel real. And you don't really experience that until you're, like, with people talking to them.

Helen:

Yeah. Yeah, I think one thing I notice as well is people hold themselves back with an expectation that it's got to be perfect from episode one. Whereas we tend to recommend kind of incremental improvement. So maybe the first episode isn't on the best microphone. Maybe you don't have a podcast website on episodes two and three.

Helen:

Maybe you kind of add some intro music at some point in the first 10 episodes. That kind of incremental improvement is a good mindset to have. So you're kind of not paralyzed by overwhelm and getting started. That at least if you can get to three episodes, there's so many shows that we see that kind of falter around that one, two episode mark. And I think if you can kind of get into that mindset that things don't have to be perfect from day one, you can continue to learn and continue to improve as your show grows.

Michael:

Yeah. Yeah, mean, whatever we can do to solve problems to keep it fun for people really, I think just remind them it's supposed to be fun and it's self expression, and if we can solve some pain points then you can just keep having fun with it, right?

Justin:

Yeah. The other thing I think there's a lot of SaaS founders that listen to this, and there's all sorts of different ways, you know, people say, well, this is an engineering led organization or we're a design led company. And the thing I've always and Jon and I have always been really strong on with Transistor is that we want to be a customer led company, which is really why we've elevated this customer success role. Like, we have two people on customer success, two people on marketing and growth, and two engineers. It is, like, such a key part of who we are at Transistor.

Justin:

How do you think, Helen, that translates, into what we do at Transistor and maybe what other startups can learn from it being a customer led company?

Helen:

Yeah. I think one thing that we do really well at Transistor is our feedback loop between customers providing us feedback on what they want to see in the product and the customer success being actually involved in being their voice. We are careful to collect that information, to discuss it on a weekly basis. We keep those records. We surprise people going back to people six months later to say, we built the feature that you suggested back last October.

Helen:

And I think there's a lot of organizations that treat customer success as a one way, sort of one directional, transactional kind of offering and there isn't that kind of two way absorption of what people want to see in the product, where it should go in the future. Seems to be kind of siloed in other organizations, there's kind of leadership who've got a sort of a vision of where the product's going, and that may or may not align with what people are actually asking for. I think we put a lot of attention in making sure that we do customer surveys, we gather feedback, we segment customers based on the features they want to see. We let popular features bubble up to the top. We prioritize our quarterly feature builds based on the volume of requests we get, and we take people's feedback seriously.

Justin:

Yeah, anything else to add to that, Michael?

Michael:

I think, yeah, I echo that. I mean, it would be so easy to just have an email address where people could mail in feedback and you could pretend to satisfy yourself and go, oh, we're receiving feedback, we care about what people think. But when you're actively having conversations with people in chat or you're jumping on a video call with them and you're hearing that live and they're screen sharing either the feature they're looking for or something that's not quite working, then it's that much more personal. So yeah, I think we're going above and beyond there.

Justin:

Yeah. Well, that brings up the topic of AI. And one thing, kind of my universal theory right now is AI is a very useful tool, and we we there may be things we decide ways we decide to use it in customer success, but it feels like so many people are just hungry for human connection. Helen, what's kind of your take on, you know, living in an AI world and then giving customer success? I'm sure you've seen a lot of people who think you're a chatbot and things like that.

Helen:

Yeah, we've definitely seen an increase in the expectation that people reach out to support. They reach out to support in the way they would speak to a AI tool or chatbot. So it's always good to remember that if you're dealing with real people on the other end. But yeah, I think we can use AI tools. They could be internal tools.

Helen:

They could be things that help us improve customer success, update articles in a timely way, to have automated checks to flag things that we want to cast an eye over. But we don't necessarily have to present that kind of barrier and that level of friction by insisting that our customers interact with an AI bot directly. Also one thing as well is, I've seen with some organizations that kind of present an AI chatbot on the front end, they may have some live agents at some point where you can go through to a human team member. But what people tend to receive is a more frustrated customer. If you're forcing customers to jump through those hoops just to get through to a human, the interaction that is going to be between customer and support agents is going to be worse for it.

Helen:

So just cut that out and go straight to helping people with their question as soon as we can with the quickest turnaround time possible. Then I think that leads to a more satisfied customer that stays with us longer.

Justin:

Yeah. Anything to add to that, Michael?

Michael:

Well, I still get confused for an AI chatbot. What do

Justin:

you do to prove that you're human?

Michael:

Write in incomplete sentences and then use punctuation. And then people go, Oh, he's real.

Justin:

This is a real person.

Michael:

Yeah. Use emojis, I find that helps. Yeah. But I was going to say, I think one of the other things live support ads is, I know we like to think of ourselves and I think we're regarded as a product that is clean, intuitive, simple, easy to use, reliable, but inevitably, as with any SaaS company, there's going to be some hard edges. And I think it's so much easier to forgive those from a customer point of view when you can just jump in chat with someone or jump on a call and solve it in ten minutes rather than waiting in a queue or getting a generic response that doesn't actually help you.

Michael:

It's sort of people can forgive a lot as long as they can reach a real person and solve something quickly. Especially as we're sort of we like to roll out new features and test new features fairly quickly before sometimes having them perfected. So it helps on that side as well.

Justin:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the the other thing I keep thinking about is, you know, it's the job of marketing to bring people to the website and get them to sign up. And, you know, we've been seeing mix of kind of the accumulated marketing efforts over since 2018.

Justin:

We're getting a lot more sign ups now. So sign ups are going up. But I've always seen customer success as this crucial integrated part of marketing and sales. Because once they arrive on the website, there's a big chat with us link, and you then become the salespeople. Like, you're the internal salespeople.

Justin:

And we convert an incredible like, our conversion rate from trial to paid is way above industry standard. We're at 75% or something like that. Just an unbelievable conversion rate. And we have lifetime value, meaning the customer sticks around way above industry average too. So Helen, do you want to talk about that, the sales part of the job, and just how you've seen that over the years?

Helen:

Yeah. I think a crucial thing is we demonstrate our support before people are customers. People can reach out to us. The same support we provide to you before you join us is the same support you will get when you actually are a customer regardless of the plan you're on. We have that kind of approach that we treat everybody with the same high level of customer support we would hope.

Helen:

We don't segment people based on the plans they're on. We don't have dedicated account managers because we optimize for, you know, team member can respond in the most timeliest manner really. So, yeah, I think we we kind of demonstrate and give that first experience. And that is kind of what converts people to go through to a free trial and stay with us after the free trial's ended.

Justin:

And and I'll just say from my side as a founder, like, this investment, I've only seen massive returns from this investment. So, like, in terms of a customer converting to paid, in terms of customers staying around a long time, in terms of a customer telling other people about transistor, the investment in customer success is unmatched. Like, the the leverage you get from having just the highest, most professional, capable, friendly people on that team pays dividends for like ever. And it amplifies itself, right? There's leverage there?

Michael:

I think just in terms of acquisition, I see it quite often that maybe what we provide doesn't fully align with what someone's looking for. But the fact that they can reach a person and discuss it with a person is sufficient to make up that gap. And so we sign a lot of people up who go, they might be going, ah, I've got ABC, XY, but I'm missing Z, but actually you're the only company that I could jump on a call with or I could talk with live. And so that makes up for whatever might have been missing, so I'm going to go with you guys. And that's a pretty common experience I think.

Michael:

So it can make up for features. It can make up for lots of things.

Justin:

Yeah. Maybe we'll end on this because I think there's a lot of tech people or just people looking for jobs in tech right now. And you two are great examples of people that, you know, we hired you for a role, but then you've kept finding other ways to be helpful and useful and, I mean, just in all sorts of ways. Helen, do you wanna talk about that? Like, just maybe just talk about some of the other projects we've done together that you touched on the customer survey research.

Justin:

But just tell folks a few of the other things you've done in addition to the customer success role.

Helen:

We've done things like we go attend conferences. So I think it's quite useful sometimes if you know customers by name, people you see in chat and on email, and then you actually meet them in the real world, then they're kind of actually surprised that there's real people behind the thing that they use every day. So yeah, it's definitely kind of lots of projects we focused on. Going through kind of historical tickets, looking at, we've done a lot of in terms of analytics to see where kind of our busiest periods are. How can we better cover support?

Helen:

How can we look at our time to respond? What articles are we missing? What kind of articles get high hit rates? What's popular topics that people are interested in? You know, looking at all the videos that are doing well and how we can kind of fill the gaps in our guides and knowledge base.

Justin:

You've also helped me with reaching out to we've been partnering with YouTube influencers, and you've been a big part of that. You also took over the affiliate program for me. I was managing that as well. I one thing Helen did that I I've told other founders about this too, but she gave me a document of that was basically how best to work with me. And I just thought this was so brilliant because I was giving Helen all this work in the way that I like getting it.

Justin:

So you guys know me. I don't like to plan. I like to just kind of go from the seat of my pants. I really like kind of broad open ended things like just go and meet people. You know?

Justin:

And Helen gave me this document that was like, okay. Here's the kind of work I'm very good at. Here's the work I can do, but it's it's doesn't give me energy. It doesn't take away my energy. It's just like I'm good at it.

Justin:

I'm proficient at it. So it's like, here's what fires me up. Here's what I can do that is neutral. And then here's what drains me. And I found that so helpful in just even figuring out like what are some things I can invite Helen to do or to help me with that will fire her up or that she's uniquely equipped for.

Justin:

And I think we just keep finding new things. Right, Helen? Like, you're you're helping me well, you you really helped with retreat planning. I think that was another another big one. But anything to do with planning, Helen is just the queen.

Justin:

She's the best.

Helen:

Yeah, I think one of those sections in that document, I think, was like, what is a step outside my comfort zone that I also think is necessary for growth? So identifying you know, where I would like to step into, what am I interested in, you know, automations and processes and doing things I haven't done before, but kind of I've also given talks at universities and things that aren't necessarily my core skill set, but also I feel like there's a need to kind of constantly evolve the role and improve in that way. So even though if we think we're kind of setting a good standard, how can we continue to level our skills up and improve and manage our customer base as that also grows and scales? Yeah, because we can't continue to remain the same. Otherwise we'll reach a point where we haven't got the necessary kind of skills to understand the customers or manage the workload or have some kind of margin.

Helen:

So yeah, I think it's always been an enjoyable part of the role to have that core problem solving of customer support and also have these other projects that work alongside too.

Justin:

That you can do. Yeah. And Michael, you have the advantage in that you're here in Vernon, BC with me. And I I actually I mean, obviously, we're a remote team and we can't change this. But having you in Vernon has kind of opened up this other world to me, which is like you can knock on my door and just check-in.

Justin:

And I think some interesting ideas and projects have come out of that. Do you want to talk about some of that?

Michael:

I I think the the beauty of, like, an agile team like us, just six people, it feels like a long time ago now that I started in 2023, and don't tell anyone, but I didn't know anything about podcasting. I didn't know what an RSS feed was. So the learning curve for me was really steep, but then you do reach a point where you know it like the back of your hand, you know your space, and you can either stay in that space or you can expand the space. So I think the next thing for me was getting access to the marketing side, being able to contribute articles there. Next was, I still remember the first times I did demo calls and I felt really nervous because I'm representing Transistor, I'm representing the product, and it wasn't that long since I'd only just felt like I knew it inside and out.

Michael:

So yeah, doing calls, jumping on calls with customers, and then more recently contributing to the code base, helping out with little features, little cosmetic things. Yeah. Talking about that feedback loop with customers. Know, nowadays, if something is within a certain level of complexity, perhaps it's something I can take care of instead of having to get Jon and Jason involved. And that speeds that up.

Michael:

And yeah, I think as long as you're that sort of person, which I think all six of us are, where you're always looking to stay curious and stay interested and like a bit of a challenge, then there's always something more to do. With six people and small enough company, the left hand can see what the right hand is doing and you can, Hey, can I help out with marketing? Can I do a little bit of engineering stuff? Can I do some customer success stuff? We have that sort of company and you and Jon lead that where you feel encouraged to do that.

Michael:

There's no ceiling really on what you can do as long as you have have the time and and the interest.

Justin:

Yeah. I I think there is a real skill in having the awareness and discernment to be able to go to, you know, the founder and identify some ideas. We've tried I'm talking about all three of us. We've tried some ideas that didn't work out. You know, we were like, oh, maybe I can do this.

Justin:

And it was like, ah, this doesn't really work. This doesn't really fit. That's okay. But there is something about just going you know, like, Helen was like, well, hey. I can take over this demo call thing.

Justin:

I was like, oh, wow. Yeah. That would really free me up to do other things. Helen's saying, listen. You guys you and John suck at planning these retreats.

Justin:

I'll just take that over. Those kind of ideas, you know, they really do help when somebody has the discernment and the courage to say, I think this is something you're struggling with. This is something I'm uniquely good at. And let me propose a solution. And I would say, you know, maybe I I would say, I don't know, three out of five or three out of six I agree with and work out.

Justin:

Right? And that's a pretty good so not everything, you know, you propose or the team members propose, I agree with or want to do. But it's a fairly high hit rate. And it's just so helpful to have those kinds of people. Is there is there any way because I'm just thinking about Gen Z.

Justin:

I'm thinking about the kids. How does that get trained? Like, how do you because it feels like they're just in a fog of war. Like, they can't see maybe you don't. Does that discernment just come through experience?

Justin:

What you think, Helen?

Helen:

That's a good question. I think it kind of comes from an awareness of having an overview of the team as a whole, what's on each person's plate, what kind of space and capacity you've got, and how can you best take something off somebody else's plate. And I think also we do a good job of, let's say we feel like we're reaching some kind of busy period in support or reaching capacity, we can come together and review how we can create this kind of margin and space in our time. And it's like, maybe we should start batching demo calls together on a certain day. Maybe we should streamline this process.

Helen:

What are we spending a lot of time explaining? How can we create things that enable us to continue without increasing that kind of level of stress? So it's like almost building the role that you want to work in rather than accepting the status quo.

Michael:

You

Helen:

have the tools and the knowledge and the support to be able to say, well, how can I make this role better? And then going ahead and seeing that through really.

Justin:

I think that's the key is how can I make this role better? How can I make the company better? How can I solve the boss's problems? These are all like like things that yeah. I just don't know how do you like, Michael, you've been a manager at the grocery chain with a lot of young people.

Justin:

Is there Is this something that's just people just have or can it be trained? Is there a way to like help young people get this?

Michael:

Yeah, was gonna say, I'm not sure I think of it in the context of a skill, a professional skill. Think it's more of a character train. I think you sort of identify people very quickly. Is this someone who's going to learn what they need to learn to do the job as it exists and then plateau? Or is this someone who's just going to stay interested and keep looking for new things?

Michael:

Because it might take more hours than you have when you start just to do the basic learning to be able to do the core functions. But then after a while, you might find efficiencies or you might just know things so well that it takes less time and then you have capacity. Well, what are you going to do with that? It's not so much about being a good employee, it's just being a curious person, I think. Well, now I have this extra time, what do I want to learn next?

Michael:

I haven't coded in Ruby on Rails before, but I'm going to take a look at the code base and see where I can help out or something like that.

Justin:

Mean, there's that old saying, if you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean. I think to take that one step up is like for a young person to say, okay, well, if if the floors need to be swept, I'm going to sweep them because that's what needs to be done. That's what helps the boss. That's what helps the company. That's how I can stand out.

Justin:

But then there's even a level above that to go, okay, well, I've swept. What next? And then you just look over at your manager or your boss or your coworkers and go, oh, wait. They're really struggling over there. I wonder if I could help with that.

Justin:

And all you have to do is just go to your boss or your manager and say, hey, is that something I can help with? You know? Like, can I do that for you? And they might say no. They might say, not yet or whatever.

Justin:

But those kinds of risks are the risks I think more young people should be taking, especially if they wanna you know, it's hard to get into tech right now. That's what you wanna be showing.

Michael:

I was gonna say about customer support as well, because we've talked a little bit about that before, Justin, is especially with our company, Six People, where you work so closely with the other five who are in engineering and marketing and so on. For a young person, even if they have a computer science degree and they want to be a bonafide software engineer one day, just to get in a living and breathing agile tech company where you can see how product development works, you can see how experienced engineers bring a product from ideation to rolling it out. You can see how pricing decisions get made and how customer feedback gets prioritized. And you can see all these moving parts. I think, especially for a young person who's just graduated, informs the career direction they're going to take, because they might find that they become interested in something that previously in their narrowed lane they hadn't thought about, but something captures their imagination and they go, I have to be involved in product in some way.

Michael:

So I definitely recommend it to new graduates. It's just a great way to get the context of how it all works together rather than just the engineering side of the job.

Justin:

Yeah. I think it's underrated both in the entry level, but also in the upper level. Like, both have your master's degree. Right? Yeah.

Justin:

So like, two of the most educated people in our company are in this customer role because it's so important. And so just because, you know, you know, you could be a junior programmer and that's an entry level, you can be a junior marketing assistant, that's an entry level, sure. You can join customer success entry level. I think it's the like you said, I totally agree, best way to learn how a company works and why customers buy. Once you understand customer motivation, you can own anything.

Justin:

You can own product. You can own engineering. You can own marketing. You can own sales. It's It is the linchpin for everything, right?

Michael:

Yeah. And I think it's One other thing I'd say is it's a surprise to me when customer service or customer success is underrated or not prioritized because the industry I was in before was a very mature, very hyper competitive industry. Low exit barriers for customers, if they didn't get what they wanted, they could go somewhere else. So really the way you differentiated yourself was through customer service. Where I worked, we considered ourselves the best.

Michael:

And so everyone kind of sells the same cereal, the same beans, the same this. So how do you make a point of difference? And yeah, my background is in customer support and I've seen how important it is.

Justin:

Absolutely. Well, this was great. I would like to keep talking, I have another podcast to start recording. I would like to hear from folks listening. If you're still listening to this feed, if you're out walking the dog, if you're washing the dishes, first of all, hey, how's it going?

Justin:

How are those dishes getting cleaned? But second of all, I know it's hard in podcasting world to respond, but I would love for you to respond. There's links in the description. You can leave a comment on YouTube. You can email us.

Justin:

There's a you can leave a comment on Blue Sky as well, and it'll show up on the podcast website. Would love to hear what you're thinking about customer success, what you thought of this conversation. Reach out to us. And also share this with a friend. And if you do, maybe Michael, Helen, and I will record an episode every week.

Michael:

Let's do it. I was just warming into this Alright.

Justin:

Thanks. Thanks, you two.

Michael:

Thanks, Justin.

Helen:

Bye.