When you visit quip’s website, you may be greeted by quippy, the oral care company’s virtual assistant.
The affectionately named chatbot is ready to help you with anything ranging from product inquiries to shipping needs to scheduling teledentistry appointments. Powered by AI technology, quippy trades in robotic language for fun emojis and casual speech, like you’re chatting with a knowledgeable pal.
“We found this as a fun opportunity to be ‘quippy’ and create a more engaging interaction with our customers,” said Nora Abdelwahed, senior director of customer strategy and operations at quip. “This gave us the chance to get more creative with our customer communications.”
As companies rapidly scale their businesses, AI and other automated features like quippy are becoming increasingly common as a means of streamlining organizational workflows and meeting rising customer demands. According to a 2021 report from McKinsey and Company, 83 percent of executives surveyed in the United States reported faster adoption of automation during the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.
However, the featured leaders also know that automation is not the be-all end-all, and that human-to-human interactions are invaluable in securing and nurturing client relationships. While embracing automation as a necessary tool to grow their businesses, these companies are investing in their customer success teams, who are uniquely skilled in tackling complex client needs.
Built In New York connected with five rapidly expanding companies that are excitedly balancing automation with human interactions, and discussed what tips they have for scaling successful teams in this brave new world.
As it rapidly expands, Riskified, a provider of fraud management software for e-commerce companies, employs automation for simpler merchant requests and human interactions for more complex issues. Customer Success Operations Manager Michelle Cabinian Conti says that clear, consistent communication empowers her team to create and deliver innovative solutions.
What are the most important considerations when scaling your customer success team?
For Riskified’s customer success team, we always want to keep our merchants at the forefront of our actions, especially when it comes to scaling. How are we challenging the status quo to think of new ways to engage and help our merchants? How can we automate our internal manual processes so that our team members can, in turn, provide an even better human touch externally?
Empathizing with both our merchants and our customer success team members’ experiences allows us to generate innovative ideas and implement effective change.
For complex issues, we always believe in the power of the human touch. It allows us to develop deeper relationships with our merchants.”
How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?
It all depends on the type and nuance of a merchant’s request. If they need a simple answer, then we will do what we can to automate. Not only is it less work for us, but it also gets our merchants a faster resolution.
For complex issues, we always believe in the power of the human touch. It allows us to develop deeper relationships with our merchants.
What are the main challenges you’ve faced as your customer success team has scaled?
As the entire company rapidly grows, our biggest challenge is keeping everyone up to date on ever-evolving processes. Our documentation is created and edited by the whole customer success team for collective and collaborative ownership.
Within this written structure, we encourage flexibility so that our team members have the agency to craft and deliver creative solutions. Clear, consistent and engaging written communication has empowered our team.
Enfusion, a fintech company that runs an investment management software platform, utilizes automation but ensures that people work directly with customers to solve more challenging issues. As companies grow their customer success teams, Technical Account Management Vice President Alok Sanghvi encourages leaders to invest in employees’ learning and development opportunities while documenting teamwide standard operating procedures.
What are the most important considerations when scaling your customer success team?
We believe everyone in the company has a role to play in a great customer experience. For those teams who are client facing, there are two critical elements for success. One is having a deep understanding of our expanding software and service solutions, and two is a culture dedicated to positively impacting our clients’ performance.
The only way to effectively scale knowledge is through a robust training program, so we are continuously investing in learning and development. As we grow, we try to never lose sight of the customer. Our employees look at problems through the client’s lens, and they have an insatiable appetite for solving complex problems.
We believe it is incredibly important to have subject matter experts working directly with clients to answer more complex questions and problem solve.”
How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?
When your company is growing in leaps and bounds year over year, automation plays a critical role in scalability and consistently delivering timely client services. We continuously improve our software to make it as intuitive as possible, and we’ve incorporated automation to allow clients to quickly find answers to routine questions.
That said, we believe it is incredibly important to have subject matter experts working directly with clients to answer more complex questions and problem solve. We deliver a sophisticated product that solves complicated problems for demanding clients in a fast-paced and highly regulated industry. High-touch white glove service will always be the bedrock of the Enfusion client experience.
What are the main challenges you’ve faced as your customer success team has scaled?
We’ve had significant growth over the past few years, and scaling successfully during a pandemic certainly presented several challenges. In the early days, it was difficult to find and recruit talent; people were reluctant to make a career move. As the pandemic wore on, we were able to accelerate hiring, but then found it challenging to onboard and train talent quickly enough.
Now, along with most of the world, we are facing retention challenges as employees make different life choices than we’ve seen in the past. As such, it is important to have solid programs in place for learning, career development and internal mobility. In addition, ensure each team documents standard operating procedures and proactively takes measures to reduce key man risk.
Oral care company quip has found success selling electric toothbrushes, refillable mouthwash, cavity-preventing gum and more. To ensure effective teamwide scaling, Customer Strategy and Operations Senior Director Nora Abdelwahed suggests setting consistent employee performance expectations and clearly communicating them across teams.
What are the most important considerations when scaling your customer success team?
Creating really clear performance metrics and setting management in place, all of which are shared across the team, are super important.
We have several supervisors and teams and a wide range of performance expectations, which can make for inconsistencies with forecasting and headcount planning. By actively engaging across various channels, such as Google Meet and Slack, we are able to productively communicate in department-wide meetings and share time-sensitive updates. Email communication is crucial in ensuring that all team members are in the loop and on the same page regarding updates, feedback and expectations.
Additionally, creating shared one-on-one documents between supervisors and our agents is a great way to make sure that all parties are consistently on the same page week over week and are working toward the same goals.
Part of our success in personalizing our automations can be attributed to our writers.”
How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?
In this day and age, customers have become increasingly accustomed to virtual support, which is amazing. However, automations can sometimes be too cut and dry, which gives the feeling you are in fact speaking to a bot.
Customers appreciate transparency. When you have an upfront introduction — such as, “Hey, I’m quippy and I’m quip’s virtual assistant” — customers are less likely to feel like you’re trying to trick them and will be more receptive to trying to find a solution there first.
We found this as a fun opportunity to be “quippy” and create a more engaging interaction with our customers. This gave us the chance to get more creative with our customer communications and personalize it depending on which page of our website you are on.
Part of our success in personalizing our automations can be attributed to our writers. They have a strong understanding of the brand and have personal experience answering customer inquiries, so there is a high level of knowledge regarding the type of responses our customers expect and appreciate.
Starting off with a chatbot gave us great insight on what to expect in live chat, which we’ve rolled out since and have had a great response to.
What are the main challenges you’ve faced as your customer success team has scaled?
Part of the challenge of scaling a historically small team is navigating the unknown. What works for one company may not work for another, so there is always the chance that the original plan will need to be adjusted. This is why it’s important to have a team that understands the importance of remaining flexible when things don’t turn out as expected.
Thinking big when you’re still small will prepare your customer experience team to scale quickly when the time comes. For example, if your training strategy and quality assurance models are pre-built for a larger team, you’ll be prepared to grow without sacrificing the quality of the customer experience you’ve established.
The vision you have for your team may not become fully realized, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a better vision just around the corner. Having a positive and adaptive leadership team is invaluable during high-growth stages like this, and the right leadership team will keep the rest of the team positive and excited to take on new challenges.
At Octane, a company with financing options for motorcycles, ATVs and more, chat support and an easily navigable website are essential elements for their customers’ satisfaction. However, Customer Engagement Servicing Operations Manager Michelle Hannie cautions that these automated features support rather than replace human interactions between clients and the customer success team.
As leaders scale their teams, Hannie advises listening to employee and customer input, and then taking action based on that feedback.
What are the most important considerations when scaling your customer success team?
From finding and training candidates to meeting customer expectations and understanding business needs, there’s a lot to consider when growing a customer success team. It’s important for customer success leaders to find a balance between improving technology and building out their teams.
Before expanding a customer service department, leaders should look at their call volume, abandonment rates and the technology they have in place to help both customers and employees. For example, could your phone technology help your team find a customer’s details more easily, or could a chatbot reduce your call volume around a particular subject?
Leaders should also consider their current team and whether they have the capacity to train new employees. As a customer success team expands, managers need to keep current employees top-of-mind and support them with growth and development opportunities.
Nothing can replace a conversation with someone who is friendly and knowledgeable, and automation should support these interactions rather than replace them.”
How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?
Customers expect a great online experience, and it’s important to meet customers where they’re at. Chat support and an easy-to-navigate website are crucial to customer satisfaction. However, nothing can replace a great conversation with someone who is friendly and knowledgeable, and automation and technology should support these interactions rather than replace them.
At Octane, we strive to have “one-call resolution,” and if we can’t help in one call, we get our customer where they need to be to find a solution. We train our people during a 3-week training program, during which they start and offer ongoing training, and we’re continually improving our customers’ experiences with updated technology. For example, we improved the user interface on our website and built out our chat function to help resolve questions faster and easier.
As we continue to build our customer success team, our combination of advanced internal and customer-facing technologies and great training give both our employees and our customers the best experience possible, while ensuring that we maintain a personal touch for our customers.
What are the main challenges you’ve faced as your customer success team has scaled?
Scaling a customer success team can be hard work and very time consuming. It takes a lot of effort to put the correct technology in place, find talent, interview candidates and train new employees. The best advice I can give hiring managers and team leaders is to think outside of the box and listen to employee and customer feedback.
Not everyone on your customer success team needs to come from a call center environment. Look for people who want to learn and solve problems, and then support them by providing on-the-job training, career development opportunities, great benefits and technology that helps them do their job well.
When it comes to technology and automation, be willing to implement changes based on feedback from both employees and customers. For example, in July 2022, we introduced our updated customer portal that has better usability on mobile devices. Showing action in this way will ensure that your employees feel valued and are able to perform at their best, while customers know that they are heard and cared for by your company.
At Bizzabo, a marketing technology company that helps manage professional events, leaders prioritize offering human assistance at the most critical parts of a customer’s experience. When scaling teams, Customer Success Vice President Kerry Lambert emphasizes the importance of gathering and implementing client feedback.
What are the most important considerations when scaling your customer success team?
Listen to your customers and act on the feedback. Having a closed-loop feedback strategy is the first step. Consider all the ways you collect customer data — from surveys to business reviews to product feedback — and then find a systematic way to consolidate the information, share it across the entire team and, this is key, get buy-in from key stakeholders across the organization to act on the feedback received. This type of scaling process makes it much easier to track if the changes you are making are having a neutral, positive or negative impact on overall satisfaction.
The element to focus on is offering the right level of human assistance at the most critical points of the customer journey.”
How are you striking the right balance of automation and human touch?
Finding this balance is essential so that customers, especially long-term customers, do not feel a gap in service or a significant decrease in service quality with a shift to automation. In particular, the element to focus on is offering the right level of human assistance at the most critical points of the customer journey. Ask the question: What are the decisions or other interaction points that, if not handled correctly, impact customer satisfaction most? Focus the human touch elements on those points.
Then, determine what can be automated or potentially accomplished more cost-effectively without the risk of decreasing customer satisfaction. It’s also important to offer customers the opportunities to self-serve or interact with other customers to get what they need.
What are the main challenges you’ve faced as your customer success team has scaled?
Finding the right account load balance for team members, especially during peak usage periods, is always challenging. The approach described above for focusing the human element on the most critical part of the customer journey can also apply to the employee journey.
In this case, we ask ourselves these questions: What are the most impactful actions that team members do to influence the client experience? How can the other activities be automated or done differently? These questions help us align efficiently, so that team members are freed up for the important work and ultimately find a balance in their workload.
