Mat [00:00:00]:
Hello. It's Mat here. I've got a great interview for you today. But just before we get to that, I wanna quickly mention my start up idea in case any angel investors wanna get in on it. Here's the elevator pitch. The cannabis edibles market is massive, but it is dominated by unhealthy, sugary options. So my idea is we start a line of vegetable based edibles like broccoli or kale or whatever. Actually, I think we'd start with brussels sprouts.
Mat [00:00:25]:
They're in need of a rebrand anyway. So I'd call this company Buzz Sprout. And if you're interested, just grab my contact details at the end of the episode. Thanks. Alright. Let's meet our guest for this episode of The Supportive.
Priscilla [00:00:39]:
My name is Priscilla Brooke. I am the head of podcaster success at Buzzsprout.
Mat [00:00:45]:
Oh, yes. Right. Of course. Well, never mind.
I had a fantastic chat with Priscilla all about her background and her path into leading a support team and how the buzzsprout team serve their customers every day. Now for people of a certain age, especially Australians, you cannot hear the name Priscilla without also hearing in your head Priscilla. Queen of the desert. But I didn't mention this to the wonderful Priscilla Brooke even once.
Mat [00:01:13]:
I just feel like that should be acknowledged. But there is lots to learn in this interview, especially if you're a small support team and you're starting to grow. So let's get into it.
Priscilla [00:01:21]:
So Buzzsprout is a podcast hosting software. So basically, if you have a podcast, which you do
Mat [00:01:28]:
I do.
Priscilla [00:01:29]:
You have to host it somewhere. It's kind of like website hosting, you know. The files, the audio files have to live online somewhere. And then once they're online, they can be distributed out to directories like Apple or Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts.
Mat [00:01:44]:
So that's where Priscilla is today. But very few kids grow up knowing that they wanna lead a customer success team. Although we do get piano prodigies and math prodigies, why not support prodigies? Anyway, I asked what the young Priscilla thought she'd be doing for work.
Priscilla [00:02:01]:
What did I think I'd be doing? Well, it's funny. I, you know, I I live in Florida. I grew up in the South in The US, so I thought I would be a mom. That was the that was the thing.
Mean Girls [00:02:12]:
"Not like a regular mom. I'm a cool mom."
Priscilla [00:02:15]:
And my mom was a stay at home mom. My friends' moms were stay at home moms, so I thought that would be where I ended up. And then when I got into college and realized that you really can't bank on that as a career, I started realizing that I really have a love for being creative. And so I really loved the creative route. For a while, I thought I would be a photographer. I love photography
Priscilla [00:02:37]:
way that you can express yourself through photography and be creative in that way. But I moved on from that pretty quickly in college because I realized you don't really need a degree for that. And I ended up in advertising.
Mad Men [00:02:49]:
"Advertising is based on one thing, happiness."
Priscilla [00:02:55]:
And I really loved working in advertising. I loved the creative side of it, but I didn't love the convincing people to pay us side of it. And so, you know, I think when I look back when I was a kid and thinking about what I was gonna do when I grew up, I did not think I would end up in advertising. I thought I'd end up in something really creative. And so it's even funnier now to end up really end up in customer support, which is where I've really found a home, and I love it in customer support.
Mat [00:03:23]:
I think there's a lot of people in support who are creative but also don't like selling.
Priscilla [00:03:28]:
Well and there was something about working in advertising that felt so inauthentic. You were trying to convince people to pay you to do this service, but then when you actually got to the point where you were doing the service, that only was such a small part of the actual work. I was an account executive, and so it really wasn't a, I didn't get to be super creative all the time. I was creative in how I was going to explain the project to a client to get them to wanna sign the paper saying they'd pay us for the work. And I just felt like it was lacking that authenticity in the relationship. You know, the human aspect of customer support, of just work in general, that's what I love, is the human interaction. And in advertising, it didn't feel like that was an authentic relationship in the way that I wanted it to be.
Mat [00:04:19]:
So how did you end up at Buzzsprout specifically?
Priscilla [00:04:21]:
Yeah. So I was working in advertising. I wasn't loving it. And I knew about this tech company in Jacksonville that was developing online software. And one of the pieces of software that they were working on was this podcasting product. And I knew the people who or some of the people who worked here, and I knew that they ran a really good environment, a good business. And they were looking for someone to do full time support. They had, at the time, someone who was doing marketing and support, kind of both in one.
Priscilla [00:04:54]:
It was a very small group of people. And so they reached out to me. I was really excited about it. It was interesting because I didn't really know what customer support meant. My only knowledge of customer support was calling Comcast. That's really all I knew. And I'm not gonna lie. I was not excited about that aspect of it.
Priscilla [00:05:20]:
I thought, okay. Am I gonna start working for this tech company and be the person on the other side of the phone like Comcast and just deal with angry people all day or people trying to cancel or trying to log in? Is it gonna be kind of a dead end job that I use to get out of advertising to figure out where I'm going next?
Mat [00:05:39]:
Have you ever told somebody you work in support and then watch their face as they remember the last terrible support experience they had with their insurer or cable provider? Some people try to hide it and be nice, and some just launch right into their horror story. Support, much like brussels sprouts, has a bit of a branding problem, but that's a topic for another time.
Priscilla [00:06:02]:
But I really wanted a change and I knew this company was really great. And so I went into it and I also knew I loved people. So there was that was exciting to me working with people. The customer support part of it was like, okay, I'll take that but I don't really know what to expect there. And so when I started working with Buzzsprout and doing their support, it took me probably two weeks to realize, okay, wait. This is not what I thought it was. This is so much more relational than I thought and what I expected. And this is something that I wanna do for a long time.
Priscilla [00:06:39]:
This is where I feel comfortable, and I don't dread my days. I'm excited about it. And I really knew within a couple weeks of doing customer support full time that this is where I wanted to stay for the rest of my career.
Mat [00:06:52]:
And how long has it been so far?
Priscilla [00:06:54]:
In two days, it'll be nine years that I've been doing it with Buzzsprout, and I really love it as much as when I started. I think it's funny. I never would have thought that I would end up in customer support back when I was in college and trying to figure out where to go with my life, but it really feels like the right thing for my personality. I do really feel like I found the place that works really well with what I love.
Mat [00:07:19]:
Not every support person is gonna make support their whole career, but some will. And if you're a manager and you have someone like that on your team, they can be the cornerstone of a strong and stable service department. They can carry the culture of servers as other people come and go from your team. Hold on to them. I asked Priscilla about her own team.
Priscilla [00:07:43]:
There's six of us. We are a pretty small team as a whole, the Buzzsprout team. I think there's about 20 right now on the Buzzsprout team. We like to be small. We've intentionally stayed small because it really allows us to be nimble, you know, to do a lot of different things and move pretty easily and quickly and communicate well. And so our support team, which is really our podcaster success team, is about six people, and we work with our podcasters primarily through email. Occasionally, we'll get on the phone. But right now, we're we're really focused on email support.
Mat [00:08:16]:
And where in the organization does your team live?
Priscilla [00:08:20]:
The success team is kind of its own department. We are on our own. We don't we're not, like, under the umbrella of marketing or anything like that. The success team is on its own kind of side. Now I will say, while we are on our own and have our own department, we are very integrated with the rest of the company. Like I said, we're small, which allows us to be very close. And so the support team doesn't feel like I know at some big companies, the support team can feel like, afterthought or a separated department, but we are definitely in with the team. We're close with the developers, close with the marketing team, but we are our own department.
Mat [00:08:59]:
And that makes sense. I think when you're a a small company, the support is a pretty big chunk of everybody, really. Yeah. And you also I suppose you know everybody in the company, and you know who to go to for fixing things and who was responsible for different parts of the product.
Priscilla [00:09:16]:
Yeah. Our headquarters are in Jacksonville, Florida. And so the majority of the people on the team are in Jacksonville, but we have people across The US that work in Buzzsprout. And so there are definitely some departments that are closer than others. But yes for the most part we all have really great relationships with everyone and so it's really easy to reach across the aisle and talk with someone in the developing world and see you know, why something's happening the way it's happening and how can we fix it without having to go through a bunch of hoops or red tape to get there.
Mat [00:09:47]:
So what's a a typical day look like when you get into the office?
Priscilla [00:09:51]:
We are all fully remote. We have an office in Jacksonville, Florida, but it's really there for you to use it if you want it, but not necessary. I choose to come into the office because I am a people person, if you hadn't figured that out yet. And so I like to be around people. So I like to work from the office. We, as a team, try to structure our days in a way that about 80% of our work is done in that email inbox where we're supporting podcasters, probably 70 to 80% depending on the day. And then 20 to 30% is outside of the inbox working on projects or self directed study or different things that will help us become better support specialists or stay on top of the changing industry that is podcasting because it changes so much so fast. It's a growing ever changing industry.
Priscilla [00:10:45]:
So we have to spend some really dedicated time on staying on top of that. So that's kind of the balance. For me, I lead the team. So I also spend a lot of time, you know, reviewing our conversations with customers, and I'll jump on phone calls with customers when that's needed. It's a lot of fun. It's definitely a new challenge every day. It's, something new when you get in the inbox and you have completely new question you've never seen before. I love that variety that comes along with working in customer support.
Priscilla [00:11:14]:
But, yeah, most of our days are about 70 to 80% spent in the inbox, and then the rest are outside of the inbox working on projects.
Mat [00:11:21]:
Can you give me any examples of, projects that are happening at the moment?
Priscilla [00:11:25]:
Yeah. So one of the big ones that we have been working on for the last couple months is introducing what we call Buzzsprout orientations. So when someone, you know, comes into Buzzsprout as a new podcaster, podcasting is a very tech heavy hobby, and you will get people from all different types of life who wanna start a podcast. It's a really fun growing industry. And so you'll have someone who's 65 and never worked on a computer that wants to start a podcast for their grandkids, or you'll have someone who's working in radio and very tech savvy that wants to start a podcast. And so you kind of have to be able to work with all levels of people and technical abilities. And so a couple months ago we decided to launch Buzzsprout orientations which really give us the ability to meet with podcasters in small groups that have just started their podcasting journey. And so we'll meet with them and show them how the product works, all virtually, of course, but we kinda give them a live demo, answer any questions they have, give them that technical information they need right at the beginning to give them that strong foundation so that when they go on using the product, they really are able to get the most out of it and use it in the way that it's meant to be used for them to succeed.
Priscilla [00:12:45]:
So that's been a really fun project to work on. I've been working with someone on our team who's been hosting those, and it's been really it's been really fun to see how podcasters love that personal touch right in the beginning. You know? Because podcasting is a solo sport, is I say sometimes. You know? You end up podcasting by yourself a lot or, you're the host and you have guests on, and then you're editing alone, and then you publish your episode, and you just wait for people to decide that they wanna tell you something about it.
Mat [00:13:17]:
Yes. A %. I just wanted to pop in here to say thank you to you personally for listening. You are the absolute best. And if you ever wanna say hello to me, just email the [email protected]. And if you've already done that before, extra special thank you to you, you legend.
Priscilla [00:13:38]:
And it can be really lonesome at times. It can feel really lonely, and no one's in your corner celebrating you. And so one thing we try to make sure is at the forefront of everything we do is this idea that we're here to be your team to celebrate you. And so when you start you know, when you create an account with Buzzsprout, we're like, hey. Let's teach you how this works. I wanna introduce me to you so that we know what's going on so that you can learn, and then also so that you can see that I'm here in your corner here to help you get through the hurdle of starting a podcast. I mean, that is a big that's a big hurdle to to do. To push out that first episode is a lot.
Priscilla [00:14:16]:
And so, we like to just start that off strong with some personal connection right there. And so that's been a really fun project to work on over the last couple months.
Mat [00:14:25]:
How are you getting people into that? Are you actively reaching out to new customers?
Priscilla [00:14:30]:
Yes. So we promote the orientations in our newsletter that goes out each week. So when you sign up for an account, you automatically get added to that, newsletter. So you're getting that in the newsletter. We also promote it within the support inbox. So when someone says, I'm a new podcaster. I don't know how this works. Especially when they say, can I get on the phone? And we don't have phone support.
Priscilla [00:14:53]:
We'll say, hey. We can help via email, but here is an orientation that's happening tomorrow. You should jump in that because that's gonna be a really great way for you to learn how the product works. And then we're also in the process of getting it into our onboarding emails as well so that people, as they sign up and get those welcome emails, they'll see that option as a orientation to jump into.
Mat [00:15:14]:
And so from a technical perspective, when you you are the person like a person who reaches out, when they those people later want support, do you train them to come through a support channel? Are they still reaching out back to the same person that they first emailed with? How does it work?
Priscilla [00:15:29]:
Yeah. So we're a small team. You know? We're six people. And so we have we all manage one support email inbox that we use, Help Scout, which is great. We love it. And so when we're in the orientations, we'll tell people, hey. The best way to get in touch with us is to email our support team. And we find that because there are just six of us, we don't assign out emails, so you don't get assigned to certain customers where, you know, we have so many podcasters that it would be really hard to have one dedicated support or success specialist to work with.
Priscilla [00:16:03]:
And so for us, we all share this inbox that we work together. Because there are so few of us, we usually get to know our podcasters pretty well. And so that's a really a really nice thing is to build these relationships. And so Cara, who runs those orientations, she'll tell people how to get in touch with support as they have questions. And then we really like to blow them out of the water when they reach out to support and expect, you know, a bad interaction. We're like, hey. Guess what? It's actually gonna be fantastic. Yeah.
Mat [00:16:30]:
That's great. That's a real benefit of a a small team, I think, is that you can do that, especially if you're sort of altogether time zone wise that you can shuffle things around and say, oh, that person, I know they've spoken to you before, and you can if you follow it up, like, they would love getting an answer from the same person.
Priscilla [00:16:46]:
Exactly. Exactly.
Mat [00:16:48]:
Alright. So the six of you, you are working in one queue, figuring stuff out in the moment as to where it should go and who who needs to do it, which you can do when there's only six of
Priscilla [00:16:58]:
you. Yes.
Mat [00:16:59]:
Just pretty ideal. What are the big issues that you're facing at the moment? You mentioned one of them, which is just the industry keeps changing pretty quickly, and I imagine your product is also changing in response to requirements of customers. What else is going on?
Priscilla [00:17:12]:
Yeah. For sure. So that's a big one, is the ever changing industry. I mean, podcasting over the last fifteen years has really just exploded. Really, over the last five years since the pandemic, it really went from being a hobby that some people did and some people didn't to now everyone has a podcast. You know, here we are five years after the pandemic. And so that's been a big part of our job is staying on top of that ever changing industry. And then, of course, as the product evolves over time as well, staying on top of the changing product.
Priscilla [00:17:42]:
I kinda mentioned it before, but I think a big I don't wanna say issue. I guess challenge is the right word that we run into is this idea of people from all walks of life that are using Buzzsprout, that are trying to learn how to podcast. And as their success team, finding ways to communicate with people on all different places when it comes to technical knowledge. Like I said, podcasting is a very technical sport. It can really be very difficult for some people to navigate. You've got the recording aspect. You've got the editing aspect. You've got the final audio file.
Priscilla [00:18:20]:
How are you gonna make that sound great? And then you have the hosting side of it once you get there too. So it's a lot of technical knowledge to take in. And so I think that's one of the bigger challenges just in our day to day as a team is how do we communicate with all different types of people in a way that they will understand. And, you know, we're primarily working through email. So a lot of that is also how can I communicate with you in a way that allows my goal for you is to feel like I'm in your corner? My goal is for you to feel like I'm excited for you and I'm your cheerleader.
Mat [00:18:57]:
There are a few out there who do still believe in you if you'll never give up on you.
Priscilla [00:19:03]:
So how do I communicate that to you through email? How do I make that obvious to you while you're trying to navigate the technical realm of podcasting? It's a fun challenge. It lets us be creative. That's really fun to figure out how we're gonna communicate with someone in a way that's gonna like, meet them on their level, whatever that is. But it also means that you have to have a certain amount of technical knowledge to be able to communicate well with the people who have a lot of technical knowledge, but then also find ways to communicate that in a more simple approach for people who, like I said, is a 65 grandmother who doesn't know anything about, you know, audio files and how to save files to the right size. And so it's a fun challenge, but it's definitely like that ongoing day to day that we as a team get to figure out how to solve.
Mat [00:19:56]:
Do you find that there are some people on your team who are really good at communicating, like, in a highly technical way and some other people whose strength is in, let me get this confused person back to basics and step them through?
Priscilla [00:20:08]:
Certainly. There's definitely people on the team that have, varying levels of technical understanding. For the most part, we are all fairly technical just because we're all in that, you know, millennial age where we grew up with technology and how to kind of figure our way through it. So we may not have started in technology, but we've learned how to grow up with it. But there's definitely certain people on the team that are a little more technically inclined than others, which really helps because you have the ability to pass off, like you were saying earlier, emails to certain people who might have a better way to explain something to someone who's less technical or more technical. And then, of course, you've got people on the team who have more patience than others, and so they're able to work with the person who might need a little more hand holding and a little a little more step by step process. And so you kind of because we're such a small team, we're able to really be intentional about who's working with who.
Mat [00:21:10]:
Do you find that you with nine years of experience can sort of you have a gut feeling when you open a question about the level of communication that's gonna be required for this person?
Priscilla [00:21:21]:
For sure. Absolutely. One of the things that always sticks out to me in those early years was that people would write into support and say they were having a problem downloading their audio file. And with Buzzsprout, when you're using Buzzsprout, you upload your audio file into the account, and then listeners download it. And so someone would write into support and say, I can't download the file. Why can't I download the file? And in the beginning, it would be confusing because I would read it and say, well, you're not downloading it. Why are you trying to download it? That's not for you to do. But it's funny that, you know, over time you realize, oh, when they say downloading and they mean uploading, I have a really good idea of where they are technically and what I need to start by, like, the foundation I need to lay so that they understand that technical information before we move on to anything more, you know, technical and advanced.
Mat [00:22:14]:
Paddo's first law of expertise, anyone who tells you they're pretty tech savvy isn't.
Priscilla [00:22:22]:
And that's one of the things that I love so much about customer support is figuring out how to communicate with that person that you're in the queue with right at that moment. Right? You've opened the email and you're working with Sally.
Mat [00:22:38]:
The third time we met, we became friends.
Priscilla [00:22:40]:
And your only focus in that moment is helping Sally figure out how to solve her problem. And so you have to be creative about how you're gonna work with Sally. And I think that that personal relationship, that passion for people is what's really gonna set you apart when you're doing support because you're really focusing on that relationship. And it's not so much about clearing a queue or just closing out the email so you can move on to the next one, but it's about actually understanding where Sally's coming from, what level she's on, and then how to get her where she needs to go before you move on to anyone else. I really love that aspect of customer support.
Mat [00:23:16]:
How do you find people who can do that?
Priscilla [00:23:18]:
It's hard sometimes to find the right people to do that. And I think when I'm looking for people to come on my team, I focus on people who love people. I was talking about this the other day, and I said, you know, I think we hire people who love people and like podcasting. Podcasting is a really fun industry. And so when we put a, you know, roll up for someone new to come on the support team, we get a lot of responses because podcasting is fun.
Mat [00:23:47]:
Yes. Because I have personally made the mistake, I think, of trying to hire for all of those other skills that you just mentioned, all the the soft soft skills, forgetting that there is a minimum bar of technical capability that's also required and then given myself and the rest of the team a big long project of bringing someone up from a level that was probably too low for the training capacity that we had at the time. So I was wondering how you strike that balance when you're hiring between enough technical ability to be able to learn things and enough, all of the other social soft skills that you wanted them to bring to the job.
Priscilla [00:24:27]:
Yeah. I definitely think it is a balance. You know, you can't focus all on one or the other. And so I think that, you know, at the top of my pyramid are those soft skills, but the necessary skills that are kind of considered those harder skills for me are that technical comfort. So you don't need to be the highest, most technical person in the world, but you have to have a comfort around technology, so that you're open to learning it. Because I can train a lot of people on the technical side of podcasting over the years. I think we've gotten that down to a pretty good place, but you have to be comfortable with technology as a baseline in order to succeed in that. And then the other side of things is writing.
Priscilla [00:25:10]:
You know? You have to be a good writer. We primarily are in email support. And so a lot of all of our communication is in written form. And there's so much that can be lost when it comes to written communication that you would get out of person to person, you know, communication that you have to be really intentional about with writing. And so you don't have to be the most amazing writer in the world, but you have to enjoy writing. You have to enjoy the challenge of communication in the written form, and you have to know how to write with clarity. I think those are, really important. And so if you're the kind of person who hates writing, then even if you're so technical and even if you love people, this is not gonna be a job that you succeed in because it's gonna be really hard for you to overcome that.
Priscilla [00:25:59]:
And so when I'm looking for new people to join the team, those soft skills are really, really important. But the skill of understanding and being comfortable around technology and new technology and changing technology is really important. And then being able to communicate in a clear way in a written form is really, really important as well.
Mat [00:26:17]:
You have to have that understanding of what job are we trying to do now, because that person who doesn't like writing but who is a great people person and with technical skills, when you do phone support later on maybe, that's who you wanna hire.
Priscilla [00:26:28]:
Exactly. Exactly. And so if you're doing support in a chat box instead of email, that's a different skill too. And being on the phone is a different skill, and being in person is a different skill. And so depending on how you're offering support to your customers, you wanna make sure you're hiring people that are gonna succeed in that realm. And so you're right. If we end up going into phone support down the line, we need to find people who can communicate really well in that person to person interaction. I mean, I think about I mentioned, but Cara does these Buzzsprout orientations that we've been working on, and she is so good when it comes to being person to person with people.
Priscilla [00:27:07]:
That is a huge strength that she has. And so that's part of the reason why we started doing those is because we saw that we had this person on the team who really excels in that area. We wanted to use that skill that she had in a way that would benefit our podcasters, and so that's part of where that came from.
Mat [00:27:24]:
Yes. That's a real managerial skill is identifying the strengths that you have and and figuring out how can we use this to amplify those skills in some way for the benefit of the customers.
Priscilla [00:27:34]:
Absolutely.
Mat [00:27:35]:
Say something like this new project of orientation type work. Like, how do you know when things are working in your team?
Priscilla [00:27:42]:
It's funny because I think that a lot of times I I had a conversation with someone a couple months, maybe a little maybe a while ago, and they said something like, you know, you know you're doing customer support well if the customer tells you that you're doing it well, and that the customer is the person that decides whether it's good support or not. And I don't know if I agree with that on a %. You know? I think that there is definitely an aspect of the feedback you get from your customers that will tell you if the support you're doing is is remarkable, and you definitely wanna take that into account. If all of your customers are saying it's terrible support and you're like, but it's meeting our standards, then maybe maybe you're wrong there. But I think there is a balance of seeing what your customers are saying and how they're interacting with your team, but then balancing that with your own standards and your goals that you're setting as a team. One of the things that we kind of have developed over the years are these pillars of how we want our customers to feel about the support team when they leave an interaction, but also how we want them to feel about Buzzsprout as a product when they leave an interaction with the support team. And so like I was saying before, we want them to feel like we're on their team. We want them to know that we're in their corner.
Priscilla [00:28:59]:
And so that's gonna dictate how we respond to them. And so sometimes you'll hear them say, oh my goodness. It really feels like you're in my corner. You're on my team. This is great. Thank you for your help. And then you know, okay. We have succeeded in that goal that we set for ourselves.
Priscilla [00:29:14]:
And, yes, the customer is the one who who told us that. Now sometimes we all know that you'll have a customer who's who is not going to be pleased. There's just no way around it. You can do everything perfectly and they're ready to be frustrated and sometimes you just have to let them be frustrated and not let that be a defining factor of whether your work was good or not. And so you have to be able to separate that value from their response. And so I think a lot of that comes down to how are you setting expectations on your end and setting standards within your team so that your team knows how to measure that and that it's not always going to be down to the customer and what they think in the moment because sometimes that's not gonna be an accurate representation of the work you're doing.
Mat [00:29:59]:
Amen. I % agree with you. Sometimes even, a customer can be super happy, and you can look at it and go, you you just got the wrong answer. You just don't know.
Priscilla [00:30:09]:
Yes. That always those always make me laugh so much when the customer gives, like, you know, a great rating and they're so excited about the work they've done. And I go to read it and I go, this is not accurate at all. You're excited now, but in two days, you're gonna come back and realize that actually the information you got was wrong. It can go both ways. And it's important to hear what your customers are saying when it comes to your service and how your service is. You wanna hear that feedback and get that, but you can't let that be the only way that you measure a successful interaction.
Mat [00:30:41]:
Priscilla makes a fantastic point here. If you want to deliver consistently high quality support, you need to set your own internal standard for quality and then measure against that. Use customer feedback as an input, but not as the only metric. And I'll link my foundations of support series in the show notes here. There is a video about this topic in that series. I asked Priscilla what the future of podcaster success looked like at Buzzsprout.
Priscilla [00:31:10]:
I think right now, we are in a place where we've got this emerging AI technology. I mean, I say emerging. It's here. It's not emerging anymore. It's fully here. I think the future for us looks like finding ways that AI can make us more efficient without overriding that human support that we really pride ourselves in and finding ways for AI to come in and help us become more efficient so that we can spend more time out of the inbox and providing services for our podcasters in a way that, we aren't now and pushing the boundaries of what support looks like. And that highly tailored, highly personal, support offering that we really like I said, we want our podcasters to feel like when they purchase Buzzsprout and they pay their $12 a month to get podcast hosting, that they are also getting a team of six people who are there to help them, to encourage them, to review their episodes, to cheer them on from the sidelines. And so cool, you know, AI allows us to find better ways to do that by kind of streamlining our process within the inbox and giving us a little more time outside of the inbox to find and run after those initiatives and try things and fail and try new things and succeed.
Mat [00:32:28]:
How does the rest of the team feel about the AI tools?
Priscilla [00:32:31]:
I think we're all kind of in the same place where my thought is, and I think the team would agree with me. AI is a really cool tool to use to help you be better, but it is not the driver. It shouldn't be the driver of the support you offer. Because as people begin to use AI more and integrate it more into their daily lives, they're actually gonna find that what they want is that human. They're gonna want the human interaction. And so we, as the humans that provide that relationship with our customers, we can use AI to make that service better, without saying, okay. Now this robot is actually gonna be the person you talk to, and it's gonna be a lot harder to get in touch with a human. I would rather have the AI be my assistant that helps me do the job better than to have them go and be the frontline.
Priscilla [00:33:24]:
Now that can mean that AI is coming in and helping you with those, level one emails that need quick, easy responses. Absolutely. But I think that as we continue to figure out how AI works with our support that we offer, that it's gonna be a tool that we use to help make our support more tailored and more personal. And our and I think the Buzzsprout support team, we're all on the same page when it comes to that. Like I said, we are a small team, and so it's easy for us to be in conversation. We've been talking about AI for a long time now, and so that's how we feel about it as a team.
Mat [00:34:02]:
Do you have something in mind that if you could just magic wand it, make the AI do x for you, what would it be?
Priscilla [00:34:10]:
I wish that there was a way for as I say this, I know that there's ways for this. Okay? But I have not been able to find a way that I feel like it's really benefiting me. But I wish there was a way for AI to read all the context of an email and give me that information in a snap. And I know that AI can read the back and forth and summarize things, which can help get you there. But I feel like I still need to go back and read through the context and and see the context of a lot of the emails that we have that come in and see the account and understand where the customer is coming from. I wish that there was a way to make that better. And I'm sure that as AI evolves and as we get better with using it, that that will become something that is more used. But for right now, I feel like it hasn't really hit it yet for me that, like, really summarizing it in a way, all of the context of the question, the conversation, they count all of it in one place.
Mat [00:35:14]:
Yes. It would be nice to have a computer that's able to summarize things the way you would summarize them.
Priscilla [00:35:21]:
Exactly. Right. Because you have to work with it the way that it's gonna summarize it, which can be helpful. Absolutely. But sometimes you go, oh, I still need to read how they wrote that because there's so much nuance in the way they wrote whatever sentence it is they wrote. I need to know if they're frustrated or if they're not frustrated. That's gonna affect how I respond. And AI, at least in my experience, cannot always accurately interpret the tone that I, as a human person who understands, you know, how people write, that I can interpret that.
Priscilla [00:35:59]:
And really, it can help me to respond in a way that's gonna be more effective for that specific person.
Mat [00:36:05]:
Have you ever had the experience of going back and and seeing your much older replies to customers and seeing the growth in those skills?
Priscilla [00:36:13]:
I haven't. I should go back. I think we moved to Help Scout back in 2019. And so I think I could go back as far as 2019 to see some of those old responses. I should do that and see. I've never thought about really going back and looking at my own responses in that way, but I should do that. That would be a fun that would be a fun exercise.
Mat [00:36:37]:
It's a great thing to, one, be slightly depressed about the stuff that you used to do and think, but also to go, well, the best outcome is that, yes, you got better. From all of those experiences, you got better, and you can't always see those skills in the present because you forget that you had to learn all of them. And then a new person comes along and joins the team, and you you realize, oh, of course, they don't have five years of experience of understanding the weird way customers like to talk about these features that we have or the the mental picture they have in mind when they come, then you interpret that over years, you get better and better at it. It is good to be able to see your own, improvements.
Priscilla [00:37:17]:
I'll have to do that this afternoon, read through some of those emails.
Mat [00:37:20]:
Now before we go, not only do you help other people with their podcast, but you have your own podcast.
Priscilla [00:37:26]:
I do have my own podcast. Yeah. So about a year ago, I launched Happy to Help, which is a podcast about customer support. And, you know, one of the things that I realized when I first got into support, you know, we talked about how when I started, I had this idea that customer support was just a call center, and it was kind of a dead end job, and it wasn't something that I was necessarily excited to tell people about. But then once I started doing the work, I realized two things. I realized that customer support is what you make it. The experience of customer support is something that you can really build to be what you want it to be. And I, you know, started as the only person doing customer support, and I didn't know anyone else who did the job I did.
Priscilla [00:38:11]:
And so I was really just trying to figure it out. And I thought, okay. I wanna make this an experience that I would want if I was working with a software company as a customer. So I'm gonna give that experience the way I would want it. And it really, I think, allowed me to approach the problem of customer support, customer experience, and shaping that in a way that, was very different from what the norm at the time was for customer support and the stereotype of Comcast being your customer support and it being kind of like this bottom of the barrel role that's not that important that people stay at for two years and then they leave because they just can't handle it anymore, and it's just frustrating. That's the idea that I had of it when I started. And then I very quickly realized that that is only that way if that's the way you approach it. But you actually have the ability to look at it from a different angle.
Priscilla [00:39:06]:
And so that's really what happy to help is all about. And so I'll share, you know, some of the things we've learned over the years, doing support and the things that I've developed over the years. But, really, it's about focusing on the excitement and the positive aspects of customer support that often get a bad, you know, reputation, and people think that it's this boring, terrible job to do. But the reality is it's a super important job in a company. It's so vital having a healthy, happy support team because that means healthy, happy customers. And so that is the whole the whole thing behind Happy to Help is finding ways to be positive and enjoy it and really love that aspect of the work.
Mat [00:39:48]:
And so, of course, people can find that podcast in all the usual places?
Priscilla [00:39:52]:
Yes. It's everywhere that you find your podcast. So Apple, Spotify, all the places. You can also find it at happytohelp.buzzsprout.com. And we release new episodes the second Tuesday of every month.
Mat [00:40:06]:
And I can suggest that people maybe start with the episode, starring one of my colleagues here, Christy.
Priscilla [00:40:12]:
Yes. Christy did a great episode about all company support. It was a fantastic episode. She's really great. It was fun to record with her.
Mat [00:40:20]:
Christie is the best. Well, that's about the, the end of the questions for today. So all that remains really is to say thank you very much for joining me today.
Priscilla [00:40:30]:
You're very welcome. Thanks for having me.
Mat [00:40:33]:
Thanks again to Priscilla for sharing her story with us. I think it's gonna resonate with a lot of you. A lot of people who probably like me started out with a pretty limited perspective on what customer service actually is, but then in starting to do the work, discovered something that's not only broader but much more enjoyable to do. And I particularly love Priscilla's approach of support, not just as a form of technical assistance, but really seeing her team as cheerleaders for their podcasting customers. That is definitely not the feeling you get from a lot of other companies, and I think that's gonna help Buzzsprout continue to stand out in their field. So do go listen to Priscilla's podcast, Happy to Help. I was on a recent episode talking about knowledge bases and singing for some reason, but there are tons of great episodes that you can enjoy. And this is actually the last major episode of this season of the supportive podcast.
Mat [00:41:24]:
I will be back soon with a wrap up of season one, and then we're gonna take just a little break before we come back with season two. And I've got an idea to do something a little bit different there, but no spoilers yet. Thank you for listening. As always, email [email protected] with any of your thoughts or your feedback, and please do leave a rating or a review on iTunes or Spotify. It does help. Look after yourself. And you are in Jacksonville, Florida. Is that correct? Yes.
Mat [00:41:56]:
So I did some quick googling earlier. I found a Wikipedia article that says list of famous people. Oh, great. I'll look at that. And of course, it's got it's got musicians and politicians and bands. But it also has a section just for serial killers. Did you know this?
Priscilla [00:42:11]:
Oh, my gosh. I did not know that. I did know that there are some serial killers in this area of Florida or have been historically. I did not know specifically Jacksonville.
Mat [00:42:22]:
Yep. Congratulations. It's quite a it's quite an achievement. I've never seen that on a Wikipedia list before.
Priscilla [00:42:28]:
Yeah. Well, it's funny. As you say that there is a house in my neighborhood that has some lore about a serial killer. Now I can't remember who it was, but something about an underground tunnel that went out to the river that he built beneath this house. And so I should go find that and learn more about that. But that's a couple miles from my home in my neighborhood.
Mat [00:42:49]:
And we'll save that one for when I start doing a true crime podcast.
Priscilla [00:42:52]:
Oh, yeah. There we go.
