It is truthful to say that not many individuals develop up dreaming about working in buyer assist. It is not the everyday aspirational profession path! Certainly, some see a buyer assist position as a stepping stone to one thing else or a short-term job in a break from faculty or Uni. After almost a decade working in a assist position right here at Buffer, I’ve come to think about buyer assist as a profession in its personal proper, and I am extra keen about it than ever.
I have been working within the assist crew at Buffer for 9 years, which is a major and strange period of time in a single job! Within the tech world, folks change roles and employers greater than in virtually some other business, making me much more of an outlier. There have definitely been instances when the considered transferring on has popped into my thoughts, and I questioned if I ought to take into account beginning a brand new chapter. I need to share extra about why I’ve stayed at Buffer and haven’t any plans to depart.
To start with – why assist?
I’ve at all times appreciated figuring issues out, understanding how issues work, making issues higher, and serving to folks. I really feel satisfaction after I’ve been in a position to make use of my data, expertise, and expertise to make a distinction. I’ve beforehand labored in healthcare, the place I made medical diagnoses (centered on folks) and in IT safety roles (centered on tech). My buyer assist position at Buffer is in a candy spot for me, the place I exploit expertise from each areas.
Working in buyer assist can draw on many expertise you would not mix in different roles. In simply sooner or later’s work, you should utilize a variety of expertise: emotional intelligence, predictive communication, technical data, troubleshooting/diagnostics, and testing. There’s additionally lots of cross-team communication: we work instantly with the finance crew on gross sales admin, with the advertising crew on launch planning, and we work with the product and engineering groups to assist their work in enhancing our product and bringing new options to our clients. We’re removed from being an remoted crew!
One other superior factor about assist is that we have to find out about the entire product, not simply functionally. We have to know the ins and outs of use every characteristic, and we have to perceive a number of use instances for every characteristic, the related bugs, which bugs have just lately been resolved for that characteristic, how options work together with each other, how our options differ from native options, and so on. There’s the potential for infinite data progress. You have by no means ‘arrived’ as a data knowledgeable throughout the complete product as a result of continuous modifications, so there is a fixed problem. Nonetheless, amidst that problem, your understanding of the assets that are at your disposal grows and offers you the boldness to proceed navigating this ever-changing setting.
Second – why I’ve stayed at Buffer.
I joined in 2014 once we had been nonetheless a start-up (Buffer was based in 2012), and we had been fewer than 20 folks. The assist crew is presently greater than Buffer was after I joined! I began out overlaying Saturdays and Sundays as a “Weekend Warrior” (we used to have barely extra jovial names for our roles, and we had a powerful love of alliteration again then). I lined the e-mail inbox and conversations coming in by way of social, and after some time, I transitioned right into a extra conventional work week.
Some folks know Buffer as a lot for our tradition as for our product. We have been absolutely distant since earlier than my time, and having the ability to work from wherever you are feeling best has been extremely highly effective. To me, it is the most important perk!
I have been in a position to stick with my Dad, working from his place when he was unwell. I’ve additionally had the posh of serving clients whereas poolside on a Spanish island. The pliability and potential to seek out your finest model of work-life steadiness with out having to commute or being tied to an workplace is one thing I treasure. Extra just lately, we transitioned to a four-day work week with no drop in wage. You is perhaps beginning to perceive why Buffer is an distinctive firm! Past these items, we’re a values-led firm, and regardless of being unfold across the globe, there are key issues all of us have in frequent.
The work we do in assist has at all times been centered on empowering folks. We need to be there to assist, however we additionally need to get out of the way in which as quickly as attainable. There are a couple of methods we do that:
- We provide the identical stage of assist to our Free plan customers as any paying buyer, which suggests we might be there for folks simply getting began. That is extremely highly effective.
- We invite clients to assessment their assist expertise, and we pay very shut consideration to how they rating us. Our buyer satisfaction rating is presently 97%!
- We use a system to assessment and price our assist conversations and ensure we’re delivering a extremely excessive normal, specializing in three tenets: Consciousness, Readability, and Empowerment.
Over the span of 9 years, Buffer has modified quite a bit. Our product is extra highly effective and extra advanced, and our firm has grown to only beneath 80 folks. All this transformation has saved my position attention-grabbing, with contemporary challenges and shifting crew constructions as we have developed and refined our work and experimented with new approaches and instruments. On the similar time, we have maintained our small crew mindset and centered on our core values.
Within the final yr, I’ve taken on a Product Liaison position (extra on that right here), working as a hyperlink between our assist crew and our unbelievable product crew. I’ve discovered a lot! I be sure that the assist crew is aware of about all of the customer-facing modifications being labored on, in addition to move on buyer insights that come by way of the inbox – resembling areas of product friction and have requests. I am additionally getting extra concerned in pre-release testing and studying about the entire means of bringing new options to market. It has been eye-opening, and the final 12 months have been probably the most thrilling and rewarding of my profession.
How I keep away from stalling and hold my motivation contemporary
A few times a yr, I’ve deliberately stepped again from my work to replicate and guarantee I’ve not gotten caught in a rut or complacent about what I do. I would by no means need to work on autopilot; that simply is not me. Fortunately, my work retains me on my toes! There are additionally some proactive issues I’ve finished, which have enormously enriched my work and profession in assist:
- Take time to attach with the broader assist group. There are Slack communities and real-life alternatives, resembling meet-ups and conferences. Constructing a community of assist professionals outdoors of Buffer’s buyer Advocacy crew labored nicely for me. It began out very organically, at a Buyer Help meet-up one night in London. I used to be chatting with some pretty individuals who additionally labored remotely about how good it is perhaps to co-work recurrently. This was the beginning of the Help Breakfast, a casual co-working occasion primarily based round breakfast in numerous venues in London. We labored from every kind of areas, together with espresso retailers, resort lobbies, and museums, and shaped shut friendships over time. We had such nice chats in regards to the frequent themes in our work and the completely different ways in which we approached a few of the challenges we confronted, that we began recording our conversations and sharing them as a podcast.
- Concentrate on engaged on autopilot. I am not pondering of ‘getting within the zone’ right here, extra about coasting by way of the day. I’ve had jobs like that previously, and it’s simply not me. I do not suppose that most individuals need that from a profession. Some stage of problem that you could be ok with on the finish of the day or week.
- Evaluate obtainable roles at different corporations infrequently. The position description and necessities may help body your present position and encourage you when it comes to private progress and the abilities you need to develop. Not solely will this enrich your present work, however it would additionally make sure that you are market-ready in the event you determine to maneuver on.
- Tackle new challenges and initiatives inside your capability and along with your supervisor’s assist. Discover areas inside your crew or adjoining groups the place you possibly can assist out. For some time, I used to be cautious that as Buffer had grown, our roles grew to become extra outlined, with much less selection in our work or alternatives to do one thing completely different. In small corporations, you usually do what wants doing, whether or not in your job description or not – in bigger organizations, your position is extra clearly mapped out and outlined, and there are fewer alternatives to ‘put on many hats’. Nonetheless, even in bigger organizations, there are at all times going to be gaps that want filling, new initiatives or experiments which are price exploring, or folks or groups that need assistance.
- Lastly, I advocate studying books and articles and listening to podcasts to develop your data. Buyer assist has actually been coming into its personal as a profession, and like all careers, there are rising tendencies and alternatives.
I ended up working within the assist world as a result of I like to assist, and I’ve ended up surrounded by a few of the kindest and most supportive folks I’ve ever met.
There are lots of instructions {that a} profession in assist can take you and so many areas that you could get a style of and maybe go on to specialise in: advertising, buyer analysis, group administration, gross sales, and account administration. You possibly can go deeper into technical expertise and engineering, in addition to progress into an operations or management position. I didn’t develop up anticipating to observe this path, however I’m fueled and inspired by how dynamic and fulfilling my profession in buyer assist has been. I’ll be right here for some time!
What ideas come to thoughts for you on this subject? Come chat with me over on Mastodon, Twitter, or LinkedIn!
