Supportive Season 1

Sarah has a great conversation with Stephanie Lundberg from Abstract about the opportunities in the customer experience world. There are helpful insights about growth from support to product. Stephanie shares her own experience exploring the two paths of support, the leadership, and technical side, and speaks of the importance of all teams working together in a company.

Sarah speaks with Mike from Trello about having difficult conversations with customers. The two chat about the fine line between customer advocacy and company loyalty. Mike provides insight on dealing with pushback, building up trust with customers and your team, and understanding the importance of team policies, especially with larger teams.

Sarah sits down with Carter Gibson, an internal community manager at Google. They discuss what a community manager does, the importance of a strong community in a company, and fostering a strong culture. The two have a wonderful conversation about cultivating a strong community with consistency and transparency at the largest tech company in the world.

Sarah speaks with Matt Patterson from Help Scout about making customer support better for not only the customer but also for the support specialists. Matt and Sarah discuss customer-centric mindsets for companies and their products. The two share thoughts on building the right team with effective recruiting and avoiding the pitfalls of building a team.

Sarah speaks with Natalie from Plaid about personal and professional growth, going from an independent contributor to a manager. Natalie is building a consumer-facing team at a new company and shares some insights on the trajectory of building a career in support, looking to future projects at a company, and the importance of knowing your team and their goals.

Sarah sits down to talk with Lance Conzett from Uber. The two discuss customer support as a great resource to learn how the customers interact with a company’s product and services and how that translates to working in all departments. Lance shares excellent stories from going through a massive merger that Uber went through in 2020.