It’s difficult to imagine a modern-day company that does not interact at all with its wider audience. Customers and users, fans and influencers, competitors and haters – all these people hold the power to make or break a company.
Most often, there are two main spaces where people share their opinions, suggestions, and conversations – customer service or via a community.
Wise companies have already understood the power of keeping your users and customers close. They involve active forum members as beta-testers who give feedback on new features, user experience, and discovered bugs. Members are also able to discuss things with the co-founders, who regularly served as customer service representatives.
The enthusiasm of early adopters to help shape products is inspiring. But what made these discussions different, was the shared space for answers. Communities – online & offline – became a place to gather and grow.
Human interactions are based on a multitude of emotions but often the negative ones are often most talked about. In a community, however, these are balanced with great experiences and positive reactions.
Today, communities are made, created, and broken with exponential speed. ‘Virus’ is just as good of a synonym for ‘viral’ as ‘influenza’ is to ‘influencers’. But a long-lasting community needs nurturing from time itself.
There’s a mountain of information put out into the world to hoax, trick, and manipulate us, but old-school relationships still require trust built over shared experience. Communities are organic, and they don’t happen overnight.
That’s what building and developing a support community feels like.
Support people share a certain quality. They are, in my opinion, the mightiest of them all, due to their endless knowledge about various products, mixed with interpersonal, empathetic, and social skills.
They are the people who’ve seen it all, and this makes them some of the best people to be around. Support folks know when and how to listen and give advice. Some might even say that without a particular support community called Support Driven, Klaus would not exist as it is today.
To explain this, I asked Klaus’ Co-founder and CEO Martin to share his memory from 2017: “I was on stage at the Support Driven Expo in Portland, talking about my then day job as Global Head of Customer Support at Pipedrive. On the last slide, I included a small plug for what I and co-founders Kair and Egon had been working on – an app that lets you do more and better internal conversation reviews.”
Fast forward to today – much has changed but community is still baked into Klaus’ philosophy and growth. We have never left Support Driven, but have since established and nurtured our own community: Quality Tribe. We run events and can also be spotted conquering others with color, lemon-scented socks, and dreams about a world with no bad conversations.
Quality Tribe
Join us at Quality Tribe! We welcome all support cats and creatures who are working in or with support teams and care about support quality. As a user, and community member, I can confirm that Quality Tribe is:
- The support community with the highest concentration of puns and cat gifs;
- Your go-to source to find out about support events and webinars;
- A community forum to discuss and get answers to your support-related questions;
- Certified Platform™ to acquire a pair of canned socks.
Today, I couldn’t imagine working in this field without being part of a community (shocking, right?!). As a new professional in the support field – ready to dive into the deep end – it can be a bit overwhelming. Communities like Support Driven and Quality Tribe are your lifejackets, and they will be with you for the rest of your career. Just give yourself a week and you’ll never mix up CS, CSAT, CSM, and – god forbid – CX.
Just like in any community, make sure to introduce yourself and share a couple of fun facts. In Klaus’ community Quality Tribe, add a cat gif in the comments and you’ll see what happens. In Support Driven, find shared joy in #good-news or #vent away even when it’s just another Blue Monday.
The quality information and discussions that you can be part of are unparalleled. Meet, connect and engage with people who are the backbone of companies, and whose solutions offer a backbone to customer support teams all around the world.
Every grand love letter ends with a promise to the future. Here’s mine:
If you’re concerned that all these connections are only alive in online spaces, worry not. The world really is our oyster and the support community loves a good meetup. You can be sure that the best of us know that excellent experiences are not only for customers but also for CS folks. From meetups to grand conferences, customer service events will come in all different shapes and sizes.
But for all the impatient ones, stop by and say hi (or meow) at Quality Tribe. I and the quality aficionados will be already there to greet you.
