Quality Conversations with Klaus

Listen in to find out what Mervi Sepp Rei, PhD, Klaus’ Data Lead thinks are the most important skills in customer service today, and how her work benefits those wanting to get smart about customer service data. Want to get analytical? Have a listen.

This episode we welcome Mercer Smith, who has lead customer service teams at companies like Wistia, Atlassian, and Trello, and – in her words – focuses on employee-centred teams. So, what does this mean in the age of AI, when some folks are currently in fear of being replaced? 

Keep listening to find out what she thinks leaders are doing right … and how some of them are getting it wrong. 

Today, we’re talking to Declan Ivory, VP Customer Support at Intercom, who has led support teams at Google, Tableau, and Amazon Web Services. Earlier this year, Intercom released one of the smartest chatbots on the market: Fin. So Declan is truly at the forefront of technological change in customer support. 

We talk about the need for support teams to prepare for AI, and how their involvement in refining these tools is actually crucial. 

In this episode, we talk to Sylvain Mlodyszewski, looking at new tools in the AI space and some new career paths that will unfold as a result.

Sylvain hails from Ultimate, a company that helps other businesses use AI to enhance and automate customer service. So he knows a lot about how different companies and people are successfully evolving with these new technologies. He emphasizes the need for upskilling, and we discuss the emergence of roles like chatbot managers and automation specialists.

Hosam Hassan is a customer service agent turned entrepreneur, and is now Director of Strategy at PartnerHero.

Automating parts of his workflow proved a huge stepping stone for him. He weighs in on upcoming trends and gives practical advice on how you and your team can take a step up by embracing new technologies.

Ever wish you could have AI explained to you in human terms? Our guest Christopher Penn is renowned for making the complicated accessible – and, actually, it’s not even as complicated as you might think. Christopher gives us some easy analogies through which to understand artificial intelligence. 

As Head of Support at Shares.io, an app that allows users to invest in stocks and crypto, Inna knows firsthand the demands of managing a customer service team. We picked her brain about her hiring priorities, and how she brings her experience from Google and Revolut to the table.

Both cryptocurrencies and Web3 have seen rapid growth and adoption, but providing customer service can be challenging. So who better to talk to about advancements in support than, expert in this field, Clemens Behrend? Niclas & John sit down with him to do just that.

We spoke with Arielle Yoder, who is the Customer Experience Quality Manager at Fi, a smart dog collar company based in New York. She shares how they keep their pack of customers happy with personalized customer interactions, and why a transparent QA process is important for teams from the get-go. 

Niclas and John speak to Stephanie Robilliard from VanMoof, a next-gen electric bike company, renowned for fantastic assistance. Among other things, they talk about globalization, automation, and an open feedback culture.

Christian Osmundsen is the Global Head of Support at Deliverect and has previously championed a customer-centric approach at Majorel & Netflix both. We talk about customer service quality, productivity, and how not to crash and burn in a scale-up. 

Ines van Dijk knows everything there is to know about customer service quality. We talk about automation, motivation, and how to avoid burnout (all too common for customer service professionals).

Learn about the hyper-specialized future of customer success, how revenue intelligence can lead to better conversations, and a little about his superpowers.

Learn how Emilie managed to maintain warm relationships with her customers despite the pandemic, how being seen as a partner by your customers can make a world of difference, as well as the surprising parallels between film production and customer success.

One of the latest European unicorns, Pipedrive, knows well that startups depend on good customer service more than any other business. That’s because their products are constantly in the state of development and scaling – so mistakes and bugs are inevitable. Great support, however, can undo the damage done to customer relations.

Klaus is a customer service quality management software that grew from Martin’s personal pain from building and leading a global customer support team at Pipedrive. “How do you make better conversations with customers, as opposed to how to give faster answers or how to get rid of conversations,” is what Martin and his growing team are working on at Klaus every day.

Ahmad started his journey in the company 11 years ago working as an agent. Today, Ahmad leads an account for 500+ employees in the 330,000 (!) person company.

While being one of the biggest players in the tech industry, Automattic (the creators of WordPress.com, Tumblr, WooCommerce, and more!) is also known for delivering some of the most outstanding customer experiences.

EP faced explosive growth in support volumes as a result of a worldwide switch to e-learning, while also making the switch to working remotely as a team. They shared their experiences of how to maintain stellar support quality and team cohesion.

As a remote company spread across various timezones, the folks at Zapier are true champions of asynchronous communication. Lauren provided us with jam-packed insights on how they make it all work, as well as how they stick to their motto of “keeping support weird”.

Improving remote work experience was one of the goals they set for themselves at the beginning of 2020. Little did they know they’d get an intensive crash course just a few months into the year.