Whereas connecting the staff to our prospects has at all times been a precedence for us at Buffer, how the staff has linked with prospects has modified fairly a bit through the years.
Once I first joined Buffer in 2015, the staff would have a devoted time when everybody would spend an hour answering buyer assist emails at our annual firm retreat. Throughout these periods, our Buyer Advocates would offer assist for your entire Buffer staff as they answered buyer emails. It was an superior bonding expertise and a good way to deliver everybody throughout the corporate–from the Folks Workforce, to Engineers, Designers, and Finance–nearer to prospects. Plus, with our fully-remote staff having gathered in a single location for the retreat, we weren’t in a position to present our ordinary around-the-clock buyer assist, so having additional palms to answer to prospects was an enormous assist!
After some reflection, it dawned on us that we shouldn’t restrict full-team connection to annual firm retreats! We thought by way of the way it may look in a distant setting, and we got here up with our first distant iteration in 2019: Advocacy Day.
Iteration #1: A full day for replying to prospects
Our annual Advocacy Day was a complete day blocked out for the staff to interact with our prospects by replying to buyer assist emails. With our staff being absolutely distant and unfold throughout a number of time zones, we needed to ensure a strong construction was in place to assist all staff members, particularly those that have been new or had by no means replied to a buyer e mail earlier than.
Throughout Advocacy Day, our Buyer Advocates have been “on name” in Slack and on Zoom to assist our Engineers, Product Managers, and different staff members as they navigated conversations with our prospects. We took shifts in an open Zoom name the place anybody may pop in to ask questions, get assist for difficult conversations, or simply have firm as they labored.
To assist new staff members throughout their first Advocacy Day, we additionally held celebrations in Slack when somebody shipped their first reply to a buyer and shared significant learnings and interactions all through the day.
From the shopper perspective, Advocacy Days additionally resulted in lots of fast wins. If an Engineer realized a couple of bug or a Designer realized of a small person expertise situation from a buyer dialog, they may soar proper in to handle the problem and comply with up the identical day with the shopper to allow them to understand it was resolved.
Whereas there have been many nice advantages to connecting your entire staff with our prospects, there have been some challenges and downsides. Some staff members in roles farther from the product expertise discovered it difficult to troubleshoot a problem or know if sure behaviors have been anticipated or have been bugs.
We additionally acquired suggestions that replying to prospects was a bit intimidating for some staff members, as a result of they didn’t really feel as if they have been consultants at our model’s voice and tone. Including to this problem, a few of our teammates converse English as a second language.
Taking all of this into consideration, we moved to a brand new mannequin.
Iteration #2: Devoted buyer assist periods
In 2020, Buyer High quality Time grew to become our second iteration of distant, full-team buyer assist days.
Totally different from Advocacy Days, on this mannequin, we eliminated the full-team side, and as an alternative, we paired every non-support staff member with a Buyer Advocate buddy to work by way of a predetermined customer-facing matter or problem. Every staff member had at the least one Buyer High quality Time session scheduled in the course of the yr, however our Design, Engineering, and Product Groups had three to 4.
Not like earlier iterations, Buyer High quality Time didn’t require the non-Advocate staff member to answer on to prospects. As a substitute, the pairs may learn by way of buyer conversations and suggestions to grasp how prospects have been utilizing our merchandise, be aware any challenges or UX confusion, and determine which jobs to be finished are being famous by our prospects. This eliminated the intimidation issue and allowed the staff to deal with understanding the shopper expertise. As a result of our product-facing groups met extra steadily with Advocates, they’d the chance to get pleasure from a concierge service –courtesy of our Buyer Advocates – every time they went to analysis a brand new a part of the product.
Whereas this chapter had its advantages, it additionally had its challenges. It was led primarily by the Advocacy Workforce and there have been challenges with aligning schedules, particularly across the Product staff’s current timelines and sprints, in addition to guaranteeing sufficient protection for our prospects. We additionally weren’t monitoring any learnings or outcomes from every Buyer High quality Time, so it felt tough to see the impression lately had for our prospects or measure their success.
After taking a hiatus in 2021, we went again to the drafting board.
Iteration #3: Pairing Engineers with our prospects
In 2022, we launched Buyer Engineering Days. Drawing on previous suggestions, we needed to be particularly intentional with how lately have been designed. As a substitute of pairing Advocates with people throughout your entire staff, we centered on pairings with Engineers, and we had the Engineers attain out to the Advocate they have been paired with to schedule a date based mostly on their staff’s work schedule. This fashion, they might make the most of their day to assemble buyer insights based mostly on their present engineering work.
We’re a yr and a half into Buyer Engineering Days and have had phenomenal success up to now. We’ve had 13 Buyer Engineering Days up to now throughout eight time zones with six extra scheduled. Engineers have recognized and glued dozens of bugs, recognized a number of UX enhancements, and gained deeper understanding about how prospects are utilizing our merchandise.
Pairs have additionally shared suggestions alongside the way in which so we are able to proceed to make changes to the Buyer Engineering Days course of. After every pair finishes their Buyer Engineering Day, engineers additionally share learnings and insights with their groups to assist inform the work that they do.
To this point, Buyer Engineering Days have hit the mark, permitting Engineers to find out about areas of the product they need to dive deeper into, and permitting our Buyer Advocates to grasp extra about which insights our engineers are most involved in.
We’re going to stay with this iteration for a bit, and we look ahead to experiencing extra Engineer <> Advocate connection, having fun with enhancements to our product because of this!
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