We’re, as Lindsay noted digging in to solve the problem as we scale at Olark. One idea about to be rolled out i hiring a part-time contractor to cover our weekend shifts (so the rest of the team can avoid working too much).

 

The added benefit in this is that we now have a “utility infielder” trained and ready to go to help fill in support…[Read more]

Whew, scared me there for a moment, Evan!

It wasn’t so much inappropriate as it was clueless. In CS we all get our brand insulted from time to time by angry socially inept people. There are only 2 possible responses:

1. engage and try to find out the root cause of the anger and turn it, or

2. ignore and let it burn out on its own.

1. is…[Read more]

I would opt for useless. I can train anyone to support a product or a software, but to read between the lines and assemble of team of empathic, passionate about helping people support jedis is an art. My primer […]

Varies by query here at Olark. A broken Gtalk or dns problem can average 9-11 mins, while some more minor requests like billing problems adn CSS or chatting via mobile are in the 2-3 minute range.

Other metrics […]

Meet the Olark CS team blog post: http://bit.ly/TXeewV

Stay tuned, I’ll put a link to our Muy famoso CS team @ Olark blog post when I finish it. compiling more photos now!

write blog posts about how awesome your team is. crate a cult of personality around each team member. We’re always happy beryod words when a repeat customer hops on live chat at Olark and says, Can i talk to […]

Customer happiness and agent efficiency.

 

Are we getting positive tweets, are we getting huge thank you s and high fives? What is the metics on chats tagged “happy_customers”?

 

What is our response […]

I run metrics and build a weekly report for our dev team/prod team/engineering and exec team.

 

They get metrics with history going back 4 months on:

support volume

accuracy of responses (case reopen […]

I had the same experience recently with UPS. They had a sub driver who couldn’t find my house (rural route, no real address, but my regular has been delivering with a smile for years) so they took back the package […]

Short answer, no. The more the customer feels like he’s got a personal connection to you and your company the better. makes for a stronger bond and a lifetime evangelical customer.

We invite customers to our […]

We’re like you Evan, small team with each person as knowledgeable as the rest with some peeps having specialized knowledge and skillsets above and beyond. but yes, anytime a distraught customer asks for an […]

Nope. We do have people not in our Palo Alto office, but we pick our team one, by one and I personally train and guide the new peeps to the Olarkian culture of CS and support. There is no other way to do it. Even […]

That’s a tough one to be sure. I’ve run community and CS on, jeeze, like 5 startups at this point and It’s a question Ive had to deal with. I base my negotiations on a parallel track. That is, if the gig is […]

Hey there,

Bill T here. I’ll do my best to answer all of Evan’s questions methodically

1. What do you do? I’m in charge of Customer Service at Olark, the live chat software company. since our biz is a […]