Whereas connecting the workforce to our prospects has all the time been a precedence for us at Buffer, how the workforce has linked with prospects has modified fairly a bit through the years.
Once I first joined Buffer in 2015, the workforce would have a devoted time when everybody would spend an hour answering buyer help emails at our annual firm retreat. Throughout these classes, our Buyer Advocates would supply help for your complete Buffer workforce as they answered buyer emails. It was an superior bonding expertise and an effective way to deliver everybody throughout the corporate–from the Folks Workforce, to Engineers, Designers, and Finance–nearer to prospects. Plus, with our fully-remote workforce having gathered in a single location for the retreat, we weren’t in a position to present our standard around-the-clock buyer help, so having further arms 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 workforce to have interaction with our prospects by replying to buyer help emails. With our workforce being totally distant and unfold throughout a number of time zones, we wished to ensure a strong construction was in place to help all workforce members, particularly those that have been new or had by no means replied to a buyer e-mail earlier than.
At some point of Advocacy Day, our Buyer Advocates have been “on name” in Slack and on Zoom to help our Engineers, Product Managers, and different workforce 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 help for difficult conversations, or simply have firm as they labored.
To help new workforce 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 client perspective, Advocacy Days additionally resulted in lots of fast wins. If an Engineer discovered a couple of bug or a Designer discovered of a small consumer expertise challenge from a buyer dialog, they may leap proper in to handle the difficulty and comply with up the identical day with the client to allow them to realize it was resolved.
Whereas there have been many nice advantages to connecting your complete workforce with our prospects, there have been some challenges and downsides. Some workforce 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 workforce 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 communicate English as a second language.
Taking all of this into consideration, we moved to a brand new mannequin.
Iteration #2: Devoted buyer help classes
In 2020, Buyer High quality Time turned our second iteration of distant, full-team buyer help days.
Totally different from Advocacy Days, on this mannequin, we eliminated the full-team side, and as an alternative, we paired every non-support workforce member with a Buyer Advocate buddy to work by way of a predetermined customer-facing matter or problem. Every workforce 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 workforce member to answer on to prospects. As an alternative, the pairs may learn by way of buyer conversations and suggestions to know how prospects have been utilizing our merchandise, be aware any challenges or UX confusion, and determine which jobs to be executed are being famous by our prospects. This eliminated the intimidation issue and allowed the workforce to concentrate on understanding the client expertise. As a result of our product-facing groups met extra regularly with Advocates, that they had the chance to take pleasure in 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 workforce’s current timelines and sprints, in addition to making certain 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 influence today 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 wished to be particularly intentional with how today have been designed. As an alternative of pairing Advocates with people throughout your complete workforce, we targeted 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 workforce’s work schedule. This fashion, they may make the most of their day to collect 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 thus far. We’ve had 13 Buyer Engineering Days thus far throughout eight time zones with six extra scheduled. Engineers have recognized and stuck 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 will 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.
Thus far, 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 know extra about which insights our engineers are most concerned with.
We’re going to stay with this iteration for a bit, and we sit up for experiencing extra Engineer <> Advocate connection, having fun with enhancements to our product consequently!
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