A typical day in the life of the Flowroute Customer Success Team starts and ends with a dedicated focus and commitment to getting to the bottom of every customer issue.
Each team member takes support cases as they come in. Although they are each responsible for resolving the customer issue that they are managing, they often rely on the brain trust of the entire team for ideas, guidance and collaborative solutions. The team members help each other dig further and further into a problem. The idea that something is ‘good enough’ is not in this team’s DNA. They constantly ask ‘why’ and probe until the cause of the problem is well understood.
“We never want a customer to have the same issue twice,” said Michael Weber, Customer Success senior support engineer at Flowroute. “I believe that because we approach customer success as a software company, we are agile and stand out from how legacy telecom companies manage customer support. Many are still using the customer service approaches that haven’t changed much from the POTS days.”
Team members also often get pulled into side projects. The Developer Team will seek their input and advice to stay on top of what product needs customers have, and what features could help improve the customer experience.
The Flowroute support team has visibility into what’s happening at any moment across the rest of the company. There’s transparency in project planning, development and sales which often helps resolve issues and guide customers to make decisions. This access to other teams and real-time collaboration between product and support teams can help get to the heart of an issue in a much shorter amount of time.
Since Flowroute started out with a software approach, the support practices come from software methods. This keeps the team agile and ensures that customers are given the white-glove treatment each time they need help from the support team.
When someone new starts, they are given the run-through of the company on the first day. Everyone in every department is introduced so they will know each other and also know what everyone does. Then new hires learn through one-on-one demos from the people they work with every day. The teacher can be anyone who works on the support team. Afterward, customer support information makes a lot more sense after the company information is seen and digested. New hires are then able to piece together what the support team does, what the company does, and how they fit into the company.
The team takes training seriously since support is the face of Flowroute. They rely on each other to support customers, and everyone’s unique background and skills contribute to the overall success of supporting Flowroute’s customers.
Another key point is that the support team is in the same building, in the same area, and sitting side-by-side. The communication between the group is key to supporting customers well. The team is a tight-knit group with deep knowledge of VoIP and SIP. Even the phone system the support team uses is on the Flowroute network, so they are in effect internal ‘customers’ of the service they are supporting for our customers.
The customer support team strives for the best result for the service they provide. They are dedicated to supporting each other so they can better support the customer. The focus is on completing every incoming ticket much as a doctor would a patient.
The issue a customer submits is owned and worked until it is completed. They pay attention to customer satisfaction ratings, and acknowledge and celebrate high ratings as they come in. They often have ad hoc internal competitions to get the highest ratings in a day.
High ratings can indicate they are doing their job well, but the team believes they would put the same effort into customers even if they didn’t have the rating system.
A typical day in Flowroute customer success team varies from day to day. One thing that is always the same though is the team’s commitment to solving customer issues and working together to make sure each customer they support has world-class service.
