Musings on Product Management, Customer Service, Agility, and More

Before I write on specifics about interviewing a potential support candidate as a followup to this post, I wanted take a moment to talk about interviewing in general.  I’ve noticed a lot of my peers in the WordPress space are facing making their first hire, and/or don’t have a lot of experience interviewing candidates or…

This is a question that I get quite often from friends of mine in the WordPress space.  Several of them have businesses teetering on the edge of needing help to maintain their current customer base while simultaneously working on growing their products and business. We got an interesting reaction on Twitter a few days ago…

In yesterdays’ post I discussed our “metrics” on how we know when it’s time to fire our customers.  Once that decision is made, though, what’s the best way to show users the door?  Here are a few strategy points to follow in your organization. 1. When possible, give the user a warning shot If the…

I’m a huge advocate in the idea that providing excellent customer services doesn’t mean that you unconditionally tolerate customer behavior ranging from abusive to, in some cases, laziness.  I certainly believe a line exists that customers can cross where it’s no longer mutually beneficial to continue your partnership with them, but identifying where that line…

There is a trap that everyone who works in customer service/support falls into at least a few times in their career (if not more often).  The sad truth is that some customer service “professionals” live in this trap, in perpetuity, leading to poor customer experiences as well as their own burnout. The attitude that customers…