In today's dynamic world, the power of collaboration is essential. That's why I'm launching a monthly interview series on this blog, featuring friends and past colleagues who are CX experts. Through these conversations, I aim to create a platform for exchanging ideas, learning from diverse perspectives, and ultimately, fostering a collaborative spirit within the CX community.
For our first interview, I'm thrilled to introduce you to Rachel Lytton! Rachel and I were teammates for over two years at Benchling, a leading SaaS platform for scientific data management and collaboration. Together, we collaborated on new tool implementations, company reorganizations, process design, and team hiring and management. Through it all, Rachel's expertise and collaborative spirit were invaluable! Rachel Lytton, Support Leader
Rachel is a strategic leader with a professional mission to help others exceed and innovate in Life Sciences and STEM fields. From leading multichannel software support to managing logistics for CAR-T immunotherapy products, her diverse roles have equipped her with the expertise to generate impactful support strategies in dynamic customer environments.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today Rachel! We're interested in learning about your thoughts on intelligent swarming as an approach for your customer support team.
To begin, could you explain in 2 sentences what intelligent swarming is?
Intelligent swarming is a customer support approach where the whole team works together flexibly to solve customer problems, rather than hand off issues to different team members based on a tiered system. I’ve used this model with several support teams; I love it because it focuses on empowering every agent to own a customer support ticket and this model has shown to reduce ticket resolution times and improve customer satisfaction.
“The whole team works together flexibly to solve customer problems rather than hand off issues to different members” |
What are some of the biggest challenges you believe support teams face in customer support models?
In my experience I've noticed two key challenges that often arise:
1) Building teams with the right expertise to handle complex business needs and products, and
2) ensuring that knowledge is well-documented for the benefit of both customers and support teams.
It's not uncommon to find that many organizations struggle with internal knowledge that's either not documented, disorganized, or outdated. This can make it tough for support teams to quickly resolve customer issues and can lead to longer issue resolution times. This challenge is compounded by tiered support systems that involve transferring customers between multiple team members, which can understandably leave customers feeling frustrated.
Why Intelligent swarming?
A tiered support system can be a good model for teams managing a high ticket volume, managing a call center or managing multiple brands. However, for teams dealing with fewer tickets and more complex products, tiered support can create knowledge silos among team members. The Intelligent swarming model can be a game-changer for smaller teams.
This approach empowers everyone on the support team to become a product expert, rather than passing issues off to others. Through adopting intelligent swarming, I've seen support team's engagement soar, ticket resolution times improve, and customer satisfaction levels skyrocket!This approach empowers everyone on the support team to become a product expert, rather than passing issues off to others. Through adopting intelligent swarming, I've seen support team's engagement soar, ticket resolution times improve, and customer satisfaction levels skyrocket!
Collaboration is key to swarming's success. What technology do you use to facilitate communication and knowledge-sharing among agents and experts?
Intelligent swarming really works when teams feel empowered to collaborate using their tools and processes. In my experience, the most successful implementations of intelligent swarming have been those that embrace the Consortium of Service Excellence's Intelligent Swarming methodology and are driven by the very team members who will be using it every day.
Another key ingredient for success is having a Help Center that has both internal and external knowledge. Knowledge can be hosted on popular support platforms like Salesforce Service Cloud, Zendesk, Intercom, and more. Equally important is ensuring that support team members have access to tools that make communication and collaboration frictionless, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and the like.
“This approach rewards natural curiosity, empowers team members to educate themselves and ultimately helps prevent reliance on one individual for specialized knowledge.” |
How do you identify which customer issues would be most suitable for this approach?
For small, specialized support teams, I’ve found that the intelligent swarming model works best when all team members are accountable for all customer tickets. Even when facing a challenging technical issue or a complex customer call, team members should be able to leverage the intelligent swarming for peer support to resolve the customer's problem. In support departments dealing with a high volume of tickets or managing multiple brands, Support leaders should access their ticket metrics to provide additional guidance and structure regarding which tickets each agent can handle using intelligent swarming.
Once implemented, how do you measure the success of intelligent swarming in your team?
When implementing intelligent swarming, I recommend that leaders also select metrics to monitor during and after implementation. This could include tracking the number of new questions posed to the team and the answers that team members provide to posted questions. Intelligent swarming metrics can then be integrated into team members' monthly ticket productivity metrics. This can provide a holistic view of individual performance and productivity levels, showcasing not only their individual contributions but also their ability to collaborate and support their colleagues effectively.
What potential roadblocks did you face when implementing this approach?
Intelligent swarming relies on documented knowledge and knowledge of more senior team members. In my experience, as tenured team members transition into new roles, they may leave knowledge gaps within the team which can impact the effectiveness of intelligent swarming. To tackle this challenge, I've encouraged team members to dedicate time during their work week to invest in their ongoing learning and development. This approach rewards natural curiosity, empowers team members to educate themselves and ultimately helps prevent reliance on one individual for specialized knowledge. Individual learning can be supplemented with a robust onboarding program and ongoing training sessions lead by support team members.
Effective communication and knowledge transfer are crucial within a swarming team. What strategies would you implement to ensure these aspects are working smoothly?
I recommend that leaders consider intelligent swarming as an approach that empowers their team members to develop, lead, and implement a model that works for your business. By allowing team members to take ownership of this initiative, they can create training programs, practice collaboration, and fully develop the process. While leaders may need to provide guidance and direction, team members will gain valuable experience in project management, communication, and process development. Empowering your team will create a process that works best for them and ultimately benefits your customers.
Finally, can you share the success of implementing this methodology with your team?
Implementing intelligent swarming has proven to be the right decision for the smaller support teams I've worked with. This model allows for a more streamlined customer experience and allows team members to learn all aspects of a product or service they support. The benefits are enormous for the team including improved response and resolution times and happier customers. Team members also feel empowered to learn, they are encouraged to collaborate with their peers and they receive recognition for their collaborative efforts. Overall, this model has fostered a strong sense of ownership and collaboration for team members which can create a sense of ownership and collaboration that can elevate the morale of any support team. Ultimately, this is a powerful support model I believe all Support Leaders should evaluate for their respective support services!
“Team members also feel empowered to learn, they are encouraged to collaborate with their peers and they receive recognition for their collaborative efforts” |
Intelligent swarming presents an opportunity for businesses to improve agility, adaptability, and innovation.
At BioCustomer Support Solutions, we understand the potential of this approach and offer assessing your organization's readiness, designing and executing a customized strategy, we equip you with the tools and expertise needed to thrive in today's market.
Contact us today and discover how intelligent swarming can revolutionize your approach to problem-solving and success.
Global Customer Support & Service Leader
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