CX Thought Leader Interviews: Lauren Riddle
Lauren Ridde of Form Assembly talks the latest challenges in technical support.
Today, I am so excited to have Lauren Riddle on with me.
She is the manager of technical support at Form Assembly, which is a secure
form builder
that integrates with CRM systems for clients that really need to comply with
data privacy
standards.
And I am particularly excited to have Lauren here because she is a former
colleague.
I started my career in CX with her sitting next to her in the customer care
center house.
I got so lucky that we are desperate to assign next to one another.
She was a top agent and I learned so much from her on how to manage customers
and manage
time and be able to get through all those tickets.
So Lauren, thank you for being here and taking the time to share your expertise
as you have
grown in your CX career.
Absolutely.
And thank you so much for having me and for saying such nice things about me.
I definitely feel the same and I am so glad that we got sat next to each other
bracket
house.
Yeah, funny how that works.
So I know now you have been kind of switching into a technical support role.
So I'd really love to dig into your expertise there as it kind of spans both
that CX world
and that technical support world.
So to get us started, let's dig in.
What are the top challenges that your team is seeing when it comes to providing
technical
support?
Yeah, so our team faces challenges with managing increased support volume,
always ensuring
consistent quality across diverse customer issues and really just keeping up
with rapidly
evolving technologies.
As I'm sure in your industry as well, technology is always evolving.
So there's always new problems and bugs and things that come up that we need to
solve.
What are some of those technologies that you are using or that your team is
starting to
integrate into those workflows?
Yeah, absolutely.
Some of the technologies that we use, we use sales forces and there's always
new features
and new things coming up but also with our own product.
So we do have product releases.
Nearly every Wednesday, you know, adjust some things or to come out with new
features altogether.
You know, our technology in-house is always rapidly evolving.
Wow, it's always a changing world but especially when you are delivering those
weekly updates.
That's a lot for a team to manage, kind of to expand on that since your product
is evolving.
How have you seen those customer expectations evolve over the past two years?
Oh my gosh, yeah, customer expectations is definitely something that, you know,
we always
have to keep up with and customers really now expect faster response times,
more proactive
communication, so rather than a reactive communication.
And then also seamless on-me channel support, you know, really with a growing
emphasis on
self-service options and personalized solutions.
And we have a very complex product, so definitely those personalized solutions
are very important
to our business.
Yeah, that seems like quite the tall order when you're combining that with the
increased
support volume that you just mentioned.
So can you share how you are working on those self-service options to kind of
manage that
volume?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we do have an AI chatbot that we implemented called Codif and it's been
absolutely great
in terms of ticket deflection and just general self-service for our customers.
It works with our knowledge base, so really it's kind of like leading the horse
to water
if you will.
And then what are some of the kind of key benefits that you've seen from that
on either
time-saved or cost-saved or like number of tickets deflected?
Can you speak to that a little bit?
Yeah, we've definitely seen a very high number of tickets deflected, you know,
several hundred
per month, which is just absolutely wonderful.
And it's definitely saved our team lots and lots of time.
Like I said, we have a complex product and we offer really personalized
solutions to our
customers.
You know, a lot of troubleshooting, a lot of getting into their forms and
really digging
in deep and troubleshooting to provide that personalization.
So then it sounds like your team has really been able to kind of make use of
that freed
up time to go provide those personal solutions.
What has your like actual team members thought about it?
Are they enjoying the fact that the work is a little bit more nuanced?
You know, can you just speak to what your agents are thinking and the feedback
you've
gotten from them as you've been able to implement this AI to tackle those
routine questions?
Absolutely.
They, my team loves it.
It's really nice to be able to free up some of their time on kind of basic
questions,
like password resets and just other, other kind of small things that can be
answered
via our knowledge base, you know, resources that already exist.
So instead of taking the time out of their day to kind of point customers to
those resources,
they actually get to have code of do that for them.
And it frees up more of their time to really dig into their forms, you know,
for other clients
who are having a little bit more nuanced issues.
Yeah, I remember, you know, we had all those macros and we would send back.
It was the same answer.
But sometimes when we, when you or I would have a caller come in and they had
an actual
more challenging issue, it makes your day more, you know, it makes the day go
by faster
and you, you know, get to actually do something rather than just feel like you
're like a question
answer.
Sometimes, you know, having an easy conversation or an easy ticket can be nice,
but it definitely
gets repetitive, so I'm glad to hear that your team is enjoying the fact that
their work
is more nuanced and a little bit more robust rather than just reactive with
simple questions.
Exactly.
What are there anything?
Are there any other things or key initiatives that your team has done with
those freedom
resources, whether that's your agents or your operational side?
Yeah, so what we allow for our team is two hours per week of continuing
education time.
So it's really important for our company, for our agents to really grow
professionally
and personally.
So honestly, in having a lot of this ticket deflection allows for us to give
them more
of that continuing education time so that they can work on, you know, building
skills,
whether it be within sales force or with other operating systems that we use
like New Relic,
it really has been, you know, a positive, you know, in terms of freeing up
those resources
and allowing our team to really focus in on things that will help them grow
personally
and professionally.
That's cool.
How long has your organization been doing the professional continuing education
Has that been more of a recent initiative or have you been able to just spend
more time
on it with the advances in AI?
Yeah.
This is something that's been implemented since I've started at the company
nearly two years
ago, but it's, you know, sometimes when the queue is a little bit crazy, you
know, we
do have to hold off on that continuing education time.
So implementing AI has definitely increased the amount of time that our team
has been
able to spend on that continuing education.
And that's another really great point about with AI, you know, we're cutting
into the
holiday season, it's crunch time for, you know, CS agents across the country.
And sometimes when it is crunch time, those extra things you don't have time
for, but
with AI that can bring about a little bit more predictability as a lot of those
very
easy, straightforward questions can be answered by the AI using the knowledge
base.
And so that brings just the opportunity to not have to, you know, set aside
those extra
initiatives that you can always kind of consistently make time for those things
for your team,
which just builds just a better work environment.
I think people enjoy, you know, those sorts of extra things that kind of shake
up the
routine a little bit.
Absolutely.
Cool.
So to wrap us all up here, I really want to make sure that people get the
chance to learn
from you.
So what other advice would you give to other CX leaders who are kind of
balancing the need
for those faster resolutions that customers have come to want with that demand
for more
personalized support?
Yeah.
I think really to balance that speed and that personalization, it's really
crucial to leverage
automation, whether that's within your CRM, your ticketing system and AI for
more routine
tasks, like I mentioned, you know, while also empowering your support agents
with the tools
and the knowledge that they need to provide tailored solutions, you know, and
provide
those tailored solutions quickly at that.
Yeah.
And I really hope that that can be such a great takeaway about the power of
continuing
education and, you know, freeing up that time with AI and then reinvesting it
back into
the team in that way.
Absolutely.
This is, I think, just a really great balance about how human agents can really
excel at
things like nuanced, difficult technical solutions and getting creative with
solutions.
So really excited to see how Form Assembly has done that.
And thank you for your time today and for sharing your knowledge with other
people in
the CX field.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Thank you.
[BLANK_AUDIO]