Slack
Google Sheets
Mailchimp
Zapier
Airtable
Google Analytics
Active Campaign
HubSpot
Salesforce
The world of customer support has come a long way in recent years.
Today, soothing classical music no longer suffices to calm customers while they’re holding for an agent.
Dodgy helplines connecting people to far-flung corners of the world have been replaced with live help chats. And while “support” used to mean solving technical glitches, now it’s all about teaching people how to get the most out of your product.
“You have to develop a healthy approach to customer care, focusing not only on short term returns but helping the customers grow.”
But it’s not always easy to keep up with the times. And when helping others, it’s gotta be personal. You can’t always go by the book.
So, we asked our talented customer support team here at Typeform for the resources they turn to when they need a little inspiration.
Because even support agents need support sometimes.
1. The Help Scout Blog
“Help Scout not only write brilliant articles on how to provide a good experience for customers—they also shed some light on topics such as how to build and maintain a good customer success team. It’s like having a virtual mentor!”
2. Delivering Happiness, by Tony Hsieh
“This book gives a human approach to customer success. CS agents should focus on the customer’s goals and needs. When done well, this helps revenue rise. Tony Hsieh is a really funny writer and it was the first business book I’ve read as if it were a novel.”
3. The Trello blog
“I love learning about new ways to start my day, and Trello’s blog digest is packed with productivity tips from experts. It makes me feel like I’m living the life of titans in my field while expanding my personal knowledge.”
4. The Support Driven Slack channel
“This Slack channel is used by support people from around over the world to share ideas, problem-solving tips, or just offer an ear to listen to grievances. It feels good to know that people from other companies are experiencing similar challenges, and useful to see how they solve them.”
“The guys behind the Support Driven channel also host weekly breakfast meetups in London. They’re amazing, casual gatherings of seasoned CS professionals and a time to discuss support issues with like-minded people. They say culture eats strategy for breakfast, but Support Driven discuss strategy over a highly cultured breakfast!”
6. Customer Success: How Innovative Companies Are Reducing Churn and Growing Recurring Revenue, by Nick Mehta
“This is a great book for support agents working in B2B companies. It provides a useful and effective structure for CS teams and also goes on to describe ten basic principles for customer success.”
7. @SupportdContent, Twitter
“This is an account I love to follow for support tips that land straight into my Twitter feed. I also know the person behind this project—she’s a superb customer care specialist and content creator.”
8. Farm Don’t Hunt: The Definitive Guide to Customer Success, by Guy Nirpaz and Fernando Pizarro
“Typeform’s Customer Success team tries to do what it says on the tin: make customers successful in using our product! This book helped us think about the strategy behind that. Recommended this as reading for anyone starting off in the CSM world.”
Pssst: Typeform can also be a great tool for your customer success needs. See how a sole typeform can support hundreds of users per month!
