Mat (00:00):
Two important things have been born on October 12th. One, of course is the legendary Australian actor, Hugh Jackman, who somehow found out about this intro and just has invited himself over.
Hugh Jackman (00:12):
I wanted to feel excitement about it and real inspiration was tackling something new.
Mat (00:22):
That's lovely, Hugh. But I mean, you're not actually involved in the podcast, right?
Hugh Jackman (00:27):
So I was not sure what you thing it was going to be. I didn't know
Mat (00:32):
Really. All I was saying was your birthday is October 12th. I mean, I didn't actually need you for this. I appreciate, I appreciate it, but if you could just pop out now I've really got to get on with the recording.
Hugh Jackman (00:44):
I was just struggling to work out what that was going to be and I was at a dinner party with Jerry Seinfeld. He has a really clear and very decisive kind of philosophy about
Mat (00:57):
Hugh. Is this relevant ?
Hugh Jackman (00:58):
And when's the time to call it quits on something when you should leave the party and when it's time to go to a new party?
Mat (01:04):
Well, ideally now would be perfect. Actually, Hugh, thank you.
Hugh Jackman (01:09):
<Continues talking as the door is closed on him>
Mat (01:17):
The other thing born on October 12th was UserConf now called Elevate CX.
Sarah Hatter: October 12th, 2012; San Francisco
Mat (01:28):
That of course is the voice of Sarah Hatter, my friend, and a champion of support people. If you haven't already, go back to episode eight of this podcast and you'll hear the first part of this interview. We talked about the olden days, how we met and how our type of online customer support really began. In this second part, we're talking about the importance of community. Sarah really kickstarted real life events for online support teams through her company, which was then called User comp. And I flew from Australia to San Francisco to give a talk at that first user comp event. I met a tonne of great people there. It was a genuinely life-changing moment for me, and I think for Sarah too.
Sarah Hatter (02:09):
I had done events before, but never on my own and certainly never with the intention to do it as a long-term career. Elevate CX used to be called user comp, and we had this idea to do an event that mirrored something like RailsConf.
(02:29):
You're basically saying, Hey, if these guys get to have a whole thing of education and people cater to them and you get to learn from your peers and meet people and spend $1,200 on a ticket, what about us?
(02:41):
The people who are sort of left behind in this scenario? So we came up with this idea, we got a bunch of friends together, which when you think back on it, I look back on it as like I was begging my friends to come and be a part of this thing, but now it's like we had the Airbnb was on stage, they had just launched, I think Uber was on stage.
(03:03):
All of these companies that were brand new at the time, setting their own standard for how they thought about customer experience. Campaign Monitor was off the ground and running at that point had become a big thing and there was just so much potential in the room.
(03:19):
But what we found was the question that I was asked at the end of the day by 300 people who were there is, when's the next one? When are you going to do the next one? So we did another one six months later, we did another one six months later and we kept doing them and the community keeps growing and it is never going to be something that people don't want.
(03:37):
They're always going to want to be in a room with their peers who have the same problems, who have new solutions, who have new problems. Maybe you have the solution or maybe they're dealing with something like catastrophic and this is the only way that you're going to learn ahead of time before it hits your inbox, what to do about it.
Mat (03:59):
Help Scout is fully remote and I haven't worked in an office for nine years. I mean the last office I worked in was really nice, but I still wouldn't want to go back there every day. That said, meeting people in person once in a while, super useful physical presence, especially when it's away from your day-to-day life just enables a type of interaction that is really difficult to do otherwise, not impossible.
(04:26):
People build incredible relationships online and they used to do that via letters back in the day. But events, retreats, conferences, they are accelerators for connections. Not every event though, it does have to be well run and safe and thought through a bad event. It can destroy relationships just as quickly as a good one can build them. I've seen that happen. That's all I'm going to say about that.
(04:53):
But customer support events, they're always so friendly and community focused. That's certainly not true of all conferences. Nobody is trying to force their dream on you at Elevate or Support Driven.
Sarah Hatter (05:05):
It's been remarkable for me to be a part of it and to Elevate CX has grown exponentially, like I said over the past 13 years now. But I think the best part about it for me is to not be the only voice in the room anymore, to not be the only one who's invited on stage, to not be the only one who's written a book, to not be the only one with the podcast.
(05:29):
There are now hundreds and hundreds of us that are just continually offering guidance and mentorship and it's been incredible to be a part of, still continues to be every day. I'm amazed at our community.
(05:40):
So we've flipped Elevate this year to be completely community led versus me being a figurehead and the behind the scenes kind of person, keeping it all together because we want to expand what people can contribute to. It is a not-for-profit sort of scheme. I guess. We all do this as volunteers. We all have full-time jobs and still manage to get together generously to share wisdom and experience and it amazes me every day, not just that people still have the momentum for it, but that there's new people every single day who can benefit from the wisdom.
(06:16):
So I don't know, you've been around since the beginning too. What have you seen shift and change in the way we think about community?
Mat (06:22):
Yeah, I mean obviously the big change was there was nothing. Remember when we first talked, there was literally nothing. And yeah, as I said, I had looked for conferences and things because coming from the web design world, which I had been in before, there were a lot of tech conferences and they're always interesting, especially when you're new in your career and you're like, what is this about? And everything that someone tells you is brand new to you and super valuable.
(06:47):
I mean, it is slightly off topic, but I dunno if you ever go back and read a book that was such a big influence when you were quite young and you read it now and like, oh my God, it was a terrible book, but it doesn't matter. It's so helpful because you have nothing. It's so helpful. Everything is new. We like, I dunno, do you watch Severance? It's like the s getting that one book. There's one book from whatever his name, the Nut Job, Ricken is
(07:10):
Ricken Hale (Severance): My failure to break into the literary world in my twenties was devastating. Yet it taught me a vit al lesson that it was not me who was wrong, but literature itself
Sarah Hatter (07:22):
Ricken, yeah!
Mat (07:22):
It's so meaningful because it's the only new information.
Sarah Hatter (07:25):
But that was like, that's how I feel about my book that I wrote in 2014. People still to this day tell me that they're reading it and I'm horrified. I'm horrified that there's like, come on, there's better options than 2014 knowledge,
Mat (07:39):
But it doesn't matter because the most basic stuff is gold to you when you are new
Sarah Hatter (07:43):
Yeah
Mat (07:44):
That going to a conference the first time is like that because you're like, everybody is saying something useful to me. And then as you get more experienced, it sort of shifts over to, well, more of what I do now is the community staff. I'm catching up with people and I'm engaging seeing what they're up to and I'm staying connected to people. I'm finding maybe people that I would hire. That also happens a lot at those things is like, oh, this person is so smart. I would love to get them on the team. I've done that.
Sarah Hatter (08:09):
You've done that several times.
Mat (08:14):
Shout out Mercer, Ashley.
Sarah Hatter (08:15):
That's right.
Mat (08:16):
But also when you are more experienced, you're going and you are just at a new stage and you're looking for the people who have done this before who are like, this is the direction we should go or who are doing things in an interesting way that we hadn't thought about or that maybe we should adopt something from them. The thing I love about support conferences is that they're so non-salesy,
Sarah Hatter (08:36):
Very lucky in that regard that we have phenomenal sponsors. I mean, you were an at Denver in 2024, you missed Deon Nicholas from Forethought doing an incredible impromptu rap.
(08:51):
Deon raps: Put yourself to the test, find your truth and come find your favourite AI and Forethoughts
(08:55):
We get to have these experiences with people who, like you said, usually they have to go to conferences and they have to sell. They have to sort of demo and here they get to understand the community that they're selling to. They get to be a part of the community that they're selling to and understand that so much of this is relational building. So much of it is long-term relationships, not these one and done deals that I'm doing. And yeah, it's great for everyone all around.
Mat (09:27):
And so my pitch to anybody who is later listening to this, if you are thinking about like, oh, maybe I would like to do a talk, there is no more supportive place to get on stage than a customer support talk. I mean, everybody is so friendly. Everyone wants you to succeed and they're all in the same world as you, that they get what you're trying to say. So you should just do it. That's my message to those people. And also
Sarah Hatter (09:52):I agree.
Mat (09:52): So many people will help you. There's lots of people who will help.
Sarah Hatter (09:54):
So many people will help you. That's what the community is about and news stories are impactful to everyone in the room. I mean, I think I will tell people just word of advice. If you're interested in speaking at something like Elevate cx, the talks that do really, really, really well are talks like Alex Armstead talks where he does, these are my efficiency tools and he teaches people how to do, I don't know what the word is, modernise your approach to your workspace and your help desk and your tags and everything.
(10:23):
People are furiously writing notes every time Alex is on stage. That's kind of stuff is invaluable. But also the talks that I remember and remember that there's 20 talks at each of these events. We've done almost 50. I remember many of them that have stood out that were all crisis or catastrophic or sort of like, oh shit talks.
(10:46):
Because as you and I knew way back in 2006, 2007, there is no school for this. There is no trading manual. There is no, what should I do when AWS goes down and half the internet isn't online, but my customer base lives in Montana and they don't know the technicalities of who serves a website. I'm trying to log into how do I deal with that? What's the language I use? Where do I post it? Do I delete comments in Facebook? They're redundant.
(11:13):
I don't know. I remember talks like that. One of 'em that stands out for me, I'm not going to name the company, but they allowed too many people admin control and their Zendesk instance. And an engineer went in there and changed one thing, one thing because he wanted to be notified every time a certain type of ticket came in and he disabled sending out support emails to 30,000 people over the course of six weeks. And they were like, this is so weird. We never get replies anymore. Do you think it's something we are doing? Yeah, it says it was sent. I can see it was sent.
Mat (11:48):
Oh, I'm hurting.
Sarah Hatter (11:49):
We know the pain. We deeply, deeply know the pain. But I'm telling you, imagine you're trying to be on a C-suite track and you want to be a director of support somewhere, but right now you're an IC or a support team lead of three
Mat (12:03):
Individual contributor.
Sarah Hatter (12:05):
How else are you going to learn that the toolbox what to do? You're either going to alert it from somebody else or you're going to go through it on your own and make a tonne of mistakes. So yeah, if you've been through something like that or if you have good stories to tell, I always tell people too, tell the best story that makes you the most comfortable on stage. The one that you would say, the one that you would tell if we were all standing around at an after party talking about the worst things that've ever happened in our career. That's the talk I want on stage.
Mat (12:33):
Absolutely.
Sarah Hatter (12:33):
And the other part of it too is just reminding people these communities Support Driven and Elevate, and there's another one I'm forgetting I'll remember, and you'll put it in the notes (CX Accelerator!). They exist to help you find your people wherever they may be, whether they are 20 year veterans of support like Mat and I or they're people who are ICs and just starting out and need that community for exactly what it is. That's what they exist.
(13:00):
That's why there's multiple of them. That's why there's so many people involved in these and so many different events to choose from. I think it's important that you just dive in and contribute as a member, contribute as an author if they have a blog, if you want to start getting your feet wet and content or just want to make a reputation for yourself, this is the place to do it. It's the most, I hate to use the pun here, but it is the most supportive group of people you'll ever meet.
Mat (13:25):
Someone should make a podcast called that.
(13:27):
So obviously events are great and if you can get to an event, you should. It's not always feasible for people. But there's also the Slack communities, as you say, there's newsletters and blogs, there's lots of ways that you can stay connected with what other people are doing. And it's so valuable when you're new. It's so valuable when you've been doing it for a while to just, I find it quite refreshing. Even now. I'm not actually in support directly, but I find it so encouraging to just be with a bunch of people who also care about doing a good job in the thing that we do and the thing that we talk about and that treat it as important and worthwhile for a lot of support people, not what they're getting in the rest of their company.
Sarah Hatter (14:05):
Very much so that's actually such an incredibly important thing to say that if you are not feeling empowered or poured into or that your work has meaning or that you are valued in your company, find other people doing your job at different companies because one of two things is going to happen. They're going to empower you to empower yourself and you know how much I hate that seat at the table lingo, but they are going to empower you to kick down some doors and be in those rooms where decisions are happening.
Aaron Burr (14:37):
I, want to be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens
Sarah Hatter (14:43):
Or they're going to help you find a better job. That's it. That's really like it. It's one of those two things. Both are good though. Both are meaningful and both resonate with the right people. So yeah, don't think about it as like networking. That's a word that we really try to keep out of our lingo when we talk about elevate, that networking has too much of a transactional value to it where it's What can you do for me? Oh, you are not hiring. I don't want to talk to you.
Mat (15:13):
It won't go down well either. At Elevate type events.
Sarah Hatter (15:16):
It's really not. It really won't. It really won't. We're not that crowd, but we are a crowd of humans who deeply suffer as humans in all aspects of our lives. And we come to the table well-rounded with wisdom and experience and ideas to share whether it relates to our jobs or not. It just so happens that we communally do the same job and so that empathy is embedded in what we do. And so yeah, like I said, it's like every single day I'm impressed by our community. I'm impressed by the people stepping up to have office hours together or to do peer groups together.
(15:50):
I love that we have a channel that's just called, I need help. And people post in that all day long about any number of things. I'm trying to get a job. Can you guys go up, vote my LinkedIn post so they see that I'm on the right track? Or has anybody used this product before? Their salespeople are bothering me. And it seems really expensive. It is really, especially like I said, I hate to bring it back to reality, but this time in our lives, we need all the support networks that we can get. And if the one that happens to catch you and give you what you need is work related and also makes you a better employee, it makes you more pumped about the job that you do. Then more power to you.
Mat (16:33):
It's, it's such a nice place to dip into the Slack channels and just stay when you're feeling even not your most productive or is there any point to what I'm doing here? And just to be able to jump into look
Sarah Hatter (16:47):
These people. Yeah, that channel in Elevate is called "vent and release", and sometimes it's one of the funniest things in the world is sometimes someone will post something and say, I'm going to delete this in 10 minutes, and they just go off on something that happened. People react, people give advice, and it's gone and it's done. We all need those places too,
Mat (17:06):
Right? Yeah. You want those emojis. You just need them in the moment. There does not need to be a record of that.
Sarah Hatter (17:11):
Exactly. Exactly.
Mat (17:13):
Love it. I asked Sarah how people could contribute to the community as well as benefiting from it.
Sarah Hatter (17:21):
Oh, that's such a great question. Because we are restructuring, like I said, our community historically, elevate has always been something that was my full-time job. I handled every single element down to picking the food that we ate and planning our after parties and choosing every single speaker. And obviously as I get older, I don't want to do that all the time, but I want to give other people the experience of doing that because what is a community if it's not community led? So the stuff that we really would love people to dive in and spend their time on are things like our, that we try to do twice a month being a guest, curating a masterclass. They are just webinars.
Mat (17:58):
God, I hate that word so much,
Sarah Hatter (18:00):
I hate them. We can do them live. We can record them and post 'em as evergreen content, but this is a way for you to contribute, helping to train your industry, helping to be a voice and a leader in your industry, even if it's like a discussion panel that you and your friends get together on Zoom and talk about a topic like how are you implementing ai? Those things will show up in a Google search for the person on the other side of the world who's trying to find resources. We want to provide those resources, but it can't just be a single voice of myself or even Mat. We have to be communal about it. So there's that.
(18:32):
And there's also speaking at our events, reminding you that every company has a marketing budget that events fall under, including your travel. So if you're selected to speak at an event, they will consider this a marketing expense or should consider a marketing expense.
(18:45):
And it's really great for a marketing team to hear that our customer support is so good that we've been invited to talk about it publicly on stage somewhere. So remove that self-conscious feeling about asking for permission swagger in with the support of your community behind you saying, this is something that you guys should pay for me to go do. That's a really, I think, important tip. So we have our events coming up. We have one coming up again in London over the summer.
(19:13):
We are planning our next event for the US, which will be in the fall. But in the meantime, join the community. Go to our website, Elevate CX or check it out on LinkedIn. You can just Google it on LinkedIn, ask Siri to Google it on LinkedIn for you, and you'll find so many other leaders who you might even be familiar with besides Mat, Erica Clayton, Ashley Haslett, Mercer Smith, Matt Dale, Colin Flanigan, all of these voices and people come from the Elevate community and they are ready and willing to bring in new people and show them the ropes. So please absolutely get involved if it's something that you want to do, if you're building your support career, even if you're just looking for mentorship and resources, that's what we're here for. That's the whole basis of this. We will get through the AI revolution together.
Mat (20:00):
Amen to that. Sarah Hatter. A huge thanks to Sarah as always. So your action items from today's episode, if you're not already in a support community, get yourself in there. There will be links in the show notes or just Google Elevate CX. You'll find it once you're in.
(20:16):
Just look around for your people, the ones who are a little bit ahead of you that you can learn from and the people who are coming along behind you that you could really help. Now, think about that event budget. See if you can maybe make one community event in person. It is so worthwhile. Even if it feels a little bit outside your comfort zone, I promise you, you will make new friends, you will learn something, and you'll just be more connected to other people and that matters.
(20:41):
That is it for this episode of The Supportive, I remain resolutely Mat Patterson, and I thank you for listening. Check out the episode description. There'll be links to a full transcript, to useful resources, and to all the people mentioned.
(20:53):
And if you do enjoy this, please consider leaving a rating or a review on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts. It genuinely does help. Until next time,
Hugh Jackman (21:03):
I think you're the loveliest, the kindest, and the sweetest. I always love talking to you. Huge, huge. Congratulations.
Mat (21:10):
Aw, thanks Hugh.
