183: Startup Support with Aurore Lanchart

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode one hundred and eighty-three of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we're talking about startup support. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I'd like to welcome back to the podcast today, Aurora Lansha. Aurora, it's lovely to have you back. Thank you for joining me again. The topic for this week is support in a startup environment. And I know that you're in a startup environment right now, and I know that in your time consulting in support as well, you talk to many startups. So I'd love to explore with you what we should do in that early stage of an organization as we're preparing for growth.

Aurore Lanchart: 1:01

Okay, perfect. Uh I think that the first days, at least the first week, you you just have to listen, like shadowing, shadowing your customers, because you have to understand um at which stage they are, according to your product, if they are just beginning to use your product, if they love it, if they don't love it, if they adopt your product or not, and you have to understand their tone of voice because if you understand that all your customers are lawyers, you can be really familiar with them because lawyers, you know, are really serious. So you you have to accept your tone of voice. So I think the first week you just have to listen to understand the type of word they are using, the type of question they they have. And then when when you have a better understanding of that, you can build your tone guide and begin to just note all the questions that you have to prepare a future FAQ.

Charlotte Ward: 2:04

Okay, okay. So how do you, as you're listening to these customers, how do you gather that data and analyze that data? How do you decide what you're gonna act on?

Aurore Lanchart: 2:18

I I do just um a document, a simple document like uh a G Doc document, and I I just note down, okay, my user never and in French it's really particular because we have two pronouns, a pronoun say you for really familiar, and another one it's right, yes, yes, yeah. And so in France, and I think in Spain and all the Spanish have the same problem with this pronoun, and it's really important in our town to get the the right one. So you have to to check if they use the to or the vo pronoun, and just to adapt formal or really familiar, and you have to check. Uh, for example, uh, I use a lot of time our our CRM to check the age of our customer, what they do, if they are white color, if they have managers or not, because you can't be familiar with the manager. You you you have and you can care, but you can be, hey, party, woo, and you put a lot of MOG and GIF. You can put MOG, but not so much with manager, for example.

Charlotte Ward: 3:31

Yeah, so really understanding how you communicate with them and what's appropriate when is kind of important. And I mean, there are lots of factors at play there, aren't there, in terms of the the type of product and your typical user. Um, so that's kind of feeding into your tone guide early on, then. So you think it's important to get the tone of your support established really early in the life cycle of your support team, would you say?

Aurore Lanchart: 4:01

I think it's good to, you know, to build the foundation and then you you will iterate on that because maybe you your company will pivot and do another project, so you will adapt your tone, but it's cool to just build the first step. And sure, um, I think your turn is really different if you are in B2B company or B2C company, because in B2C you you you can be more funny, more familiar, but in B2B context, it's more formal, and you you you can put a bit of humor or put a bit of fun, but it's just a sprinkle, you know.

Charlotte Ward: 4:41

And I guess also um the value of setting the tone guide really early is that as you make your first hires in support, they learn that very early and they don't have to relearn new habits or you know what what you build is a team that has that imprinted on them from the start, right? So that as the team grows, it becomes part of the culture, the way that you communicate with customers, doesn't it?

Aurore Lanchart: 5:11

Yeah, sure. I think that your your tone has to fit with your culture. If you have a really strict culture, for example, Uber, Uber has a really strict culture. You know, the logo is black and white, so you know you you won't have fun there. But the their tone of voice is really coherent with their image because they are just straight to the point. Hello, you can do that. Bye, have a nice day. Here is your sound.

Charlotte Ward: 5:39

Yeah, that that's very true. And and I guess you know, the the proof is that a company like Uber, we it's very consistent, and yet they're a very large organization, aren't they? So I guess the that's something that must have been set early on, right? Um what what else do you need to concentrate on in the startup environment? Once you set your tone, what's the next thing?

Aurore Lanchart: 6:02

Uh the tools. The tools are really, really important, and it depends on the structure on your business. Um I'm not really dogmatic about the tools, but uh I think, for example, chat tools like intercom are really interesting if you do e-commerce and at really early stage. But when you want to scale a tool like Epscat or Zendesk, it's really interesting because it's really scalable and there is a lot of integration, and you you can go forward and scale really big team with those tools.

Charlotte Ward: 6:42

Okay. Do you do you think that it's important to? I mean, you said you weren't particularly dogmatic about tools. Do you think it's important to pick one and stick with it for a long time though?

Aurore Lanchart: 6:53

It depends, but um sometimes a tool is really nice for one moment of your life and one moment of the stage of your startup, and then your startup has new objectives, and so maybe a tool won't fit for the new needs. So and but you have to get a reliable tool because uh if your tool doesn't absorb all the your volume of tickets, you you will have a problem. And it's really hard to change a tool when you your startup have scale, because uh your learning curve is really hard, your team have whole old habits with the old tool, so it's really hard to change your your tool. So um it's good to do a big benchmark when you begin and and then to choose the the better tool for you. And it depends on your objective because my impression is, for example, uh I love intercom, and intercom is really good to get feedbacks and uh in early stage, and when you want to scale a ticketing, traditional ticketing tool is more suitable. But I know companies in France, really successful company. Uh one is called Alain, is the first new insurer uh for 30 years, and they they've rose like 50 million and those last months, and they use only use intercom, but the support team there is 37 person. So if you don't want if you don't want 37 person in your support team, maybe another tool is more suitable, but it depends what you want to do.

Charlotte Ward: 8:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reliability is really important, isn't it? But um, with the investment in any of those tools, it's uh it it can feel kind of overwhelming when you when you have to make a choice, like when you sit down and you say, right, I've reached the point now where we need to invest in something. And you know, and the all of the considerations that you make around volume and around the way you want to communicate and what you know, channels and you know, uh reputation, frankly, as well. The the kind of standing of the tool in the industry. Um, all we when you take all of those factors into account, I always find to choosing a tool really hard. What's your uh just before we close, what's your top piece of advice for picking a tool?

Aurore Lanchart: 9:34

Um I think it's really funny what I will say, but I think support person, we are like developers because developers sometimes choose a programming language because of the community. And I think for us, it's interesting to choose our tool because of the community. When you know that Zendesk or Intercom or Epscot have a strong community, it's easier to pick those tools because if you have any issues, you know you can rely on the community to have to get information to get tips.

Charlotte Ward: 10:05

That's really interesting. I hadn't thought of it like that. I think you're right. I think you're right. Community is important when it comes to tools. Awesome. Thank you, Aural. Lovely to have you back. That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one eight three for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.