188: Support in the Business with Natalie Ruhl

Charlotte Ward: 0:13

Hello and welcome to episode 188 of the Customer Support Leaders Podcast. I'm Charlotte Ward. This week we talk about support in the business. So stay tuned for five leaders talking about that very topic. I would like to welcome back to the podcast today, Natalie Rule. Natalie, it is lovely to have you back again to join me this week as we talk about support in the business. And I know you are quite keen to come and talk about this because, as you said just before we hit record, you've been everywhere. So welcome back.

Natalie Ruhl: 0:52

Let's talk about that. Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks for having me back. Yes, I have within support organizations throughout my career, literally, I think set everywhere apart from finance. Um it all I think has you know its its pros and cons. It I think it very much kind of depends on what your business is doing. You you do you have like a hard product? Do you uh provide a service? And then you know that can vary, and and oftentimes for services um or like software as a services support sits within sales and kind of that organization. For us at SoundCloud, I think um at the moment we are super happy to sit within brand and marketing. It is maybe a lesser known angle or like a lesser used angle to have support sit under there. But really for us, uh it means that we focus heavily on community. We we at SoundCloud, you know, as a platform that provides um a service and a product to people to play out their creativity, to find new connections, make connections, maybe even you know, start to see um what used to be their hobby as a business. For us, it's really about helping people find that community, build that community, be there for them within the community. And so um that is just so deeply ingrained within our brand that serving people this way um comes quite natural. For us, that means that we, of course, you know, provide service via email across different channels that emails come in from across different topics, but also we look into um our cultural um needs and what our community really needs to grow, how we as a brand can support this and how we can kind of build um an ideal home for people like this within SoundCloud.

Charlotte Ward: 2:54

Yeah, that makes complete sense. You know, when when I think of something like SoundCloud, I think of, as you said, community, I think of social support, I think of the level of formality and the importance of like consistency of tone and messaging and everything being very important because of the volume as as much as the demographics of your typical users, right? I guess.

Natalie Ruhl: 3:16

Exactly. You know, as a global brand that you know, we we want to make sure that everybody has consistent access to us and that everybody um feels the same kind of level of support, um, no matter where they are, who they are, you know, what motivates them, which can be, you know, anything from someone that um just started out in their bedroom on or on their desk um to um someone that is already quite a lot farther in their career.

Charlotte Ward: 3:43

Yeah, and that consistency is something that I I get from what you're saying, particularly comes through the brand more than anything. So did you at SoundCloud, did support always sit under brand and marketing, or was it more intentionally moved there?

Natalie Ruhl: 4:00

It was a very intentional move. Um, so when I started at SoundCloud, support sat under people and operations um for like not a long time. Um and then I very quickly moved under more of the music angle. Um so that was, you know, all of our label partners and and all of all these things, um, which also was very interesting because it really meant that there, like at that point, it was easy to have a lot of learning within the team about what is the music business? It's crazy, it's a it's a huge beast, nobody really sees through it, but we had the best access to the people that really knew how this business worked, um, which was super helpful to help us be as helpful as possible to folks. Um after that, we moved under product. Um, and that was interesting in a whole other level because at that time, SoundCloud was in a phase of really ramping up on the product side, really, you know, bringing new services to light, um, switching focus of the company to like really be creative focused. So at that time, it made a lot of sense to build out insights from within the company to come to us and vice versa, for us to really go and report back on like how and and what the people need in order to be successful with the product. Um, and now that you know, like that has been a well-established link, I think moving support around has been super helpful also for the organizations that we are set under that usually uh don't have that big of an exposure to support because it the kinds of things that we see in support have brought a whole other level to how our brand and marketing teams look at building out campaigns and building out things. Um and that same went for um the product side of things. At the time, you know, it really helped shape the focus of people that usually don't have that much exposure exposure. So I would say that I'm quite happy with the moves around. Yes, change is always difficult, but people in support are often used to change anyway. So it's it's not really a bad thing for them to, you know, to just tell them, oh, yeah, today we're doing this and tomorrow there's a new problem. Um, but it has helped shape the the whole organization, not only just support um tremendously, by just refocusing all the time how people work, uh keeping the customer in mind and um making sure that everybody has exposure to the customer in some way, shape, or form?

Charlotte Ward: 6:49

Yeah, yeah. Um, and there are a lot of benefits, as you said, almost whichever part of the organization you sit in. Aside from uh managing the change and just dealing with the next problem, um, just being of that um approach to change, that this is just something that you'll have to deal with. What challenges have you had, not so much with the mechanics of moving, but in each of those different business locations? Have you experienced different challenges? You talked a lot about advantages.

Natalie Ruhl: 7:23

Um, yeah, I mean, they all come with challenges because as you know, like your own organization and support, as I said, we are used to having to work quite reactively because you never know what comes in that day. Um and kind of like when we then moved into under a new wing, so to speak, um, oftentimes it would really take a lot of work to sympathize other teams to these ways of working, sympathize them to, well, you know, that's not like that's not the pace that something works at, or support never stops. I can't tell you we're finishing this project now, and then you know, we'll take a break. There and there never is a break. And so really making people kind of sensible to these ways of working in support, um, when when the the day-to-day of another organization oftentimes is very differently organized, has been a challenge in some areas for sure. Um, but it also is building all these systems out. And even though you move, keeping these connections alive, um, which is a challenge because the organization isn't small. Um, and therefore, you know, it it's a lot of effort of like maintaining systems to make the effect of like having support under one wing and then another a lasting one rather than, you know, with the move kind of taking away the focus of uh the previous focus again. However, I will say that it's also very dependent on like the larger strategy of the business because that has made it a lot easier for us to move around to, because we were like the strategy at the time was always very clear why it would make sense and why we would do this. And that helped to get buy-in from people where you know eventually challenges maybe would present itself in themselves initially. Um, but it has made sense as the organization has grown to just keep doing that.

Charlotte Ward: 9:26

Yeah, yeah, I totally see that. I totally see how um, you know, the advantages of being under one branch of the organization builds a lot of ties and and and how you maintain them is is a real challenge, isn't it? And but but I think that you have a heads you have a head start by having been in that branch of the organization, because I know that there are plenty of support teams out there, for instance, who are struggling to build ties to product, for instance. I guess what you're doing then is is really attempting to replace something that has developed organically because you've been in there with a procedure, which which is half the battle won because people understand already then the advantages of having been there and having had those relationships.

Natalie Ruhl: 10:10

Yes, they can't escape it because you're like by being forced with it with under the like I want to say higher level leadership, um, support leaders and the leaders of these organizations have no choice but mingling. So do the teams individually, you know, they're being asked to like work on things together. So there really is no way out for either of them to say, well, it doesn't make sense for us right now, we're busy with something else. It just is that's how it is right now. We'll have to make it work. And yeah, as as we as we talked about, it doesn't come without its challenges, but I think the the reaped reward has been very, very high uh in hindsight. Not going to lie, like there were moments when I was like, oh, why are we doing this? I don't understand. Or this is annoying. Why do we have to deal with this? Yet again, we just came out from under there. However, in hindsight, like I think I would absolutely you know advocate, advocate for this um if I ever, you know, like um had to make that choice again. Um because it just does naturally what you said is is usually such a struggle, is it been it makes these ties a necessity rather than a nice to have. Um, and nice to have's, you know, on the priority list are always you know the last thing we think about.

Charlotte Ward: 11:34

That's it for today. Go to customersupportleaders.com forward slash one eight eight for the show notes, and I'll see you next time.