Rick Gianvecchio's guest appearances

Rick Gianvecchio

The Customer Support Podcast

Greg Collins

Joshua Lory

Patty Hatter

Manny Ruiz

John Ragsdale

James Sung

David Tirazona

Kimberly Gress

Sanjeev Sisodiya

David Rubinstein

Nir Galpaz

Abhay Solapurkar

Brenda Guardado

Bernie Kassar

Philippe Mesritz

OwlTail

Key Insights  "Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking that they will call Support". Why email is not a great channel for support (a consistent message that I hear from all my guests). Okta is a unique B2B company in that they are actively looking at social media for understanding and resolving issues reported by customers. 70% tickets get closed by Level-1 support, 15% by Level-2 and rest by Level-3 (most sophisticated). Best way to make a case go away is to push information upstream (towards customer) so that the case would not need to ne filed. Requires combing and understanding patterns in data. This "personalization of support" is what will be the bedrock for next-gen customer support.  Related themes around case tagging/categorization and case routing (Rick mentioned that if a customer had a great experience with an agent before, it might make sense to direct the customer to the same agent even if the agent may not be the person to solve the case; at least they will take it to completion).  Encourage agents to document solutions through Knowledge Creation Program. Technology stack optimized around Salesforce. Frequency of customer engagements is so high that Support needs to be seen as  extension of the product team.     Favorite book -- Shackleton's Way by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell.  

Key Insights <ul> <li>"Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking that they will call Support".</li> <li>Why email is not a great channel for support (a consistent message that I hear from all my guests).</li> <li>Okta is a unique B2B company in that they are actively looking at social media for understanding and resolving issues reported by customers.</li> <li>70% tickets get closed by Level-1 support, 15% by Level-2 and rest by Level-3 (most sophisticated).</li> <li>Best way to make a case go away is to push information upstream (towards customer) so that the case would not need to ne filed. Requires combing and understanding patterns in data. This "personalization of support" is what will be the bedrock for next-gen customer support. </li> <li>Related themes around case tagging/categorization and case routing (Rick mentioned that if a customer had a great experience with an agent before, it might make sense to direct the customer to the same agent even if the agent may not be the person to solve the case; at least they will take it to completion). </li> <li>Encourage agents to document solutions through Knowledge Creation Program.</li> <li>Technology stack optimized around Salesforce.</li> <li>Frequency of customer engagements is so high that Support needs to be seen as  extension of the product team. <ul> <li>Favorite book -- <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shackletons-Way-Leadership-Antarctic-Explorer/dp/0142002364" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Shackleton's Way</a> by Margot Morrell and Stephanie Capparell.</li> </ul> </li></ul>

Episode 9: (B2B/B2C) Rick Gianvecchio, VP Customer Support, Okta