A few on-premise companies have a practice where everyone spends time working in a document in which they can collaboratively edit and comment. And THEN they have a discussion. This is an effective task to engage many people all together — versus letting the loudest voices in the room take over the meeting.
In a world where meetings are happening more often with video, this is an important and inclusive consideration today. —JM
A little peek into the quirks of working @automattic. Keeps us designers humble. I think @johnmaeda's in the middle of his stint for this year right now: https://t.co/k4RjcWZpIH
— Desirée Zamora García (@thedezzie) July 11, 2018
This week I’m doing my annual customer support rotation, aka “Happiness Engineering Rotation,” where I get to work alongside our world famous (and all-distributed) support team.
It’s an extra pleasure to get to work in the same rotation as Automattic CEO, Matt Mullenweg, because of something that Ben Silberman shared with me on the importance of actually talking with your customers. It makes complete sense: if you are going to serve your customers … then you want to talk with them to see how you’re doing. And if the CEO is doing that work, then your company is much less likely to go astray. I wonder why this commonsense is not so common?
Luckily all my sessions are quality controlled and constantly coached. My mentor this week, Mindy, gave me a fabulous point of feedback for how to best end a support chat conversation.
Ask, “Was there anything else I can help you with right now?
Mindy’s rationale for this phrase is built upon the logic of: 1/ creating urgency with the phrase ‘right now’ so the customer needs to make a decision, and 2/ simply working to serve all the customer’s needs while you’re right there with them. Seems like a good idea to use in all situations in life, to me. —JM