Announcements April 2019 Product Updates The past month has been pretty intense. But in a good way š¬. Sebastian joined the Customer Education team. I went on a 10-day jolly vacation to renovate my new house š. And as usual,
Stories Plum Dumplings and Communists Next stop, middle of nowhere. That's how I felt every time I got on the bus to my grandma's village. It's one of those teeny villages where everybody knows everyone. And everything about everyone.
Remote work The Truth Shall Earn You Trust Have you ever tried washing your hands in freezing cold water? It doesnāt work. They never _really_ feel clean. And after, youāre left with the slightly soapy painful chill of not-quite-clean ice-cube-fingers.
Remote work Hire Vans and Sports Cars: The Two-Way Street of Customer Service From the death of a loved one to losing your job, itās fair to say Matt only wanted one of the āfive most stressful life eventsā to happen this year. š
Waiting in Rome *VROOOOOOOOOOOOOM* Death on wheels came close to claiming me for the third time that day. šš I didn't feel like exploring Rome anymore. I wanted to be in bed, away from careless drivers and rancid crowds. My stomach, however, was quick to remind me I was on an important missionāoperation Feed Me.
A Short Guide to Deceiving Your Customers tl;dr: Don't. š āāļø If I had to make a list of things I hate when contacting customer support, deceiving answers would be close to the top. Recently I had the unfortunate privilege of
Remote work How Service Saved our House Buying Dream Somewhere between sizing up kitchen worktops and the slow queue for mid-shop IKEA meatballs, it dawned on me: Weāre buying a house. Wait, let me correct that. Weāve bought a house.
Remote work Is AI ruining the customer experience? Iāve been seething for days. Itās made writing this post incredibly difficult as Iāve had to sift through the countless curse words to settle on the most accurate to convey my current state of mind.
Announcements March 2019 Product Updates It's been a big month for us at HelpDocs. We've started hiring again and already expanded the team (hey team! š). We've also shipped tons, as usual. And I hope you love it all as much as I do š¦āØ
Starting Up Communicating through Emoji If Iāve learned one thing during the 8 months Iāve spent following HelpDocs, itās that this company is truly unique. The people here are even more so. If I was
Starting Up Emerging From our Hiring Failures Last time we tried to hire was a š©show. So when Jake told me we were hiring again, I had two contradictory and gut-wrenching reactions: Excited relief, and overwhelming fear.
Remote Insights Managing the Imposter Within When you try to do everything, you risk achieving nothing. That's what I've learned from decades of struggling with imposter syndrome.
Remote Insights HelpDocs Has Ruined Marketing for Me, and Here's Why I'm Grateful! āIf you ever need a marketing gig in the future youāre pretty fuckedā, Jake remarked during a completely off-topic bout of lighthearted banter about work ethics. We often joke about things like
Remote Insights My Struggles with Time Management, Education and Support It takes 23 minutes to recover from an interruption. As I struggled with a sidestep into education, this stat proved to be way more true than I ever thought possible!
Announcements February 2019 Product Updates We're two months into the year already, and we're kicking off in style with some fantastic new updates to your HelpDocs knowledge base. Markdown Blocks We've been asked about writing Markdown in HelpDocs
Remote Insights When Customer Happiness is Never a Priority, Does it Ever Become One? For a while, Iāve been trying to reconcile the idea that many huge companies purposefully avoid placing any effort on their customer service. And worse still, that we, as consumers, kind of let them. We fail to hold them accountable or really call them out on it.
Product Insights The Truth is Comparisons are Awful Comparisons should be great for customers to find the right fit, but the truth is they don't work. Let me tell you why...
Product Insights Why we Avoid Discounts and Deals January is an inexplicably long month. š° Perhaps itās a kind of repercussion from taking a longer break over the āholiday periodā, coupled with the long nights and cold, overcast days. Or maybe
Announcements Introducing the New and Improved HelpDocs Chrome Extension Decisions to overhaul any part of HelpDocs are never made lightly. They usually involve lots of discussions back and forth in Slack before we even attempt to introduce them to the roadmap. We
Product Insights Late 2018 Product Updates Between gigantic moderate portions of turkey, pints small glasses of bourbon, and sleeping until noon other festive frivolities, we've been working occasionally tirelessly over the winter break to bring you some much-updated updates
SaaS Insights The Importance of Cultural Alignment with Vendors Searching for new software can really suck. Iām not just talking about the comparison conundrum. Weighing up features while wading through the treacle-like sales copy that plagues so many products, to find
Remote Insights A Rose by any Other Name A few weeks ago, I got the opportunity to chat with our customers and friends at Referral Rock, about all things referral marketing, customer success, and putting people first. It was enlightening, and
Customer Stories Referrals, Culture, and Putting People First: In Conversation with Referral Rock The idea of word-of-mouth marketing is nothing new. It's at work everywhere, but you don't always notice it. It might include hitting up your tech buddy to get advice on the best new
Support Smarter What Can Go Wrong Doesnāt Always Go Wrong The journey back from the HelpDocs retreat in Panama was always going to be long. In fact, despite being around 4 hours shorter, it felt infinitely longer than the outgoing journeyāa result
Support Smarter My Ever Changing Expectations of Service Levels Itās 30 celsius outside. In fact, it might be more but Iām too comfortable working from the air-conned executive lounge to step out into the bustling boulevard of Panama City and
