S2E4: How to Empower SupportOperations with AI, Part Two

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We have these amazing teams of people, absolutely amazing individuals who are

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working really hard.

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And I think that the stress level is really high.

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I think people are still recovering from what happened during COVID and how

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lives changed.

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And I think for some people it's catching up to them now, right?

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Kind of that almost a little bit of fear as we come into the fall,

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COVID might be coming back.

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But tell me when you think about building teams,

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what is the thing that you take to your teams that makes people want to follow

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you,

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Shilpa? And I know they do, they follow you from role to role and

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you give them a smile and you give them a safe place to land.

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What would you say is one of those things that is so important to you when it

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comes to

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leading during these challenging times?

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>> Yeah.

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But I really do, I've found the love for people leadership,

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I think through my career at LinkedIn and thanks for bringing that topic up.

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I think what's most important is really as a leader being self-aware.

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I think there's two things that I consider very important to kind of this

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concept of

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conscious leadership, right?

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Being self-aware meaning, what impact am I having on my team?

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My peers, my stakeholders.

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And then I think the second thing is just being able to put yourself in

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somebody else's

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issues.

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So I think times are difficult, but times can be difficult because of different

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reasons.

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You mentioned COVID, that was definitely something that affected everybody's

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life.

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There's also financial upturns and downturns, right?

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And I think through all of it, just being honest as a leader about where you're

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at,

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what impact you're having on other people and constantly working on improving

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your

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learning and your skill set and areas of opportunities for yourself.

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I think that leads to a lot of other things, that leads to vulnerability

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because you're

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actually admitting that you're not perfect.

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I think the whole concept of every tower leadership is long gone.

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And thankfully so, so I think that has changed over the past couple of decades.

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And I think it's really time for all of us to embrace that, is that we're all

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human

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beings that have just been put in a different position, a role, not necessarily

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any higher

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or lower in terms of human value, right?

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And I think that allows you to do so many more things.

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I think that that will create a safe space for people to succeed and fail.

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That'll create opportunities for people because you as a leader are not trying

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to lead all

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the time.

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Sometimes you're okay with following the lead of other people because you may

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not be the

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strongest person in the room, right?

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So I think just self-awareness and putting yourself in the shoes of another

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person and

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not letting a bad conversation or bad meeting or a learning moment go by.

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I've been so many times in my career where I didn't have such a great meeting

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with somebody,

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I had a gut instinct that, "Hey, I should probably go talk to that person."

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And I probably put it off thinking I have other things to do.

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I would say big tip, right?

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Don't put it off.

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You know, especially if it happens more than once, go talk to the person.

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Don't assume one way or the other.

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Don't assume fault.

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Just go have a conversation.

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I think that's probably my biggest tip for any leader that wants to build teams

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that it

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want to work for them more than once.

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And I certainly hope that I may have built that in the past, but yeah, that's

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kind of

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I think my motto.

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In life, relationships work, whatever it is.

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I think you have built that, right?

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I've been around enough people that when your name has mentioned people's smile

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, right?

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So I think you've built that and it's meaningful in our industry.

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I love the fact that you are willing to be transparent.

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You are willing to be somewhat vulnerable.

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I think sometimes those traits could be viewed as weaknesses.

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And I totally disagree, right?

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I'll never forget one of my most memorable moments with the organization I'm

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involved

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in.

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I was speaking right after a woman who was speaking to a couple of hundred

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women in the

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room.

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And she was very real and amazing, amazing speaker.

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But she finished with, "Leave your tears at home.

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Don't you dare ever cry in front of your boss.

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Don't you cry in front of your staff?"

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And I was so taken aback and I had to literally speak right next.

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And I just said, "You know what?

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If you need to cry, cry."

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And we couldn't have been more opposed in the way that we were thinking about

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it.

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I think you do and if that's your go-to reaction every once in a while and it

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happens, "Oh,

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that's okay, right?

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It is who you are."

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Yeah.

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It's so funny because I think societally we've normalized the other side, which

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is speaking

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loudly, raising your tone of voice, which is some people's reaction, right?

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But that is somehow more normalized in the corporate structure than getting

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period.

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Yeah.

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And I wonder why that is, right?

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Because we're just different as human beings and we have different reactions to

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stress and

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opposition and whatever else comes our way.

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Yeah, for sure.

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And you know, you've been taught, right?

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It's a weakness.

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Don't cry, right?

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And I had an incident a couple of weeks ago where my eyes teared up, somebody

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was telling

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me a story.

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And it wasn't good, it wasn't bad, it just touched me.

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And before I knew it, you know, it's like, "What is this wetness I feel?"

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And I was just real and in that moment and listening to what they were saying,

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you know,

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and I don't know.

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I don't think it made me weak.

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I don't think it made me weak.

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Well, I think you're hard-hearted and you're probably practicing your third and

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fourth degree

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listening, which is such an important skill for a lot of leaders.

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I think a lot of leaders shut down and they do the level one listening.

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Yeah.

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For, you know, so cool to you.

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For having the bravery to be yourself.

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Thank you.

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Yeah.

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We're going to see each other, live and in person in just a couple of weeks

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from today.

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You're going to be coming to our SXX Live conference.

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I'm so excited.

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October 7th and 8th in San Jose.

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And you will actually be on a panel with fellow industry executives.

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I'm really excited about that.

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What are you hoping to do at SXX Live besides being an amazing presenter?

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Thank you.

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I'm actually excited.

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It's a rare opportunity to meet a lot of post sales leaders under one umbrella.

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I know, Judy, we've run each other a lot at the TSIA conferences.

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You've just been such a notable personality throughout your career there.

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But this is a little bit different than that.

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I feel like there's more of a focus on support and post sales and just the

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whole experience

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part of it.

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And I'm hoping that a lot more things about scaling and automation and AI are

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talked about,

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which I'm sure I just can't wait to see the agenda and prep for our panel

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discussion there.

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But I think it's rare.

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It's also another thing for being in the Silicon Valley area.

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I think a lot of us have traveled out, but it's actually my first time

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attending something

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in San Jose.

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And I think that makes it so much more accessible.

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So I'm really hoping that a lot of industry leaders are able to come out and I

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'm looking

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forward to just the brain trust that we see there and the open discussions.

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So yeah, just so much to look forward to.

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Absolutely.

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That's a great point.

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I'm always traveling.

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I'm on the East Coast.

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But usually when I'm traveling for a conference, it's to a larger venue,

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whether it's Vegas

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or Lando or something like that.

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So I'm looking forward to being in San Jose.

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There's so many amazing people that I'm hoping to run into at the conference.

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I'm also looking forward to it being smaller and more intimate.

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I think it'll allow for even better conversations between people.

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So that'll be great.

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Okay.

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One last question you knew I'm going to sneak one in there, Anya.

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Go for it.

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Who is the last person that made you smile besides today in this?

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Oh my gosh.

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Why was it a pick my cat?

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But I guess that doesn't qualify as a person.

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You've got to make you smile.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Actually, I'll say it was my daughter.

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And you know, we smile because of different reasons.

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We're amused.

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Sometimes we're chuckling.

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You know, my last smile was really, she said to me yesterday, well, she's

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getting into

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volleyball, which is a new sport for her.

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And it's kind of like she's 13 and people have gained a lot of skills.

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And so we're really trying hard to catch up and I have to do a lot of research

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to find

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her coaches and things like that.

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And yesterday she said, my gosh, like I can't believe them on our time and

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effort.

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You're spending to get me into a new sport.

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And you know, I just made things very real for me.

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At the end of the day, I think I look at work and life both in the same way.

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I want to invest in the people that are around me, whether it's my family or my

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team.

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And I kind of didn't say that as part of my last answer.

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And I was talking about conscious leadership.

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But at the end of the day, I consider leading people as a responsibility, not

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just getting

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projects done as a responsibility, right?

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And say the homes.

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Yeah.

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That was, yeah, you always need a cheerleader at home and my daughter is my

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cheerleader.

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She says the things that, you know, my son and my husband may not say all the

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time.

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Yeah, I'm blessed to have a female influence at home as well.

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That's awesome.

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That is a wonderful thing.

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And it sounds like it's mutual cheerleading if you're going to the efforts that

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you are.

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So I saw my son this week and we went to see him up at college.

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And you know, there's, there's just nothing like those hugs and kisses that

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they give

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you, you know, just, yeah, it's amazing.

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Well, that's a big milestone for you as well.

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He just started his junior year.

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Yeah.

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So that's big.

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But, you know, I'm glad to say he's, he's still my boy, you know, and I hope

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that always

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is that when he sees me, he's willing to hold my hand and give me those hugs.

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That sounds great.

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Judy, if you have one minute, I have a question for you, actually.

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Absolutely.

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So you had asked me the question about, you know, support and customer success.

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We've seen them come together and move apart, right?

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I want to hear your point of view on that particular topic as well.

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Because you know, yeah, you've just been in the space and have so much

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experience.

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So maybe if you can take a minute to share that.

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Absolutely.

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Thank you, Shopa.

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So I do see many organizations that are still figuring it out, right?

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After all these years, I think that, you know, we, because we didn't do the

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well defined

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in every company, it became loose.

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It became loosely defined.

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And that hurt a lot of organizations.

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I think the fact that, you know, we are sitting on the data and I say this for

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support, especially.

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Support is sitting on so much data.

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I can't not mention support logic, you know, in this part of my answer.

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But support logic is giving those insights up to customers in meaningful ways

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and to

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the support teams, the managers, the leaders, the executives.

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I do agree with you that customer success managers are becoming more technical.

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They need to be, especially if there are not offers on the table for a TAM or

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monetized

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service offers where a customer maybe pays for an extra service.

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I do think though that support is the one who's going to go through probably

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even more

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interesting growth right now.

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Because I think support is slowly starting to pull a lot of those tasks that

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maybe before

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customer success managers did.

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Support, to me, support people.

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And you know, we, we joke about it sometimes in the industry.

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You either come into support and start there knowing that you're going to move

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your career

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somewhere else or you come into support and you become, you know, someone who's

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been in

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the, in it for 20, 30 years, right?

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I can't imagine not ever having support as part of my life because I think we

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're wired

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that way.

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We're wired to be the helpers, to be the listeners, to be the counselors, to be

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the de-escalators,

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right?

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All of these things.

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So I think supports, role is going to change significantly.

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I think they're going to be able to take things off of Success's plate.

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And it is going to have a little bit of an impact on, or an identity crisis, if

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you will,

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on customer success.

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And I think leaders right now have to be looking at truly the value add task

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that customer

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success is doing.

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For instance, if you do the outcome reviews, the quarterly reviews, things like

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that, does

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your customer want those and do they find value from those?

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There's a lot of people who say the answer is no, right?

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Customers walk into them kind of like, you know, what is this?

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And I think really, again, you know, some people are afraid to talk to

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customers.

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Ask your customer, is that outcome review that I just delivered for you?

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Was that meaningful?

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Was that a good use of your time?

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Do you want to continue to do those?

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Or what could I do for you?

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Right?

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That's more meaningful.

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Because you know, JB Wood always talks about this right at TSIA.

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We talk about adoption as a customer success motion, but a customer never, you

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know, never

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says, oh, yes, please, I want you to adopt me, right?

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That's not how it works.

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We need to deliver the things that are meaningful.

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And if it's support that can deliver them, let's do that.

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If it's a defined customer success manager, okay.

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But I think if we don't start to put a little more around it right now, I

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always feel like

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we're going to be back in the, it was like 2012, 2013, 2014, when it was a

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little iffy

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and it was a little mushy and it was, you know, many shades of gray around, you

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know,

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these roles were doing.

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I think support has always been support, but now support is actually going to

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have different

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tasks on their plate that that will make their roles very interesting.

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And I do think it's important right now for leaders to really step into this

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and say,

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I don't want that identity crisis.

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Help me avoid that.

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Thank you.

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Yeah, it's amazing to hear from you.

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Thank you.

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All right.

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Thank you so much for joining me, Shilpa.

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This has been a great conversation.

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I look forward again to seeing you in a couple of weeks.

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We'll be together.

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And I hope everybody has a wonderful day.

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Great.

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Join me.

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Good to see you.

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Take care.

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Thank you.

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