5 "Pearls of Wisdom" from a Customer Support Specialist

I've been wanting to write this post for awhile now, but I am a procrastinator of personal projects – and equally wasn't sure if 7+ years in the field was enough qualification to even be sharing advice, tips or anything in general, related to the subject of Customer Service.

Despite my better judgement, here we are.

If you've ever considered a position in customer support, or are new to the industry, below are 5 pieces of advice (or "Pearls of Wisdom" as my mother would call them) that I wish that I had received once upon a time when I got started. Granted some of this advice was given to me early on, I really just wanted to get it off my chest before I forgot, and the post died somewhere as an abandoned draft.

With that in mind, here we go...

Be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day.

God, that's such a cliché phrase. Whatever. It's still true.

Having come from a semi-technical background, I'd like to say that I know enough to help a fairly tech-headed human troubleshoot a technical problem, and equally know too much that any attempt to help my grandma turn on her computer would blow right over her head – e.g. she would immediately be lost by the phrase "power supply" and fully convinced her computer was broken before admitting that it's just turned "off." Love you, Grandma. 😘

Regardless, there's a delicate balance between being technical, and too technical in Customer Support Land, especially when your customer base can range from being highly technical, to just getting their feet wet – which makes answering customer support requests for SaaS tricky to navigate.

I can think of at least a dozen occasions while working the inbox over the last several years, where a question came in, and what seemed like a very simply thing to do (to a tech-minded person), amounted into a 10-thread back and forth reply explaining how to get from Point A to Point B. In each exchange, the answer never changed – because the right answer is the right answer – BUT,  it needed to be explained in a way that the customer could easily digest, understand and execute. To get to that point can sometimes take a LOT of patience. Don't give up.

Everyone interprets language differently, and you might not resolve every question in one reply – and that's OK. Each reply is just another opportunity to learn a new way to explain something, and that can be valuable when trying to answer the same question again in the future – you're armed with the experiences and knowledge you gained from previous customer interactions. Be patient – with the customer, and yourself.

You can't make everyone happy.

I'm not saying that you should be treated like shit while working a customer support job, everyone deserves respect – but, if you take everything you read personally, you're going to be miserable. You can certainly try your best to satisfy everyone, but you can't make everyone happy.

I'm very lucky, in that the majority of my interactions with customers are all pleasant. However, on the very rare occasion I happen to encounter someone being disrespectful, I try to never take it personally. When people reach out to support, it's usually as a last ditch effort to resolve their problem – and the frustration a customer writes in with should never go unacknowledged.

I'm an empath by nature, and a people-pleaser... unfortunately, though both these qualities are great for the job, they are also trivial. I tend to "over" support on occasion, purely because I can empathize with customer struggles... and desperately just want to "fix and explain all the things." 😬 This can be mentally exhausting - and not everyone will always be happy with the answers you give them. Just remember that you absolutely cannot please everyone, but you can definitely try your best – and at the end of the day, that's really all you can do.

Set a defined schedule, and stick to it.

I don't think this concept applies specifically to customer support roles, but it's still valuable advice to consider. When I first took my current position, it was my first remote job. Scary, right?

Remote jobs are great in that they provide flexibility – which is especially amazing if you have a young family – but on the other hand, remote jobs can suck you in, because there's no routine of waking up, getting ready for the day, and physically leaving your house to go do work... or "come home."

For the first few years of my life working for a remote company, I had no concept of "clocking out" – or what "normal" working hours were... and this took a serious toll on my family and personal relationships. Just because my laptop was accessible at 4AM in the morning through 10PM at night, and I could be working that entire time – it didn't necessarily mean I should have been doing that. Burn out is real, and if you are constantly chasing inbox zero every single hour of the day, you're going to feel it.

Once I had established a schedule and a healthy routine... and stuck to it, the anxiety and pressure I felt to work constantly dissolved – in fact, my productivity increased and I really found my groove.

Anyway – at the end of the day, just stick to your schedule. Give yourself some grace, and don't become a workaholic just because you can. Your life consists of more than just your job. Find some balance.

Learn by doing.

It's one thing to simply answer a question for a customer, but it's another thing to answer that question and then go the extra mile in the process.

My favorite customer questions are the more challenging ones, the ones that require actually working with the product, to help come up with an appropriate solution – especially those types of questions that make you explore some third-party tool you might have never considered using.

Sure, customer service peeps can share links to documentation on how to do something, but to actually go through the motions from a customer perspective – it just always leads to a more complete, tested answer, that you can share "gotchas" on. It's that kind of insider detail that I personally appreciate when I have to write to support myself, for other products.

If you don't know the answer, try to find it out yourself. Learn by doing. If that means you have to take some extra time to do it... consider it an investment in yourself. I promise it's worth it.

Savor the wins. Do not undervalue yourself.

There is nothing more satisfying than receiving a kindly worded, "thank you" reply from a customer... especially if it's after a long chain of back and fourth to resolve an issue. If you've worked support, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

These are my FAVORITE replies... whether it's a few kind words of thanks or a carefully curated gif to communicate appreciation... I fucking love that shit. It is legit the fuel that keeps me going on tough days, and makes me feel like I'm making a difference.

Working in the customer service industry is hard, tedious, and can be mentally taxing. There's also a negative connotation with "customer support" roles, being considered "grunt work" here in America – or "entry level." Don't even think for a second that is true.

Working customer service requires patience, thick skin, and understanding – but it's also arguably one of the most important roles of any organization. Customer support reps are the front line, and main point of contact for any product's customers. What you read and respond to as a customer support rep shapes the product of your organization – maybe not directly, but for sure in some way or another.