Plain

*Slams laptop shut til Monday* **Only joking we work in support**

Humans of Support 0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣ Behind every support ticket is a person. Every Friday, we feature someone in support who inspires us. To date, we’ve always shared the story of someone who’s employed, but today, we’re doing something different. We’re featuring Sarah Josephine Equere – who is searching for a new SaaS support role. She spent the last 2.5 years at Deel, and previously worked at Oh So Nutrition, as well as some other cool companies. Check out her story and reach out if you’re hiring 👇 ✨ What inspired you to pursue a career in support? Support really has always been a part of my career. I started as an executive assistant at a radio station. There, I had to liaise with the clientele every now and then. After that, I took my first role in support. Support matches my personality and interests so I always enjoy roles in the space. 🔥 What’s the hardest case you recently worked on? Honestly, in the EOR (employer of record) space, there are a ton of tough cases. One would be where I had to handle a case that had been open for weeks. Unfortunately, this resolution was dependent on a third party. To calm the customer, I reached her over a phone call (when an agent calls customers, it can be really reassuring for them. It lets them vent, empathize, inform them on active steps and how the customer can expect to be kept int he loop). Did the third party reach back with an immediate resolution when I reached them? No. But I was able to deescalate the threat of a legal case, and still maintain customer loyalty. 💬 What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received when you helped someone? I’d say my favorite compliment would be, “that’s so kind of you”. Beyond that, the confirmation from whoever I’m assisting that I’ve made their day goes a long way for me. 🏆 What’s your tip for prioritizing when everything seems urgent? Prioritizing is super important in support. My top tip is to handle urgent and older matters first. I approach it as first in, first out. This way, you can prevent possible scenarios where cases would unnecessarily lag for days. For your daily tasks, handle the toughest first. This way you can reach out to other departments (if need be) in time and still get a resolution before the close of business. 🥇 What company has recently really impressed you with the quality of their support? Cowrywise. Their support is topnotch. As a user, you feel heard should you have a concern. And the agents are friendly and professional.

Today we've launched new support queue statuses in Plain. Your team now has a better overview of the progress you’re making on your support requests. 🎉 These updates reflect how support teams actually want to work and are just the start of some exciting UI and workflow changes coming soon. 🤫 Check out our changelog for full details of the new statuses, and stay tuned for more updates 👇 https://lnkd.in/euZT36Rd

We'll be in SF for TECH WEEK by a16z in October, co-hosting a developer success happy hour with our good friends at Stytch ✨ Come say hi 👋 https://lu.ma/k6gzu055

That feeling when your beta release goes down a treat. 💕 Stay tuned for some stellar updates over the next few weeks!

What are the first things you do when you log into your support queue on a Monday morning? ✨ At Plain, we: 🤝 Confirm our support rota for the week ⏰ Start with SLAs ⚒️ Plan for the unplanned – set time aside for urgent requests 🤿 Dive in to the remaining queue to reduce the Monday morning scaries

Shoutout to all the support teams answering customers over the weekend – we see you 🎉

✨ Customer Week → Day 5 ✨ Every day this week we’ll be spotlighting Plain power users who put customer support first, and sharing workflow tips from our power users. 💪 Today, we’re featuring a super cool workflow from Jeff Escalante – Director of Engineering at Clerk.com. They’ve utilized Plain’s API to to automatically match customer requests to their correct project and subscription tier – ensuring customers get the right level of support. Check out how (and why) they built it 👇 Clerk faced a unique challenge: their users can belong to multiple organizations and manage multiple projects, with upgrades happening on a per-project basis. This means a single user might have a mix of free, pro, and enterprise-level projects. When these users reach out for support, it’s tricky to know which project they need help with—and what level of support they should get. To solve this, Clerk used Plain’s API to automatically match customer requests with the correct project and subscription tier. When a user emails support, Clerk pulls all the apps they have access to and assigns support based on the highest-tiered project. And, they didn’t stop there. To improve the accuracy of their support requests, Clerk introduced a custom form on their site. Now, when users request support, they specify the exact app they need help with. This cuts down on back-and-forths and speeds up resolutions – ensuring users get the right level of support, whether they’re working on a side project or an enterprise app. Clerk’s current Plain setup, and their plans for the future, make us so excited to see what they build next. Interested in setting up a custom in-app form like Clerk’s? Check out our principles for great contact forms here: https://lnkd.in/e3W-bkjz

Humans of Support 0️⃣2️⃣2️⃣ Behind every support ticket is a person. Every Friday, we feature someone in support who inspires us. Today, we're featuring Aaron Quinn, Senior Product Support Specialist at Linear. Here's his story 👇 💭 What inspired you to pursue a career in support? I always had an interest in technology and how it worked. I graduated with an animation degree and found an aptitude for navigating complex software where things broke constantly and you were left to your own devices to solve. Nothing's more satisfying than being faced with a tough problem and navigating your way to a solution, and I found joy in helping others achieve the same. I was lucky to join Slack as one of their first international employees and helped pave the way for moving away from an industry tarnished with bad “support”, into unparalleled customer “experience”. ✨ What’s a surprising thing you recently learned from a customer? Customers will use your product in unexpected and unintended ways all the time. Linear started as an issue tracker for developers. Its feature set has grown and evolved with a whole suite of project management features to help companies of all sizes get work done. It’s a delight to hear that our product is malleable enough to fit all types of industries, but the most surprising one was hearing someone plan their whole wedding on Linear! 📆 What’s your top tip for staying up to date with the product you’re supporting? Use your product every day! Luckily Linear is a product that is a pleasure to use, but it’s always evolving so you have to familiarize yourself with all aspects of it if you’re to provide stellar support. Test and break things, use features in unexpected ways. Every now and then create a test account and go through onboarding to get fresh eyes on the product so you know what it’s like coming into it as a new user. We’ve set up a Slack channel that posts every new feature that has deployed and that will feature in the next changelog so we have a heads up on what’s new before it hits customers. 🤫 What's your secret tip for staying productive? Make the boring repetitive tasks easy and efficient so you can work on the things that are challenging and interesting. We use Raycast to open shortcuts, search logs with ease, ask AI questions and to keep a repository of common responses that we can tailor for unique replies. Tools like Cleanshot also make it easy to quickly make beautiful screenshots and recordings if we need to demonstrate things visually to customers. 🥇 What company has recently really impressed you with their support? The Finnish pizza oven company Ooni! Not only a great product, but I’ve also encountered great support. I received a proactive email from them after filling out a survey where they addressed my concerns and was a kind reminder that there are real passionate people behind the product – wanting to make the experience better. Memorable encounters like this create loyal satisfied customers!

✨ Customer Week → Day 4 ✨ Every day this week we’ll be spotlighting Plain power users who put customer support first, and sharing workflow tips from our power users. 💪 Today, we’re featuring Christopher O'Neill, Head of Developer Success at Stytch. Stytch is redefining modern authentication with a full suite of passwordless and password-based solutions. They’ve recently made the move to Plain after using a combination of Zendesk and Channeled to manage their support. Curious about the impact? ⬇️ Before Plain, Stytch felt like they had to be everywhere at once—managing multiple tools for their support. The shift to Plain allowed them to bring everything under one roof, simplifying their workflow and making their support process more efficient. ✨ When we first connected with Chris and the team, it was clear that customer support was business-critical for Stytch. We clicked immediately, understanding their needs and how crucial seamless support is to their success. 🤝 “Plain helps us ship support 2x faster. Our team went from having to be everywhere all at once, to having everything all in one place”, says Chris. 🤯 Onboarding the Stytch team was an incredible moment for us – and we’re so excited to continue building on our relationship with them. We’re thrilled to support their growth and can’t wait to see how they’ll continue to innovate with their support stack using Plain, powered by their own customer and product data. 📈 If you’ve been considering consolidating your Slack support with other channels, it might be time to explore how Plain can simplify your support flow. 👇 https://lnkd.in/eME5ziAY