FreshBooks
Company: FreshBooks, Toronto, ON, Canada
Company Description: FreshBooks is the #1 Cloud Accounting Specialist for small business owners that always aims to Execute on Extraordinary Experiences Everyday. Based in Toronto and founded in 2003, our aim is to allow small business owners to save time on paperwork so they can spend that time on doing things they love with their family and friends.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Manager of the Year
Nomination Title: Steve Bujouves, Senior Manager of the FreshBooks Support Team
Tell the story about what this nominee achieved since the beginning of July 2012 (up to 525 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:
As Senior Manager of the FreshBooks Support Team, Steve Bujouves is the type of leader people that people are proud to work for. Here’s why:
In July 2012, the team was fairly small (but mighty) at 11 people. In the past year, under Steve’s leadership, the team has doubled in size to 22. One of the hardest things to keep intact when growing the team so quickly is ensuring our customers are getting a *consistently* extraordinary experience every time they contact FreshBooks. To accomplish this, one of the things that he focussed on for 2013 was new ambitious service standards. Being a fairly new company, we hadn’t had standards specifically laid out before.
These standards include:
- Average call pick up time: 7 seconds
- Average email response time: 1 hour
- Number of calls to voicemail during business hours: 0
- Average customer satisfaction rating: >95%
- Customers can choose happy face (10), straight face (6), or sad face (1)
We’re proud to report that we’re meeting and/or exceeding each and every one. And we now keep current stats projected on the wall for continued motivation throughout the day.
As the leader of the Support Team, Steve is also in charge of ensuring we are not only providing extraordinary experiences for our customers, but also ensuring that we are innovating and learning from those experiences as well. With this in mind, Steve came up with the Activity Tracker. The Activity Tracker provides an interface for Support reps to categorize and identify the users after each support interaction. The goal is to get the pulse of our customers, understand their pain points and successes so that we can help future customers get the absolute best experience possible.
Steve created Activity Tracker plans, specifications and mock-ups from scratch. Then worked with FreshBooks’ engineers to develop the site. What this has allowed us to do is start to collect never-before-documented data about what kind of customers contact us and what they ask about. Finished in July 2013, it has since been fully adopted by the team. We’ve already been able to pinpoint the the top categories users call in about and create FAQ pages for them. Steve also conveys the insights learned through the Tracker to the Product and Executive teams here at FreshBooks.
Along with measurable standards and data collection, Steve recognized another critical part of consistency would be culture. When hiring, Steve worked closely with HR and the Support Team to hire only the most customer-focused and passionate people. People with good judgment, driven to exceed ambitious service goals and most importantly, fit in our close-knit culture. Sometimes this meant 4-5 interviews per candidate.
Unarguably, one of the most important responsibilities of a manager is to help individuals learn and grow. Steve has personally helped build career paths and opportunities for several people, helping some even find new careers outside of the Support Team in FreshBooks. In just the past year, he’s helped develop Support Rockstars into:
- 2 Senior Support Specialist roles
- Support Manager role
- Training and Junior Training Specialists
- HR Services Specialist
- Junior Product Manager
Provide a brief (up to 125 words) biography about the nominee:
Steve Bujouves is the senior manager of the Support Team here at FreshBooks. He is extremely passionate about providing extraordinary experiences for customers and also championing the positive and fun Support Team culture at the company. Steve’s known for being a strategic and innovative thinker—someone you can count on to be decisive and focused when making tough calls. Outside of work, Steve’s a bit of a movie-buff and a Toronto International Film Festival regular. He thrives on the city life and during the summer plays in not one, but two softball leagues.