Mode Analytics - Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year

Company: Mode Analytics
Entry Submitted By: Helium Communications
Company Description: Mode Analytics delivers a collaborative technology platform that enables businesses to answer impactful questions and make data-informed decisions. By combining the best elements of Business Intelligence and Data Science, Mode empowers team members to visualize, analyze, and share data in a powerful end-to-end workflow, while collaborating on analysis across a range of business functions.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year - Technology Industries

Nomination Title: Asha Hill, Senior Manager of Customer Support and Success Operations

In August 2019, Mode Analytics promoted Asha Hill to Director of Customer Support and Success Operations, to better support its growing base of thousands of active users. A former Department Chair of Mathematics and Science at The Art Institutes, Hill originally joined Mode as Customer Success Analyst in December 2017. In her new role, Hill immediately set to work building a fully remote team, of seven team members, organized into two tiers, based primarily on the East Coast for optimal coverage to Mode’s international customer base. https: //www.linkedin.com/in/ashahill/

Since its inception, the Mode Customer Success Team has consistently maintained a CSAT Score of >94%, a considerable achievement given the rapid growth and external dynamics fielded by the team in 2019-2020. In addition, the Team’s Median First Response time has decreased by >33%, from 9 minutes in August 2019 to <6 minutes in October 2020, with all ticket responses handled by an agent. For complex technical tickets, the response time has decreased by 50% from 16 hours in August 2019 to 8hours in October 2020, with an average time-to-close of 6 hours.

Going into 2021, Mode’s team will roll out custom bots, with the goal of decreasing response time to under 2 minutes.

Outline the nominee's achievements since July 1 2019 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):

Hill optimized Mode’s Customer Success (CS) Operations by implementing a best-in-class cross-functional workflow system, focusing on workflow four key areas:

1- Knowledge Management System. Hill added an AI-based automation system called Guru to aggregate customer requests and match needs to available Mode solutions. Guru integrates with Intercom, an in-app messaging chat platform system that manages customer queue tickets and tags them automatically to eliminate inconsistency. https: //www.getguru.com/ https: //www.intercom.com/
2-Automated Ticket Recap System. Hill implemented a system of integrated tools, including Zapier, Intercom Webhooks, and Slack, to provide visibility into conversations with customers and summarize what kinds of issues they are experiencing. This system ensures that tickets can’t be closed without adding a recap. Summaries are shared automatically with Product Managers and other non-CS team members throughout the organization. https: //zapier.com/ https: //www.intercom.com/help/en/articles/305-webhooks https: //slack.com/
3-“Show Some Love” Channel. To highlight the success of the CS team, Hill added a channel that allows customers to easily add feedback and shares positive responses across the entire organization in an immediate and transparent way.
4-Automation tools. Hill implemented a host of purposeful tools designed to streamline the workflow and illustrate at a glance what tickets are outstanding, which conversations and coming up, and what types of actionable steps are required to close them.

Rather than building on legacy systems and broken processes, Hill built Mode’s CS systems from the ground up on state-of-the-art technology platforms, which enables a very small Customer Success Team to consistently follow industry best practices. This has enabled Mode to achieve industry-leading response times while maintaining top CSAT scores.

Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the nominee's past performance (up to 250 words):

Mode’s new Customer Success Operations were specifically designed around the core values of transparency, visibility and automation.

Additionally, Hill’s top concern was to implement systems that would best enable the CS team members to maintain optimal work/life balance and keep morale high, while supporting a rapidly growing company in the midst of a highly competitive and volatile business climate. To serve that goal, she intentionally operationalized the team to work from home, supported by a system of state-of-the technical platforms and tools designed to streamline the work and make it as efficient and painless as possible for the customer support engineers, so that they can continue to drive success as Mode grows.

In light of the subsequent global Coronavirus Pandemic, this was clearly the right decision. Hill’s team has been able to continue seamlessly providing support to Mode’s customers throughout the COVID-19 crisis. In order to avoid burn-out, Hill implemented a PTO rotation cycle to allow team members to take time off without unnecessary friction or guilt. As a result of its comprehensive system of cross-functional workflow platforms and automation tools, the Mode team has been able to consistently keep its response times to less than 20 minutes, well below the industry standard, even as demand for assistance has increased.

In order to continue developing the CS team, Mode provides cross-functional training opportunities for the team in areas like engineering, feedback, and collaboration. There are also systems for P2P feedback within the CS team, including support buddies and mentorship.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Mode Support Articles: https: //mode.com/help/all-articles
Mode API Documentation: https: //mode.com/developer/api-reference/introduction/
Mode Resources: https: //mode.com/resources/

Mode Customer support quotes (from the “Show Some Love” Channel):

Thanks so much for the help! I had a hard time phrasing the question and Jinyan was still happy to dig in and solve my questions quickly! Awesome job!
Wonderful support~! Appreciate!
Issue was resolved in a very professional way and at a good pace!
Was quick to respond, helpful providing example links and elaborating on solution. Thanks Jinyan!
Really appreciate the effort of digging into a tough problem clear answer, fast, and solved my necessity
Quick and friendly help!
Prompt help, good advice
Knowledgable and helpful, 5*