Redefining Mentorship & Empathy in CX with Lauren Eimers

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Curious about how empathy can revolutionize customer experience and support? Join us as we sit down with Lauren Eimers, a therapist-turned-customer-experience expert, who shares her unique journey from counseling psychology to the SaaS industry. Discover why empathy is an untrainable yet essential skill for success, how it should be a core consideration in hiring, and the transformative impact of mentorship for women and newcomers in tech. Lauren also discusses the complexities of measuring impact through metrics and the holistic approach needed to truly understand and improve customer experiences.

Ever wondered how interconnected your company's departments really are? Lauren likens customer support and success teams to a terrarium, where every department must work symbiotically to enhance user experience and reduce churn. We dive into the emotional vulnerability of customers and the crucial need for support teams to be involved early in product development and marketing. This integrated approach ensures a holistic feedback loop that not only solves problems but also fosters a supportive and empathetic environment for both customers and internal teams.

Don't miss our exploration of the unexpected ripple effects of support roles and the power of community-based mentorship. Lauren emphasizes the importance of creating supportive spaces where vulnerability is welcomed and growth is nurtured. We discuss how senior leaders can learn from younger mentors through curiosity, transforming defensiveness into opportunities for collaboration and understanding. Ultimately, the episode underscores the immense value of genuine human connection in customer support, advocating for intentional, meaningful communication that drives positive change within communities. Get ready to be inspired and empowered to be the change you seek!

Chapters

• 0:03 Empowering Mentorship in Support Space
• 10:08 Strengthening Company Ecosystem Through Support
• 15:23 Building Supportive Communities in Tech
• 29:17 Fostering Curiosity in Leadership and Support
• 34:51 The Power of Supportive Connections
• 40:32 Navigating Mentorship and Supportive Communities

Transcript

Sarah Caminiti: 0:03

How many times have you thought there has to be a better way? Welcome to Epochal Growth, a podcast where we invite industry leaders and change makers who thought that very thing and realized that, yeah, a better way to lead or to grow or to build does exist. And once they trusted themselves enough to discover what's possible, they created the foundation for a new era that's revolutionizing the landscape of success. The word epochal refers to these very moments in time, because when you commit to being better, the impact will last for generations to come. I'm your host, Sarah Caminiti. Join me to uncover practical insights and strategies that will empower you to be the change that you seek. I'm so happy that you're here. Happy Tuesday, happy Epochal Growth Tuesday listeners, so quick housekeeping. Best way to show your support is listening, watching, sharing and reviewing. I'm loving the analytics I'm extracting from Buzzsprout, because now I can see how many wonderful people are learning with me from the guests that gift me with their time. But don't miss any content coming your way. You need to follow, you need to subscribe, rate the podcast and send me texts. You can do so by clicking the link that's in the episode description. I want to hear from you Also. Elevate CX in Denver. The challenge is still here for you to accept. Don't make me have to buy a last-minute flight. Give me hope for a deal by buying your tickets for yourself and your teams now. Remember, not only will you be able to learn from industry giants like Andrew Rios, Matt Dale and Sarah Hatter, you'll also be able to participate in a live taping of this very podcast and bear witness to my first ever conference talk. Accept the challenge and get to Denver so I can go to Denver.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:06

Now onto the reason that we're here. Lauren Eimers is a therapist, she is a scientist and she's a customer experience superhero. She's also someone that recognizes how many resources we have available to utilize, but often we're too in the weeds or we're too nervous to be vulnerable to take advantage of them. The key takeaways from this episode are mentorship it's crucial in the support space, especially for women and especially for those that are new to the industry. Lauren had a career pivot, like many of the guests on Epochal Growth, and mentorship is an opportunity to know how to navigate these new spaces.

Sarah Caminiti: 2:47

You'll also hear us discuss the importance of focusing on empathy and the ability to relate to others when you're hiring for your team. The challenges of metrics, because measuring the impact of support and success in teams can be challenging, but when you use the data that we have available, we need to look at it holistically. Everything is a piece to the puzzle. We can't be taking this information at face value. You'll hear us talk a lot about vulnerability and how that relates to being successful in your career, how it relates to communicating with customers, connecting with customers and also community with customers, connecting with customers and also community, because mentorship, community and vulnerability are key factors in personal and professional growth.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:34

Lauren's going to go over three different types of mentorship, one of which includes why it's necessary to reach out to younger leaders and individual contributors, because technology moves really fast and we are in a tech space. We'll also discuss the power of curiosity when we're communicating and why it can lead to better understanding and resolutions and conversations, and why it's important to create spaces for women to share their experience, because we need to be fostering inclusivity and we need to be fostering empowerment. I'm so excited for you to learn from Lauren and I'm so happy that you're here. This is Epochal Growth, episode 13, with Lauren Eimers.

Lauren Eimers: 4:15

My name is Lauren Eimers, or sometimes you'll see my full name, Lauren Rose Eimers online and I have just I'm counting up to 11 years in the software as a service space, customer service and success. That's awesome. I've been doing that, I can't believe for over a decade. Time flies when you're having fun or putting out fires or kind of both. Yes, I mean, so much can be, so much happens in a decade and so much doesn't as well. But my background is actually in counseling psychology and genetic counseling. So I have a couple master's degrees where I was a therapist for a while and then I missed that hard science and I went back to school to become a genetic counselor and then I worked in perinatal genetics for a time before making the jump into software. Our industry really has a lot of folks that have the most non-traditional career trajectories, right I think it's because it's something that's within you that isn't always really a trained skill.

Sarah Caminiti: 5:15

If you want to pursue a career in support, there's nothing that you can really do in terms of college or prep and it's just part of who you are. And that drive to help others be successful is part of who you are and that's why I think it's such a cool space to be in and meet so many different kinds of people, because at our core, we're all wanting to do the same thing. We just came about it in so many different ways.

Lauren Eimers: 5:43

Yeah, I completely agree with that and it is also so interesting. You mentioned something that's internal. I do think that empathy, that ability to relate to others, it's something that's really hard to train and I always would say this when I was. You know, I've been on both sides of the hiring game, both as an applicant and a hiring manager, and I always would look first at folks' ability to empathize, their ability to put themselves in other folks' shoes, not so much for technical chops, because I feel like it's so much easier to teach the technical aspect than to try to teach someone how to empathize. So maybe that's a little plug for folks looking to jump into the industry and you're worried about your resume or your background. If you're able to show, instead of tell, you know if you get to that interview and you're able to show how you can empathize and how you are able to connect with others, that's worth its weight in gold in the support success space, if you ask me.

Sarah Caminiti: 6:42

Yep, I completely agree. It was whenever I was hiring. Since I have such a non-traditional background, since my LinkedIn or my resume doesn't even come close to painting a picture of who I am and what I can provide, I always focus on questions of really simple sample scenarios that I would put in all of my applications so that I could see how someone approached helping someone in different ways, and it wouldn't be anything like heavy lifting for the reply. But like how do you start this naturally? How do you, how do you handle somebody that's you know, coming in hot and introduce yourself into that space, because those sorts of skills, like the tone and just the natural cadence of communication, is such an important piece of the puzzle. But it's such a hard thing to really match to what you're trying to do as the support leader, if they don't have it already.

Lauren Eimers: 7:45

Oh, absolutely agree with that as well. Yeah, it's such a well, it's the X factor, right? It's something that you can't necessarily quantify, and I think that's also a reason why caring professions aren't compensated as well, because it's hard to have these KPIs like well, how well did you connect with this customer? How well did you connect with this customer? How well did you connect with the person that was so mad? I mean, if they didn't, you know, abandon your product, great. But how do we measure?

Lauren Eimers: 8:12

It's just, it's something that's been so difficult historically to measure and I think that's also why, historically, caring professions as a whole I mean even as, like a mental health counselor, we're not compensated for taking care of emotional health, like a practitioner is taking care of physical health, and it's again. I think the anecdotal evidence is so much easier to support that. But it's also difficult when you're heading to your C-suite or your leadership team and saying like this is why our support team needs to be paid this much, or our success team needs to be paid this much, but anyway, oh man, we're getting into the weeds. I was here to talk about mentorship today.

Sarah Caminiti: 8:50

I love it. No, Lauren, that's such an important thing that you brought up because it's especially in the tech space when you're entering companies where often the founders are developers or the founders are very technical people themselves. They're product or project based. Like everything is has a start and a finish, and you are able to follow them on that path, understand, have that visibility into how they are spending their time and then you're also able to rate the result of that time spent. And when you're in support, it's a much more subjective thing. It's that's why the metrics are so gross, because you're asking for someone to rate a conversation at a very emotional, heightened state, usually because there is an emotional aspect to having to stop what you're doing, be vulnerable to any degree, to ask for help and not know when you're going to get it back and what you're going to get back, and you can't really score that on a one to 10 or a smiley face or whatever it is that the product is asking you to do.

Lauren Eimers: 10:04

Yeah, it is so difficult. And you know I like to think again. When you think of a company holistically, you know you have the product team and the marketing team and then the success and support teams, or sometimes they're kind of rolled into one. Support and success is so downstream from you know that initiation of the product being built and then marketed and released, and sometimes we're dealing with things that are upthread or upstream issues to be solved, like sometimes users stumble across a bug that needs product to work on it, or sometimes the UX just isn't really gelling with some users, but we're the ones receiving that. So sometimes we really are again in that downstream flow. We're the ones getting a lot of the feedback that you know it really would have been great if they could talk to the product team first. But we're not only the voice of the customer in that situation, but we're also kind of that space holder for all of the feature requests, the complaints, the sticking points or just where we can educate better. And so sometimes it is also difficult when you know again your leadership team is saying I want to see, you know how these results. Like, how are we preventing churn? It's like well, this is a whole company kind of thing we all need to be involved in and we're just one piece of this beautiful flow of the river for folks to you know, stay with our product and not abandon us.

Lauren Eimers: 11:31

But yeah, it is such a vulnerable I love the word vulnerable you using that because having to reach out and ask for help implicit in that. I think folks could feel a little shame, right, like no one wants to feel dumb, like no one wants to feel like they need help with something they should know how to use. And so, yes, I think anger is a great facade for maybe that little bit of feeling ashamed, having to reach out and ask for help. So I think that's why we see a lot of angry folks when in reality they just don't want to be vulnerable. It's much easier to put up that shell of anger and be mad at a faceless customer support agent who is trying to walk them through something, just trying to help them get through their day. But yeah, it's such an interesting way to view it when you look at it through the lens of vulnerability.

Sarah Caminiti: 12:20

That's something that customer support folks have. We've been much more louder about the impact of putting ourselves in their shoes, like truly taking ourselves and our position within the company out of the conversation, out of the equation. And okay, I have this person. This person was trying to do this. They stopped, they could no longer continue independently. That prevented them from giving the report that they needed to give at this certain time or that prevented them from taking their lunch, because they need to wait and see what happens, Like we have absolutely no idea what is going on on the other end of this.

Sarah Caminiti: 13:06

And it's our job to create a space where we immediately eliminate that guilt and that shame for needing to ask a question, because truly it's on us to make it.

Sarah Caminiti: 13:20

So you don't reach this point and just let them know that you've got somebody on your team and with the other departments having such a hand in how things are created and presented and packaged. That's why it's so important to have support and success in at the very beginning of all of those different stages, Because if you want support to be able to give you information about how they're reducing churn, we cannot do anything to reduce churn at the end of the frustration journey. We can reduce churn by saying, yes, here is this data that we've extracted and it's telling us that in the UI there is this area that no one can find on, you know, at a first try. And so why don't we change that and have a conversation and be included with questions and ask to proofread things to make sure that you know it sounds like something the customer would be able to understand and we are the source of everything for what the customer is giving us back for feedback, and it's just we need to be up in that process.

Lauren Eimers: 14:48

Yeah Well, and maybe it'd be more of an ecosystem instead of a river Like, okay, product is totally upstream, and then marketing, and then support or success. But what if we're all in the same little terrarium and all of us are feeding into each other in that symbiotic feedback loop? Ooh, I like that. We're a great little terrarium of a company where we can all help. Yeah Well, and I think this honestly.

Lauren Eimers: 15:11

I think this is a great segue to for folks who are looking to get into the support success space, and these are the things that I would have never known when I first entered into this. I literally thought my whole job was to just log in, answer technical questions and log out and realizing that you know, the ripple effects that you have in support are just so much more. And I think if I had had a mentor, especially at the very beginning of me entering into the SaaS world, it would have definitely helped with a lot of growing pains. I don't know about you, but I think a lot of my learning was just trial and error, because it really was a reactive reasoning. Like you know, I feel like you can be on the defense or the offense and we were making defensive moves, moves like quick. We need to bring in more people to just answer these emails, like we didn't realize, so many people needed help.

Lauren Eimers: 16:11

And I do think, had I had someone to help me kind of understand the path and just the ripple effects that I have in support and success or I had in that role, would have really helped me instead of, you know, learning by jumping into the fire myself and then getting burned and coming back out.

Sarah Caminiti: 16:31

That's such like there's so many layers to to what you just shared, because on you know, on the surface level, there's the, the, the expectation, uh, the reality of what your day is going to look like. And then there's also the layer of. You are in the weeds, usually so much that you cannot breathe, and so even thinking about looking for community, even thinking about voicing something somewhere to someone, that's not even just part of it. Because, you're right, you don't just log in and answer technical questions, you are problem solving, you are in stressful conversations, you are handling emotions or you're filtering information, you're trying to extract data, you are doing everything and it's nonstop. It is just.

Sarah Caminiti: 17:28

That's the nature of support. I mean, the folks that are here usually love that kind of like. You know, every day is different. Every day is a puzzle. I know I do. But the opportunity for mentorship in my career I didn't even think about it for the longest time and I wish I think that's one of the reasons why folks like you, Lauren, and myself are working so hard to create opportunities for people to realize that there's others out here that are here to help. Because, it's true, you don't know what you don't know until it's too late, imposter syndrome and doubt and fear. And being a woman making change within a company carries so many things and emotions and we could prevent ourselves from feeling a lot of negative things and just celebrate the wins more if we had folks that were cheering us on.

Lauren Eimers: 18:26

Oh yes, and I think for me at least, when I had entered into this world over 10 years ago, the only mentorship that I was aware of was the traditional mentor, where they're older, more seasoned in the industry, and I will say I was so lucky as a genetic counselor to have a couple mentors that really helped guide me and help me avoid pitfalls that they had, and so I just didn't think it existed in the support realm.

Lauren Eimers: 18:56

And so, and luckily for me, and this is a huge shout out to the support driven community I was able to start getting that mentorship through community, and I think community mentorship is something that's often overlooked because implicit in mentorship you think there's just one mentor and a mentee, but for me, the community aspect of it where folks were able to build within support-driven, but also, you know, there's all those other little subcategories in support driven that you can fit into and utilize.

Lauren Eimers: 19:27

So if you are a leader, you have leadership channel to go into. If you are a woman, you go to the women's channel for can lean on. I think that's a really rich and generative space for you to get that mentorship without having to meet once a week with a mentor that's been in the business 20 years longer than you and you know is doing exactly what you are in the space. I think that being able to think about it in a little different way opens up so many other doors and makes it so much less difficult to get over that hurdle. Because I know for me I wasn't able to find a mentor in the support space until I had been in support, I think, for five or six years. I don't know about you if you had the same experience.

Sarah Caminiti: 20:22

I've never had like an actual, like legit mentor. Throughout my career I kept my head down for a long time and and helped people when I could. But I mean, one of the things I know that I do need to work on is asking for help myself. It's only been recently that I've really let myself be vulnerable in those situations and then learn and learn and just open myself up to it. But the first step is you have to be okay with sharing a piece of yourself that is connected to pride and is connected to your self-worth and is connected to your career, and even if it's something as simple as this is happening. I don't know why there's that vulnerability, but the cool thing the cool thing is, once you do it a couple of times, you realize that you have been a crazy person for not doing sooner. And this is the space of all spaces to really lean in, because everybody is here to help you. And it's been transformative truly to meet the people that I have met and be connected in ways that I never thought was possible.

Lauren Eimers: 21:43

Oh, I love that. But again that vulnerability piece coming again. This might be the golden thread that's going to stitch this whole episode together. But I do think the vulnerability piece of being able to ask for help and I think, especially as a novice, I would never have, I never had a problem being like, hey, I don't know this help. But as I started to ascend the ranks in my career, again that ego and that worry that I already should know these things, it made it so much more difficult to ask for help and ask questions. And that's where I do think mentorship can also be a really safe container.

Lauren Eimers: 22:24

Safe container If you do have that one person that you can go to to work a problem, to really be vulnerable in that space and understand that you know my problem's going to stay here, this isn't going to be aired to the rest of the community. You can create those safe containers with a mentor and help you work those problems. I think again back to the community aspect of it. There are private channels in Support Driven, where it's basically we say, hey, this is a private space, so please, anything shared here, make sure it stays here. But I think also having just an individual that you can go to on a weekly or every other week basis or even monthly and say, hey, this was one thing that I was really stuck on and I'd just like to get your read on it. Sometimes just a fresh set of eyes and a fresh perspective can really help deal with issues or problems that either continue to surface at your organization or something that you really are stuck on with your team or even with a teammate.

Lauren Eimers: 23:16

I think again that vulnerability piece is so important and I have seen and it makes me so incredibly sad to say this, but folks with that inability to be vulnerable, it's also that inability to self-reflect and it's been so damaging not only to their career.

Lauren Eimers: 23:35

But you can see, you know they're carrying it with them personally, like they're taking this stuff home and it's making it's just making life in general miserable. And so I think a healthy dose of self-awareness and, honestly, like you said, understanding that you don't know what you don't know, it doesn't make you a bad leader, it doesn't make you a bad customer support agent If you're just starting out or anywhere in between, it really is important to understand like you don't have to know it all and if you can rely on community or mentorship or a combination of the two. It really is the way forward, Like lifting up others as well. I think there are times where someone has asked a question in channels that I'm a part of in our community and I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't know to ask this question in this way, but this is actually a solution to an issue.

Lauren Eimers: 24:27

I'm having as well.

Sarah Caminiti: 24:30

So yes, that realization of Whoa, wait, this is, this is a normal thing. This thing happens all the time. Then there's like a whole group that wants to problem solve this sort of stuff with me. Oh cool, okay, let me join and share my piece and see what, how I can contribute and help, and that makes you want to answer more questions to help others and and it's, it's such a great opportunity. You're right, Lauren, like the stereotypes, for mentorship is somebody that has x amount of years ahead of you in in the world of of the career space that you're in, and I don't agree with that at all.

Sarah Caminiti: 25:08

Tech is different. Tech is a different space that allows you to pivot. It allows things to change rapidly and certain problems require certain areas of expertise and no one is going to be an expert at everything and you don't want them to so like if you are going into the Aspire program and you're someone that has been a leader for years, but maybe you want to talk to someone that has experience in a larger company because you're thinking about changing out of, you know, a bootstrap space to the larger space. But you've been in the industry for 20 years, why can't you be paired up with somebody that has been spending a lot of time over there and building that kind of a relationship? We are all here to serve. This is our calling. This is where we want to spend our time and we want to share that with others.

Lauren Eimers: 26:04

Oh, and you brought up, actually, the next little line item I have on my list of the different types of mentorship. I think once you get to a certain point in your career, you need to be reaching out to younger mentors. You need to look for folks who are fresh in your industry, because I remember thinking this too when I was young. There is a privilege that comes with that and that's you really have your finger on the pulse of things that are going on. That, sadly, like, once you reach a certain age, you just really it's not a part of your lived experience, and so I think it's and I don't want to be ageist, I'm just saying once you're in an industry for a certain amount of time, you need to be reaching out to the fresher, newer voices as a mentor as well, and I think, again, they can be symbiotic. It can be a mutually beneficial relationship and it doesn't have to be the help for we elder millennials here in a few years.

Lauren Eimers: 27:04

I do think we're a different generation. We're kind of sandwiched in between the analog life and digital life and we know how to exist in both worlds. But we have a generation coming up that has been raised completely in the digital space and we don't understand how it is to exist in that way in the digital space, and we don't understand how it is to exist in that way. And I think it's going to be imperative for us to be reaching out for younger mentors and to help us navigate these new ways of being in these new ways of living. So, yeah, I love that you brought that up. Did you see my notes? Did you know what we were going to talk about?

Sarah Caminiti: 27:38

Just feeling it's the vibe. But, Lauren, how would you recommend someone like start to think about because about reaching out to folks that are younger, younger leaders or even just younger ICs in the industry of knowledge, of how to better connect with a team when you're building a team and be reflective of how you're communicating with others in a more inclusive way, and how would you recommend someone to go about doing?

Lauren Eimers: 28:15

that. Well, first of all, I again I'm pulling from my counseling background you want to be sure you're not stepping into a blended role or conflicting roles. So you may be a manager or have more tenure in a company, so you're you're not allowed to reach out to folks you work with. Sorry, that's weird and it's not ethical. So, it's true, automatically cross that off your list, and I know I don't have to say this for everyone, but I just want to say it to be said like you've got to be really cognizant of conflicting and blended roles, keeping things nice, clear and delineated. That's the way to go in business, right? We don't want anyone, yeah, and I know we're human beings and sometimes it's impossible not to, but I don't think it's good to reach out to folks that basically are on your team and already look up to you and you are changing that dynamic. I think it's better to have clear and defined roles within your job.

Lauren Eimers: 29:17

Now, again back to the community piece, utilizing communities that you are a part of, and especially since this is a little bit of a newer way to think about mentorship.

Lauren Eimers: 29:28

I don't know a lot. I know I certainly wouldn't have, in my 20s, or just entering into the software space to say, hey, if anyone wants a young mentor, hit me up. So I do think as a more senior leader you will have to be the initiator in those. But using community, I say, sailing this ship for 10, 20 years, I need a fresh perspective and again, hopefully at this point, as a more seasoned person in this career path, you won't feel as vulnerable by putting yourself out there and just being curious about what you can learn. I think again, you don't know what you don't know and curiosity is such a wonderful solve to that vulnerability, like if you can come from a place of curiosity instead of feeling like, oh, I'm vulnerable, like I don't know all these things, like I'm curious about these things, I want to learn about these things. It can be a great kind of mind hack to get you to put yourself out there, especially when you are trying to find a younger mentor.

Sarah Caminiti: 30:47

That's such a great point with the curiosity.

Sarah Caminiti: 30:48

That's something that I really recognized and leaned into when I started building my teams of how to approach conversations in general, and it changed a lot of how I was communicating with customers and training people to communicate with customers.

Sarah Caminiti: 31:04

Being more cognizant of that curiosity and making that kind of the root of it all is I'm not judging whatsoever.

Sarah Caminiti: 31:14

Everybody goes about things their own way, everybody communicates, everyone learns their own way, and I respect that so much. So I'm going to ask you very specific questions and my intentions are to understand what happened and understand where that gap was, so that now I can try and fix it, because as a leader, I've always made it my mission to be the leader I always wished that I had. And filling those gaps and taking ownership of their success when you're having these conversations allows for a lot of that stress, and it's the same thing to disappear and it's the same thing with customers thing with customers, if you start taking ownership for their situation, so that it's not their fault that they can't find that button or it's not their fault that things are confusing, it's actually it's our company's fault because somewhere along the line we did not think of you and now let us think about you and let us accommodate you, and it's been a really cool way to start approaching those sorts of talks.

Lauren Eimers: 32:27

Oh, absolutely. Curiosity is truly the foundation for every relationship I have in my life, be it at work, family, otherwise, because, if you can go in, I mean we're all human beings and so I just want to name, like you're going to be carrying internal biases around regardless.

Lauren Eimers: 32:46

And it's my life's work to try to deprogram those. But curiosity is a great way to get around that, because if you can go into any interaction wanting to learn and being curious about the situation, it can really help prevent. You know what you think you know about the situation or what you think the conversation is going to go like, or even what you think the solution to the problem is. Sometimes, especially if you're on the front lines answering support tickets in the queue, that curiosity can just pay back tenfold. Sometimes conversations go a completely different direction. Sometimes conflicts can be completely resolved if you just are a little curious about what's happening on both sides of the street. I mean, it really is such an amazing tool just for human interaction, not just as a leader, not just in the support space. But I highly highly recommend approaching anything with a little curiosity, especially when you're feeling triggered or on the defensive. Being curious is a quick way to diffuse that and really help equilibrate and get you back into a place of like okay, both feet firmly on the ground. I need to get a better read on the situation and I don't know about you, but I know sometimes you open up a ticket in the queue and it's all caps, exclamation points, like it's hard not to get into the defensive mode. But if you can be curious about like, okay, all caps, I'm curious about what? Yeah, let's figure this out. I think that that's such a wonderful way to do that. And another thing that you mentioned as well taking ownership of the issue or ownership of the problem that you're being presented with, be it a customer that's emailing or chatting in to a teammate. That's, you know, approaching you with an issue to a teammate. That's, you know, approaching you with an issue. It's such a cheesy phrase that I hearken back to all the time.

Lauren Eimers: 34:47

But I believe Ram Dass said we're all just walking each other home. Right, we're all. If we can just walk with folks with these things. Sometimes that's all they need is to know that you're with them, and that might even be a better solve to them than solving their problem. Because sometimes you can't solve a customer's problem. You're like I'm sorry, I can make that a feature request, but guess what? It's not going to happen this quarter and I promise in feature request Thunderdome I shall fight for you, but I don't know when this fix is going to happen. So sometimes you just walking with that person is enough, and I had many, many interactions with folks I was like, oh my gosh, this is, this is the end, like they are going to abandon this product. Who stuck around five years later, seven years later, just knowing that they had someone walking with them and that this was a pain point and we were there to hold space and listen to them. That was really all they needed.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:48

So it's just such an interesting.

Lauren Eimers: 35:50

Yeah, it's such an interesting way of approaching things.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:54

It is the gateway to a different level of interaction and community and, like within your company, with your customer, the community that you build with your customer. And and it has made me realize, as I've gotten older and and especially since I've spent a lot of time QAing tickets and trying to understand the data that is in every interaction what opportunities there are to be a differentiator. And so much of it is in how we handle those hard conversations. It's how you listen and it's how you diffuse and how you acknowledge their feelings and make them feel heard. And you're right, most conversations that escalate are not going to be resolved, because policies exist, rules and boundaries exist.

Sarah Caminiti: 36:53

We don't know what the other person is going through to get into that headspace and need this, but we do know that as humans, if I was on their side and I was super angry about something, I would love it if someone just was like whoa, hold up a sec, let's just take a pause.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:10

I get it.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:11

I would be so frustrated too, but you know what?

Sarah Caminiti: 37:15

I've taken this, I shared it, we tracked it and the next time something comes up, use my name in the email to make sure that you get to me, because I would love to continue helping you on this journey, or you know what I can feel, how frustrated you are, and I do not want you to continue your day thinking about this.

Sarah Caminiti: 37:37

Let me refund your last month's subscription, and I mean, sometimes that's three bucks on your last month's subscription and sometimes that's three bucks. But that gesture of oh, you're not going to fight me on this, like you're not going to turn this into a huge deal, is the way that you can connect on a deeper level and the way you can get people, like you said, to stick around those five, 10 years later, because you created a safe space for someone to be vulnerable or to ask questions or really just to be successful. And, uh, they know you've got your. They're back and at the end of the day, with so many products doing the same thing, your opportunity as a support professional is to prove that they can't get this elsewhere, and why wouldn't you want to do?

Lauren Eimers: 38:27

that, yeah Well, and I just think too and again, it's so hard to get a KPI on this, but I do think people like supporting nice people and if you do have all of these products that look very similar, do the same job, right, like what's the what's the problem this product is going to solve?

Lauren Eimers: 38:48

So what's going to be the thing that keeps a person around is, honestly, I want to support a company that I know, where the people are nice and they know I'm a person too and I really do think you know.

Lauren Eimers: 38:59

Back to the community piece, I really think that's our future, that's how, basically, we're all going to save the world is through community and through leaning on each other and supporting each other, because when we do that, that's when things move forward, that's when the needle moves for innovation and for repair in a lot of ways, right, and so a company that I know are a bunch of like, okay folks, like I would much rather support okay folks than a bot that gave me the same answers over and over and over again or just infuriated me and I had to go through an AI answer tree to just speak to a gosh darn live agent, and I'm probably aging myself because I know there's a whole subset of the population that's like please don't let me talk to a person, I just want to figure this out on my own.

Lauren Eimers: 39:50

But I mean, that's an option, right, I do. I think that that should exist, but I do within your proactive support options, right, like there's going to be folks that just want to go to the help site and figure their stuff out and get on with their lives. But I think that being able to connect when someone is reaching out is just so imperative. And, yeah, I want to support nice folks.

Sarah Caminiti: 40:14

Nice folks. I want to support a company that their actions speak louder than their words Because, as as I'm sure you've seen, loud people, loud companies usually are not doing anything that they're saying, that they're doing. It's the quiet people that are making that change. It's the ones, it's the quiet companies that are using that time to really connect. And when I say loud, I don't mean like don't say your truth on social media in any capacity, but mean what you say, put value in what you say and thought and intention in what you say, improve what you say and and then be loud. But being loud for the sake of being loud, I mean that's just noise.

Lauren Eimers: 41:08

So I don't, I don't really have a mind for that, and it's noisy out there right now. I don't know about you, but there's a lot of noise.

Sarah Caminiti: 41:16

And it's. It's discouraging because you you know there are good places out there and you want to lift them up and empower them, and I think that's one of the cool things about community too. That's one of the reasons why this journey for this podcast happened. It's because I realized the loudness that was out there was not about good people. It was not lifting up these people that I've had this pleasure of getting to know within our community. Folks like you, Lauren, and what you do for the senior leadership team, for those calls that you put together, and the way that you respond so thoughtfully to people when they ask questions and support your intentions, are so pure and good and it's it comes out in everything that you say, and so why wouldn't? I want to create a space for folks like you to be celebrated and and I hope that, uh, that that the loudness kind of shifts and it's it's a good loud now.

Lauren Eimers: 42:12

oh my gosh well, first of all, you, you literally made my springtime. You're so kind, but I do think you bring up the most amazing point about noise, and but also like where our attention goes, because our attention is becoming a commodity, right, like, and it's also a non-renewable resource, like we only have so much bandwidth in a day, we only have so much time in a day and it's so important to spend that time well and wisely. And I and I think back to the coaching piece I'm sorry I keep going back to coaching, but I think having someone empower you because I I again, I'm a recovering perfectionist, but learning to say no to things was something I it took many years in my career and understanding that saying no allows for a bigger and better yes, and I had so many not even no's but just kind of sort of maybes occupying my, my bandwidth and my time that it didn't allow for those hell yeses to come rushing in. And I think that will very much like this podcast. I know, right, like, okay, ship it, the episode's over, but I, I see that too with you. This podcast again is, I think, the genesis of you having space to say yes to it, right, right, you didn't have this space before, and so I'm so excited to see where this goes.

Lauren Eimers: 43:41

And the final piece for mentorship I was going to mention is the aspirational mentor, and I mean especially as a woman. In this space base I am looking for someone who is able to balance parenthood and their career and these wonderful communities they're cultivating Heck even a hobby or two. I think that might be a little too aspirational now, but sometimes just looking for folks that have walked the path to know that it's even possible I mean they don't even have to know my name, but I want to know who they are and I also would love to know how they did it, because I think, with the many facets that come with being just a person on planet earth, knowing that someone has done it before or has gone there makes it more attainable, at least for my brain. I don't know if I'm you know I don't know if I'm going.

Lauren Eimers: 44:38

No, that's so true.

Sarah Caminiti: 44:40

I just I agree completely.

Lauren Eimers: 44:42

It's yeah, Knowing someone's done it makes all the difference it does and, and I think again, being able to focus our time in a way, focus our attention in the directions we want to go. I think that's the key, but I also need to be able to see someone who has done that right, because a lot of us who have been in this industry longer than others, we're now starting to see a lot of the structures that we thought would hold not support folks, not support companies. We've seen a lot of bankruptcies, we've seen a lot of layoffs, especially in this last year, and so I am interested to see the people and the companies that have made things work and how they've made it work, and I think that that, again, it's a combination of everything right. It's finding people through a community or possibly one-on-one mentorship, looking for those younger mentors, or even getting into maybe hiring a coach.

Sarah Caminiti: 45:39

I know that sometimes is a dirty word like getting someone as a career coach.

Lauren Eimers: 45:44

Well, and I also think, if you're paying for the mentorship which is coaching, I feel like, again, it's like an energetic exchange where like, okay, well, I put money into this, so now I really have to start taking action.

Sarah Caminiti: 46:14

We're like okay, well, I put money into this, so now I really have to start taking action, where, if it's a mentor, like a volunteer basis, it's like, well, if I don't go out on the limb or if I don't take, you know, a little risk on myself, it's not everything, but once you start paying for a service, it's like, oh well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is. But anyway, no, agree completely. And I think too, as a woman, it's so important to have people around you that tell their story in an honest way, someone that has lived it or has experienced it. We need to see that in a realistic way. So if you're a woman and you are realizing, like, why does this feel, like it's like so much harder than it feels for my counterparts, then you can come to a space that you're allowed to say this feels hard and I don't know why, and and the others around you will will reply with yeah, it is hard.

Sarah Caminiti: 46:59

It is hard. You're allowed to admit that it's hard. You're allowed to acknowledge that you are a woman and things are different for you. You're allowed to acknowledge the stuff that you have to think about, that men do not have to think about whenever you enter into a conversation. That's not going to change, but what will change is now you have people in your corner that are going to remind you of your worth and your value and your strengths and your skills, so that when you do enter those spaces, you do so confidently and you don't let yourself doubt yourself. That, I think, is how that aspirational mentorship is just a really cool opportunity.

Lauren Eimers: 47:39

Oh, I would agree as well, and I would just add, especially since we both are women in this space, I think kind of having community there to reflect back is also a great way to check our privilege, like that's something that, again, I'm still learning and still living this path where, wow, I am so privileged in so many ways too. I mean us being able to hop on remotely and have this podcast, like the privilege, like I love that for us, but also like we need to name that and it wasn't something that was even back to the you don't know what you don't know. Having a community to help reflect that back to you not only can validate a lot of things you're going through, but also help you understand the immense privilege and a lot of the spaces that you occupy, which is all part of it. Right, it's like the whole package.

Sarah Caminiti: 48:32

And it all ties back to customer support, because every customer is different and you have to be able to acknowledge it, and to leadership. You have to acknowledge that your team is coming from very different places and you have to be reminding yourself of that at all times.

Lauren Eimers: 48:47

Yes, well, we covered it all. I think next time we're just going to work on the really heavy topics. How about that?

Sarah Caminiti: 48:56

I like that, and I will hit record a lot earlier and before you go, Lauren, I do like to end all of my calls by asking my guests to share with me what era do you think that you're in right now, or what era do you see yourself moving into, and I would love to know your era.

Lauren Eimers: 49:14

Oh well, thank you for this question, when I I know I had a little preview of it and I got to thinking I I'm embodying it now, but I'm still moving into it, which is I I'm growing, and I think I've always been growing, always learning.

Lauren Eimers: 49:30

But what really excites me about the phase that I'm in and moving into me, about the phase that I'm in and moving into, is again and I mentioned this earlier is that I'm in my my yes era, where I've said no to the things that no longer it's not serving me, but things that I'm not that don't light me up that I'm not passionate about, and it has already. It's just magical. This past year has been a lot of hard no's for me and hard being like I've drawn the line in the sand, but also it was really difficult for me to say no For you, but I've said no to the things that really were no longer serving me, and it's just been magical how so many things have presented themselves to me that I've been able to say yes, absolutely to. So that's, I'm in my yes era.

Sarah Caminiti: 50:22

I love this era. I cannot wait to see the things that you say yes to and the opportunities that present themselves to you, because you definitely deserve it and folks are lucky to have you around, so I'm just really excited for you.

Lauren Eimers: 50:35

Well, thank you so much. This has been such a lovely way to have you around, so I'm just really excited for you. Well, thank you so much. This has been such a lovely way to spend my time.

Sarah Caminiti: 50:43

Listeners, please go out and find yourself a mentor. I wish so much that when I was starting out in the SaaS industry, when I was starting out in my leadership journey, that I understood what I had in front of me and that was the opportunities for mentorship within this community. Let me tell you, these past six months, I have met so many wonderful people who are eager to help others be successful, and if we don't take advantage of this, then we're not allowing ourselves to really reach our full potential. We need folks like you, listeners, to join this community so we can learn from you and we can share what we've learned along the way. I am so happy that we got to learn from Lauren today. Thank you so much, listeners, for spending this time with us and for being open to change. We can't wait around to see change happen us and for being open to change. We can't wait around to see change happen when you feel it in yourself that a better way exists. You owe it to yourself and those around you to try, because great things happen when you do. Thank you so much to Buzzsprout. Thank you so much to my community, elevate CX.

Sarah Caminiti: 51:48

If you have not purchased your ticket for Denver, that's September 26th and 27th for the Elevate CX conference. Please do so. You'll see the link at the very top of the episode description. Also, if you're over in the UK or Europe, make sure that you are purchasing your tickets for the Elevate CX event in London on November 8th. I will 100% be there. No challenge necessary that one is going to sell out. It's a one-day event. Hurry up and get your tickets. Listeners, remember that small things ignite change and you're capable of so much more than you realize. Thank you again for spending time with me and thank you so much to Lauren Eimers for sharing everything that you have learned and for pushing us to go out there and be mentors and find a mentor, because we will be better for it. This is Sarah Caminiti. You're listening to Epochal Growth. I'm so happy that you're here and I will see you again on Tuesday when we release our next episode.