Thriving in Customer Support: Balancing Boundaries, Embracing Emotion, and Leading with Confidence with Hilary Dudek

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Ever felt overwhelmed in customer service roles, struggling to keep a professional demeanor while maintaining your sanity? Hilary Dudek, head of customer experience at Gamma, joins us and shares her unique approach, drawing on her background in musical theater. Learn how adopting different roles or personas can help you set emotional boundaries, protect your energy, and avoid burnout, while still delivering top-notch customer service. We explore practical strategies for clearly communicating your boundaries and ensuring they are respected, helping you to preserve both your mental health and team harmony.

Customer support requires a unique set of skills that go far beyond answering phones. In this episode, we unpack the essential qualities that define exceptional service, such as empathy, quick thinking, and active listening. As AI and automation become more prevalent, we emphasize the irreplaceable value of the human touch in handling complex issues and fostering customer relationships. We also debate the pros and cons of automating repetitive tasks versus using them to deepen customer connections, ensuring you stay ahead in an evolving landscape.

Working in a startup environment brings its own set of challenges and rewards. Here, we celebrate the dynamic culture at Gamma, a growing team fueled by collaboration and shared goals. With insights on how platforms like Canny enhance team communication and feedback, we discuss the importance of maintaining work-life balance and high-quality output in a non-hustle culture. Hilary also shares her journey of building trust and camaraderie within outsourced teams, highlighting the significance of consistent communication and leading with confidence. Join us for an episode filled with actionable advice and inspiring stories that will help you thrive professionally and personally.

Chapters

• 0:09 Establishing Healthy Work Boundaries
• 12:34 The Value of Customer Support Skills
• 24:22 Building a Supportive Work Culture
• 37:42 Building Camaraderie and Trust in Outsourcing

Transcript

Sarah Caminiti: 0:09

It is Tuesday and you know what that means A new episode of Epochal Growth. I am Sarah Caminiti, your host. This is episode 16 of Epochal Growth and I'm so happy that you're here. This is a podcast where we unlock transformative business insights and leadership strategies. We're going to be tackling a really important topic today setting boundaries at work.

Sarah Caminiti: 0:32

I feel pretty lucky today to be joined by Hilary Dudek, head of customer experience at Gamma. She has a wealth of knowledge and industry experience on how to establish and maintain effective boundaries in your professional life and how that impacts your personal life too. We're going to dive into some practical tips on how to communicate your boundaries clearly, the impact on boundaries on team dynamics, the strategies for creating a culture that respects and upholds these limits, and how to create a collaborative foundation with your BPO. I don't need to remind you to like and follow and subscribe and share this podcast with anybody that you think would find it valuable. If you think somebody could learn something wonderful from these leaders, please pass this episode along, or any of the other episodes of Epochal Growth. All right, let's explore how you can redefine your work environment with strong and healthy boundaries. Are you ready to make a change? Let's go.

Hilary Dudek: 1:31

It teaches you so many skills that I think translate so well to customer service and customer support like not being afraid to talk to anybody and being able to hold an interesting conversation, able to speak clearly you know my diction has gotten very lazy over the years but in theory have great diction, all sorts of things like that. I think it's such a good skill set to have, even if you never do anything with it professionally.

Sarah Caminiti: 1:56

I agree completely and I and I also think that the ability to play a role also is something that, at least for me, like it's shown itself in ways that I don't realize until I'm like reflecting on it later. But you know you, you're allowed to, you know how to approach things, like, okay, you've got an angry customer, all right, well, let's, let's just meet them where they are and and shift into that and kind of just make it less of a personal experience, like personal, to it's impacting you as a human being. And more of all, right now I need to kind of to play this role of this de-escalator and it doesn't have anything to do with me and be able to shift tone and context from person to person that you're talking to. I think a lot of that can come from a musical theater background too.

Hilary Dudek: 2:51

I completely agree, and I think that lends itself being able to put on a different role or persona. I mean honestly similar to I never worked at Disney, but it seems similar to working at Disney Like I am now, this customer service person that cares so deeply and I'm going to, you know, not take anything personally. But then you can drop that persona and it creates a boundary between yourself and your energy and the energy of the person on the other end of the machine, and I think that's something that's really important, especially in industries that are already really tough to support, like healthcare, for example. I mean, healthcare is overall, a fairly depressing industry to work in and customer support. So if you can create that persona and use that as your protection and your shield, I think it's a really great thing.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:39

I love that.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:39

I love that you brought that up because it is creating that boundary is one of those things that you brought that up because it's it is creating that boundary is one of those things.

Sarah Caminiti: 3:49

It's a skill that you have to learn and you have to have been burned probably a few times in order to to understand, like, where your limits are and what actually happens when you give yourself so fully to the customer and truly it does not change the outcome for the customer experience. If your heart and your soul and all of your emotions are tied to the success of this person, you can still deliver that incredible experience and save yourself and your energy in the process. And that comes with time and it's an easy way to burn out and not like this industry anymore If you don't uh, don't find that that space. But also, as a leader, it's such a cool thing to teach others how to do and make it feel safe to do like, acknowledge that, yeah, this sucks this, but this doesn't have anything to do with you, and so let's figure out what we can bring into this to, like you know, make it so that you don't feel so like depleted after these conversations.

Hilary Dudek: 4:55

Exactly, I 100% agree. You shouldn't. You shouldn't close your laptop or leave your office. If you're working in office at the end of the day and like, bring those stories home with you or that that other person's, I guess, mess or energy, whatever you, you should have a barrier between that because otherwise it's going to impact you, it's going to impact your family and friends and whoever you're interacting with after that, and that's not fair to anyone. And, like you said, it's not productive. It'd be one thing if it was productive, if you were, I don't know a surgeon thinking over this person's problem and then you come up with a solution. That's probably a more productive use of your time, although I would argue they still need boundaries somewhere, maybe just in a different way. But, like you said, you can only do so much.

Sarah Caminiti: 5:48

So at that point you have to be able to say I've done what I can.

Sarah Caminiti: 5:49

That's really sucks, but it's got nothing to do with me. Yeah, and I think too, it can really impact your self-esteem and your self-worth If, every day, you are allowing these other people that you don't know to speak to you poorly or to to talk down to you or to just like impact you in ways that it's not appropriate or it's not healthy, and if you don't have a leader that's able to give you that out of no, there is no way that you are supposed to be treated this way. There's no way that anyone is going to treat my team this way and step in and and give you that that freedom to say this one has been a hard one, or I'm really thinking it's leaning into danger zone. Can you just jump in here please, cause I just don't think I have it in me to continue on? This conversation gives your team just such a such an opportunity to breathe and sets the tone, but it really is up to leadership to make that happen.

Hilary Dudek: 6:54

It really, really is, and that's something that I've always strived to do and just always make it known and reiterate and then put it into action. Of course it's one thing to say things, but then if you don't actually jump into the interaction to support your people, I think it's kind of meaningless. But making it very clear that you know we have zero tolerance policy for harassment and abuse verbal, any sort of abuse, any sort of inappropriate language, language, I feel, when it's just like our normal everyday four letter words, I do feel like there's some people that handle those better than others. So I've always blurred the line a little bit there. You know, if someone's super angry and they're maybe swearing at your product, for example, if you're the type of person that is unbothered by that, then great like, just roll with it.

Hilary Dudek: 7:43

But if it's personal to you or we're cursing people or, you know, threatening people, that's that's something that just won't be tolerated and I don't care. I will go to back for you to leadership. Hopefully we have a good leadership team that will also be on my side. But like I don't care, I don't care if we lose that customer, I don't care if we lose that revenue. You're still human at the end of the day, this is just a job in this capitalist hellscape that we're living in, and it doesn't matter. Your personal well-being is not worth it.

Sarah Caminiti: 8:14

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it doesn't even have to escalate to a point of a four-letter word or actual abuse. If it's like any feeling that you get when you are approaching the conversation or something like starts to get those feelers up of, I don't really like this anymore. Um, then I always tell my team, like just call it, just call it. I would way rather you let me know and uh, and bring me into the fold then. Then wait until it's it has hit that point and you are feeling those things, that they are saying those words, because half the time you just need to say the exact same thing that everyone's been saying to this person, but then put your title at the bottom.

Hilary Dudek: 9:02

And, uh, you get it. You understand, I know, early in my career I would go in and I would do exactly that and I definitely had directs that were like but I just said that I'm like I know and it should matter when you say it, and I'm sorry that I didn't, but the fact that yours says, you know, customer support agent and mine says customer support manager makes a difference. It would also make a difference, probably, if I had a masculine name versus a feminine name.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:27

So it it's out of your control, unfortunately, the world we live in yeah, yeah and it's, and even like I love that you said that the masculine thing, because that's that is so true. I feel like I did.

Sarah Caminiti: 9:38

I dream if someone did like experiment where they like started, uh, a job and they they had uh, uh, they like there was a misspelling or something with with how, with their name, like within the system, and and it became like a masculine presenting name, and so they just kind of like rolled with it and uh, and then they ended up switching back to like who they actually are and the difference in conversation and quality of conversation was like nuts, which isn't surprising, but it's still depressing.

Hilary Dudek: 10:14

Yes, no, you did not make that up. I don't remember who did it and I don't know if they were part of the community or if it was just a community member that brought it up and talked about it, but that definitely happened, 100%. And I saw another article, a more recent one, where this person I think she was an individual contributor, she was a consultant or something and so she had a website with a AI chat bot that had a masculine name or no. It had a feminine, feminine name and all the men were hitting on it. It was just a scheduling bot, that's all it did, and, like the amount of men that would hit on it or ask it out was staggering and they had never interacted with it before. And it was a whole article. I'll have to find it and send it to you, but that was fascinating to me and also really gross. Wow, wow.

Sarah Caminiti: 11:03

Wow, wow, wow, wow. What is that Like? What a world we live in. What a world we live in. I mean, I've got a lot of thoughts about that, but dang like bold moves.

Hilary Dudek: 11:18

Bold, bold, bold, bold moves. It's a bold strategy, kat yeah, Gosh. Yeah, people are fascinating, but that's what drew me to support and that's what I've always said in pretty much any job interview I've ever had, starting from when I was really young to even now. Why do you want to do this? People are fascinating. They're absolutely fascinating. They frustrate me. Sometimes I hate them all, sometimes I love them all, but they never cease to amaze. I'll tell you that they keep it me. Sometimes I hate them all, sometimes I love them all, but they never cease to amaze. I'll tell you that they keep it interesting. Humans are interesting.

Sarah Caminiti: 11:49

Yes, Yep, they are, and they are a puzzle and every single person is a very different puzzle. And when you are able to work in support, you have the chance to test out different puzzle pieces and experiment and be surprised and, uh, I don't know, it's just, it's, it's such a different, it's such a different place. It's just, it's a special place and that's why I think the people that are in the community are as special as they are, because we all are here for a reason, and uh and others outside of our circle would not be as successful or tolerate, uh, the space, the way that we thrive in it.

Hilary Dudek: 12:32

I completely agree. It definitely takes and it took me a long time to understand that that not that I'm specifically like special, but like in general, that customer support, customer service, people are unique and are gifted in that way. For a long time I was just like, well, yeah, you just answer the phone and you do these things, or well, yeah, you're going to approach it this way, or, yeah, you're going to. It was just of course you do that, and then I would work.

Hilary Dudek: 13:01

I'm thinking back specifically to, like, my days in hospitality, when I was actually in person so I could like actually see how other people were working, working at the front desk of a hotel, and it was mind blowing to me that, like, truly like, some people are not cut out for it. I'm sure they have other gifts and talents that they should be applying elsewhere, but, like, the amount of people that didn't get it from a customer service perspective it was. It was super eyeopening to me and it made me feel really good about my career and where I'm going in it and that you know this, this truly is a skill set that not everybody has and that's, that's awesome.

Sarah Caminiti: 13:37

Yes, 100%, it is a.

Sarah Caminiti: 13:39

It's something that took me a while too, and I've noticed for a lot of folks, the journey to actually a career and being proud of your career in support has been a long and bumpy journey, and I mean, I think some of that has to do with tech and the industry and actually creating a space for people to like level up their career in the support world and have it not be just a stepping stone.

Sarah Caminiti: 14:08

So the conversations have kind of changed in that regard, but still, it is a group of people that have to be clear communicators. They have to be able to be quick on their feet. They have to be articulate but also be able to to pivot. They have to be articulate but also be able to to pivot. They have to be thoughtful and empathetic. They have to be actively listening. They have to be doing all of these things. And that's just in one interaction. They've probably got seven other interactions that they're dealing with at the same exact time and they're able to do it, so yeah, it's a skill, it 100% is, and people should feel good about having that skill set and and there's a use for it.

Hilary Dudek: 14:45

There's never going to be I, I so AI, robots, ai, whatever it's never going to get to the point where you won't meet a human. You know, using hospitality, since I just used that as an example, of course, you can like automate your check in and check outs and honestly, I really like that because I like not having to wait in line and talk to a human. At least one or two folks at the front desk like your skills will always be needed. Fast food workers will always be needed, like delivery people, all this customer service it's not going away. So why not double down and be proud of what you're doing and like work to like just really excel in those skill sets?

Sarah Caminiti: 15:27

Yes, totally it is. It's so true that there is this is a weird time. That's like it's a positive and a negative thing. That's happening right now with AI, with with the realization of what support professionals are actually doing, based on the types of tools and analytics that are coming out of customer support focused AI things, because these are things that we've been doing manually for years. But I think that it's going to be a huge shift in like a couple of years, where all of these places that are like, oh, we're going to be totally AI, we're just going to totally lean into AI. This is the only way that we're going to do it. You know, we're going to even do AI on phone support why not? And then they're going to realize oh, hey, yeah, no, we have lost a huge amount of credibility of our customers, of the type of like I don't know buzz around us, because now we are known for deception and poor service and making things incredibly hard for customers and it's just it's going to backfire very, very hard.

Hilary Dudek: 16:38

Yes, yes, a hundred percent. Use AI, use these cool tools that are coming, because they're very cool. I work for a company that uses AI to build awesome slide decks, but it's not replacing the person delivering the presentation. It's not replacing the person. It should make the customer support person's job that much easier they should be handling. What I consider if you truly love customer support is the fun stuff, the complex puzzles, the really tough things, the mindless questions or whatever. Those can be done away with absolutely and, you know, redirected to help center or the AI or whatever, but it's only to make more room for the customer support person to do their job as excellently as they can. That's just a skill set that I don't think AI is ever going to be able to replicate.

Sarah Caminiti: 17:32

No, no. And even those ones that are those like repetitive tasks or questions. I love those ones because I think that they are a gateway to developing a relationship with the customer, because you're you are showing them that even these questions where you may feel silly asking them because they seem so obvious, no, it's still a safe space for you to ask those questions. And if you create that kind of foundational opportunity with the customer, then you're able to have a conversation about their use case and really understand what's going on, why they are having such a hard time remembering their password or why they're having such a hard time like understanding this little corner of things. And if we just make the assumption that those questions are just questions, like it's just like we miss out on so much, that could happen.

Hilary Dudek: 18:29

I really like that perspective. Um, I don't know that I 100% agree. I don't know. I have to think about that because I just honestly, it comes down in my mind. It's like a triangle and at the very base of it is prevention, like your product should be good enough or clean enough or well-designed enough that folks don't have questions and that folks understand like, oh, I can reset my password here or whatever the case may be, but if your product isn't there yet, that's interesting. Would you say that, even if you were getting like 500 password reset questions a day?

Sarah Caminiti: 19:07

Well, when I say that I don't, I mean that because I'm a very data focused person, like I'm a very analytical support professional, and like when I am looking at things for those repetitive questions like where you're just sending out an article for the knowledge base, that is, that starts to start the conversation of well, why didn't they know to look at this on their own, what is it that they're missing from the documentation?

Sarah Caminiti: 19:33

Why isn't the forgot password thing as obvious? And so it starts those, the webs of those things. Yes, and, and I do always worry that you would miss out on those sorts of analytics If you were just sending everybody over to, to a, to a bot or to the help center, because people are still getting information, they're still needing information, but you're not able to extract it as easily. But what I really mean is I think that there is too much of a negative vibe to simple questions coming into support, and those are going to always happen and and you are responsible for analyzing them and finding out why they're doing it. But also, those are still valuable questions, that that are coming from your customer, and they are still open for conversation and opportunities to create a foundation.

Hilary Dudek: 20:37

Okay, your clarification makes a lot of sense to me and I agree with you. I agree with that. I like being able to see the data from my bot, for example I actually don't have a bot right now for support but see the data and then say okay, they've asked this question 500 times, why are they asking this? And then taking steps to figure that out and reduce it and maybe that is removing the bot, so I can actually talk to these people and understand why or maybe it's doing something else. These people and understand why or maybe it's doing something else. But I agree that like there is this sort of not taboo but like these easy questions shouldn't be asked. Well, but they're, they are asking them. So like, let's figure out why.

Sarah Caminiti: 21:26

I agree with that A hundred percent. Yeah, yeah, no, and, and, and I think that if you're getting 500 questions about something in a day, the bigger question is what the heck are you doing to create a product that is having 500 questions about the same exact thing? Like is that? Was this a slow ramp?

Hilary Dudek: 21:45

Yes, or has this always been 500? Like we need to have a conversation because that is intense for no reason. Yes, prevention begins in the product, so that's where you're going back to your product team. Why is this button here, or why isn't there a button here or whatever? That is maybe, yes, a hundred percent. Um, we don't need to go out of our way to make things hard for the customer or make them ask those silly questions or those simple questions.

Hilary Dudek: 22:15

But no, what I really like about my current role is that there's a huge emphasis on listening to the customer, and so not only myself, but a lot of the design team especially hops on calls with our power users all the time and I really, really love that. First of all, before me and the, the engineering and design teams were doing support themselves, so they're very empathetic to what it looks like to their customers, but they're taking the time to listen even now and say, okay, like, why are you using it this way? Oh, oh, this is a use case we've never thought of. That's actually really cool. We could build this way. Oh, this is a use case we've never thought of. That's actually really cool. We could build this thing to support this use case. So listening makes a world of difference.

Sarah Caminiti: 23:00

I love that. I'm so glad that you're in a space like especially because you had mentioned when we were going over who you are before the podcast that you have previously been in a very different space for support in a larger space from where you are before this, before the podcast. That you have previously been in a very different space for support in a larger space for from where you are now and and that's great that you're able to enter into a company that has already set a tone with their customers of value, of listening, of impact, of community and transparency, which happens when you have those developers and engineers and product folks coming into the conversation. And so I'd love to know, like, how you have approached this with them in and included the other teams in the conversation as you've been navigating, entering into this different space.

Hilary Dudek: 23:51

Yeah, something that we did that I think is really cool is that we implemented a tool called cannyio. It's a feedback tool, and so it's very simply placed inside of our product menu so, like, if you're going to contact support, you can also see the option to provide feedback, and that board is monitored by primarily design. Engineering gets in there too, but primarily like the co-founders, myself and design, and we respond to nearly every single person that leaves a comment. I'm sure this will become unscalable at some point, but right now, like my designer, nick, is in there all the time Like, oh my gosh, tell me about this. Why are you asking? If you can embed this this way, like, what are you doing? Tell me about this, let's hop on a call. Here's my calendar, like, and I can see how he's interacting too, which you know, since design and engineering were doing support before I came on. It was actually a very. It helped me ramp up faster to see how they were interacting, but also, just I'm seeing, okay, and then I can go follow up with Nick. Hey, you know, I saw you talk to David. What did David have to say? And sometimes I end up talking to them too, and so it's a really cohesive flow of information.

Hilary Dudek: 25:06

We also have Slack channels that we post in very regularly and it's all very early stage startup. I mean there's 16 of us, so there's no like set protocol, nothing's in stone, but we all just we take our feedback and we put it in the beta feedback channel and we all talk about it. There's just a lot of discussions happening all the time that are very organic and our product is very creative. It's a platform that you can use to make presentations or a website or an ebook. I've seen people make a website for their restaurant family-owned restaurant so it's very flexible and fluid, and so we're kind of taking that flexible, fluid approach as well and we're not locking into any one thing, which I think is really cool. I started to ramble a little bit, but basically, like, using shared platforms like Canny um really helps facilitate those internal conversations.

Sarah Caminiti: 26:01

No, I love that you are in such a collaborative space and I mean, 16 folks is actually from from, because I come from bootstrap world and so that's uh, that's like long-term company team size in in a lot of regards like uh that's yeah, yeah, 16, and I've been early stage startups like this before, for example, Handshake, I was the 13th um and I watched it scale and grow.

Hilary Dudek: 26:32

But it's so nice to be back to what feels like my roots with this really tight, close-knit team. I mean, they've never had any attrition, like the entire team is completely intact, which I love, and they just they just get stuff done, but it's not in a it's not a hustle mentality.

Sarah Caminiti: 26:49

We're doing stuff constantly, we're constantly talking to people who are constantly iterating, but it's not like a overwork yourself, don't have work-life balance type of hustle, and I really appreciate that, oh, that's so good, because there is such a difference, especially, at least like I've seen since I started building teams and then reflecting on the teams that I've been in in my career and in that kind of a mentality, the work that you produce when you are in that crazy hustle, intense space is not of the same caliber as the work that you produce when you actually are allowed to be thoughtful with your time and purposeful and and like thorough and and you just there's so many opportunities for dropping the ball or forgetting something or or just like skipping over it because you're so stressed about the timeline and and to to build a culture around. No, we hired you because you're really good at what you do and we want you to be able to do that to the capacity that you see fit, and here is the space to do it. That's when things really really shine.

Hilary Dudek: 27:57

Yes, 100% agree and I mean I've been in the office one time with them. They're they're mostly in office. I mean they work like remotely from an hour away, but they're mostly in office. I'm one of the only few people that are remote, truly remote, um, but just seeing them work together as well is so cool because, yeah, it's just this open floor plan and folks are typically quiet and focused, but like if an ad hoc conversation needs to come up, it comes up and then we just go back to our work but it's not a forced thing. Or there's no forced like not that stand-ups are a bad thing, but there's no like forced stand-ups or forced meetings for the sake of having meetings and checking boxes. It's really all right. Use your time and the output, from what I can see so far, has been, like you said, farmer quality, because they have the time and the space to actually do their work really really well and based on actual feedback from customers or from support. So that's just. I hope we never lose it. It's lovely.

Sarah Caminiti: 28:57

It's awesome. Are you starting to like create the policies and the procedures and all of like, the actual like locked in stuff right now, or is that something that you're going to hold off on until you start building out a team?

Hilary Dudek: 29:09

So I do have a really small team. They're outsourced at the BPO. They came on at the same time as me and so I manage them. I'm starting to build those out, but it's pretty minimal at this point. Our product also isn't. I mean, it is complex, but you don't need a ton of policies yet at this point. It's more like, okay, when do we refund, when do we not? Things like that. We're working on an abuse and moderation policy, because we should have at least a bare bones basic one at this point. But, um, yeah, so starting to document those things, but it's not a pressing need at this point, because we're not. We're not throwing bodies onto the team, just bodies. You know, we just raised our series a, which is super exciting. We just announced it yesterday. But we're not going to just thank you. I did it myself not at all, um, but we're not going to just thank you. I did it myself Not at all. But we're not going to just start throwing bodies at things.

Sarah Caminiti: 30:06

So yeah, that's I mean. You have to do that. You have to do that with support. You have to be aware of the volume, understand the customer and how to how to give them what they need. But also don't set the tone of, yeah, we're always going to get back to you in like five minutes because we're always here, we never are away, because that also is when you start to think about it, like from their perspective, of like no, we want you to have your weekend too. We want you to take the time with your family too. Like, we are here when it is appropriate. China we have a lot of folks in Korea.

Hilary Dudek: 31:06

We have Germany starting to kind of be a big, booming one, Brazil, so we are. I am going to have somebody start working on the weekends, but I hired him specifically for weekends and so you know he gets his two days off during the week. And yeah, outside of those hours still like we're not 24 seven support, we just have you know all all the days covered. Yeah, Outside of that still like we're not 24 7 support, we just have you know all all the days covered. Yeah, outside of that. No, you're not getting a response like look at our help center. We have tons of really cool tutorials on youtube and I plan on making more like check out our resources. We'll get back to you because everyone deserves that work-life balance and honestly like, why are you making a slide at like 12 am your time? Go to bed?

Sarah Caminiti: 31:42

And why is it so important for you to get an answer to your question about the slide at 12 am, your time? Like, let's just breathe and wait, we'll take that.

Hilary Dudek: 31:53

Yes, yes, that would be cool if customer support could influence the way the world works. I don't know, it's a pretty lofty goal, but could imbue everybody with a sense of work-life balance and pushing back a little bit. Are these slides really that important? Are they really due on the time frame, or can we take another, you know, six hours or whatever. That would be full of support I think support does do that.

Sarah Caminiti: 32:19

I think in in its own way, it starts like you have to be cognizant of the values of the company when you are interacting with support you.

Sarah Caminiti: 32:28

If you are setting yourself up with fake expectations, that's on you, because you didn't look and see what the support policy is, what's the sla, what's the like, what are all of these things that are associated with it. And so if you're, if you are a company that wants to create a space for your team that is where they are allowed to enjoy their downtime without having to have Slack on their phone on, just in case there's all these fires that really aren't fires, then the best way to do that is through customer support and have that message be okay, like, we hear you, we're going to get to you, we support you, we want you to be successful. Here's our help center. But but we have boundaries and and maybe they'll start thinking, hey, wait a second. They're allowed to have boundaries in support. Why don't we have boundaries in support? And maybe it could just like trickle all around. I mean, we're the voice of the company, we're the people that are talking to the people.

Hilary Dudek: 33:30

Yes, I like it a lot. Yes, everyone needs boundaries. I like your perspective on that.

Sarah Caminiti: 33:37

So you know what I realized, Hilary, I never gave you a chance to introduce yourself, so do you want to introduce yourself?

Hilary Dudek: 33:44

Sure, I can do that. I am Hilary. I have been in the customer support space since 2015. I also started working remotely in 2015. I started as an agent and worked my way up to director level, and currently I am the head of community and support at Gamma, which is an awesome platform for creating presentations and websites. So awesome.

Sarah Caminiti: 34:07

I love that you started in remote from the very beginning for this sort of a like for your career and have been building it ever since. That's fantastic, Congratulations.

Hilary Dudek: 34:18

Thank you, yeah, it was definitely. It was definitely before. It was cool to do it. What was cool is it came about through a connection from my hospitality days, through my hotel days. I worked at the front desk for a while, as a front desk supervisor for five years. Well, I was in the supervisor the whole time, but I worked for five years at a boutique hotel in Michigan and the Townsend Hotel. If you are familiar in Birmingham, it's Metro Detroit, so you might not be Totally, but cool shout out, maybe someone will be.

Hilary Dudek: 34:48

Yeah yeah, it's a sweet little hotel. One of the valets there went on to found Handshake and I stayed connected to him.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:12

And that is how I started an agent at his job, at his place, at his company, those connections and and not in any sort of transactional way, but just like just be there, be present with other people and and ask questions like who knows what could come out of it.

Hilary Dudek: 35:28

Yes, absolutely Be present, be a good human, just make connections. I mean we weren't best friends by any means, but you know I enjoyed talking to everybody there and that included Belvin and Valley and you know housekeeping and so when you make those connections, good things come out of it for everybody. So never be never be too good to be nice to somebody or friendly to somebody. I think pretty much everyone in our community is.

Sarah Caminiti: 35:54

No, no. I think that that is like a core value of every single person that that I've come across and support where they really do just want to take the time to help. They really do want to take the time to support people and it's the ones like you, Hilary, that are moving up in the ranks of spaces and showing the teams that you lead and the companies that you enter that this is a way to be successful and this does hold value, and this is important that we'll hopefully share, that it's possible with the folks that are going to be leaders after, exactly.

Hilary Dudek: 36:27

Exactly, you're doing the same thing. We're all doing it in our little parts of the world and I love it just wholesome, healthy places to work for our agents and for our teams, but also just for the customers. And, like you said, if you can even influence just a couple customers to think maybe I can have boundaries or maybe my company or my team can have boundaries, you're doing good in the world and that's awesome.

Sarah Caminiti: 36:53

I think so yeah, I mean, why not? Why not try? So I'm curious too, like when working with your, with the BPO for the outsourcing for your team, like how are you, like, how does that work with leadership, like for you as the leader, if they're not folks that you actually found and hired and and and and, and I mean like you didn't hire them yourself. They're from this company that you, that you brought in. So how is that dynamic and how are you able to kind of influence their, their ways of working?

Hilary Dudek: 37:28

Yeah, that's a great question. So obviously they onboarded the same day as me, so I had zero say in even picking the BPO, but they are a newer one, they're offshores, they're not US, and I really like them so far, so that's helpful. The primary thing that I've done is become very close with their team lead.

Hilary Dudek: 37:46

Her and I have Slack all the time. We are constantly communicating. We have a weekly standup that we attend and chat through things, and so that's really been the biggest part for me is maintaining that connection with her. We seem to think very similarly about things, which is great. Our leadership approach is pretty much aligned, which is a stroke of luck, but very nice. So, like I said, the two that came on with her are still there, and then we just hired this other gentleman to work on the weekend. So it'll be interesting to see if her, if she's remained aligned with what she brought with the other two, if she remains aligned with this way. Um, it's just been a lot of communication so far, just a lot of slacking and meetings, and not a ton of meetings but a lot of slacking and just sharing ideas and such that's that's really nice.

Sarah Caminiti: 38:36

that's really nice because it could be such a boundaries could be so blurry and and since you came on at the same time, that probably was the perfect scenario to be able to enter this space at the same level and navigate it together and and build out what needed to be built out in order to support the team, especially if you're adding extra people too.

Hilary Dudek: 38:57

Yes, yes, and I think it established, like you said, like this really good, like camaraderie, because, yeah, I wasn't there first and then hiring her, but she wasn't there first and I came in. So we learned together. We onboarded, like the co-founders onboarded us in like engineering and design a little bit, so we got onboarded together. The BPO actually did a lot of the early documentation for their processes as well, so like they kind of took ownership of that. I've refined them a bit since, but like it's been very much a collaborative approach and I think it's really helped us grow together and help build trust as well.

Sarah Caminiti: 39:35

For sure. That's the biggest thing with having any sort of outsourcing is the trust aspect of it. You have to have that camaraderie and that foundation of trust in order for this to be an actual partnership, because that's what it is at the end of the day.

Hilary Dudek: 39:51

Yes exactly. Exactly so. Yeah, well, we can do another check-in in you know like a year or something, but so far it's been a really good few months with them. It's been about five months. What's the company? It's Horatio. I know they were new to me too.

Sarah Caminiti: 40:07

I was like yeah, cool, um, okay. So we are getting towards the end of our hour and uh, but I do want to ask you, Hilary, so, with every person that I have gift me with their time, I like to take a second for you to share what era you are in, or what era you are entering. Hilary, what is your era?

Hilary Dudek: 40:33

I think my era is like I was trying to find one word that would describe it. I think I'm going to use flow. I've just entered my flow era, where I have boundaries that are super healthy and I'm not afraid to communicate them, but I'm also just not operating from a scarcity mindset anymore. I'm just like whatever's going to happen is going to happen. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen, and I know that I'm equipped with life experience and the tools that I need to like get through it Doesn't matter how bad it is, and so, like I'm just going to relax a little bit and not be so stressed about it and not, things don't need to be so black and white. So flow seemed to be the correct word for that. It can be adjective, it can be noun, but just I'm in my flow era. What's going?

Sarah Caminiti: 41:21

to be is going to be. I love this era and I love that it's really. It's an ownership era too. You are, as you should be proud of where you are in your career. You know what you know and you know that you do it well, and it's that so I've. I've realized this too, with, too with the more people that I talk to, it's shedding that desperation. It's we're not desperate for this. It's like no, you need us, you need Hilary to be successful, for her to join your team, instead of you, Hilary, being like please just say yes, I'll take anything. I'll take anything. Too many people, myself included, enter into those spaces in the beginning of you know, just don't say no, no, you've earned it, you've earned it 100%.

Hilary Dudek: 42:19

Exactly so have you Absolutely. And there's a difference between making a grounded cognitive decision to be you know, I don't know assuming we can assume like you're laid off, okay, I am going to take this gap job, it is what it is, this is what it's going to do, here's the timeframe. There's nothing wrong with that. But making a cognitive decision, not a stressed out desperate decision, I mean, it's very true. The easiest way to like find your next job is to already have a job, because you're not operating from that desperation mindset. So just clearing that out of the way. You might have to do things you don't want to do.

Sarah Caminiti: 42:56

Bad things may still happen to me or it may still happen to you but like we can control how we react to it, yep, yep, and we are still worthy of awesome things because we have worked hard and deserve them.

Hilary Dudek: 43:10

It's, that's it exactly. End of story.

Sarah Caminiti: 43:12

Yeah, period awesome what a perfect way to end this, Hilary uh.

Hilary Dudek: 43:15

Thank you so much for your time yes, thank you so much for having me. This has been wonderful.

Sarah Caminiti: 43:24

I enjoyed actually getting to talk to you face to face for once. Thank you, Hilary, and thank you, listeners, for tuning into this episode of Epochal Growth. I hope Hilary insights on setting boundaries has given you some practical tools and a fresh perspective to manage your personal and professional life more effectively. Remember, setting boundaries isn't about saying no. It's about creating the space you need to thrive and protect what matters most to you. If you found value in today's conversation, please subscribe to the podcast, please leave a review and share it with your network For more episodes and updates. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also find us on YouTube, where there'll be additional clips and highlights from each of the episodes. Thank you again for listening and until next time, let's keep setting those boundaries and growing boldly. I'm Sarah Kameniti. This is Epochal Growth. I hope you have a great day.