Lucinda Morek
Head of Customer Support
at Stint

In this interview, Luba from Cordless sits down with Lucinda Morek, the Head of Customer Support at Stint, to delve into the world of customer service and success. Lucinda shares her extensive experience in customer operations and highlights the importance of seamless product experiences and efficient, personalised support. Discover Stint's structured approach to collecting customer feedback and their strategies for maintaining service quality in a growing team. Lucinda also discusses the challenges and potential of AI-powered chat functions, the future of phone calls, and the impact of customer support in startups. Tune in for valuable insights that can help with your own customer service strategies.

[00:05] Efficient and personalized customer support is essential for a successful customer service experience.
- Lucinda has 20 years of experience in customer success and operations, having worked for companies like Financial Times and BMI before moving to startup businesses.
- According to Lucinda, a good product should make customers self-sufficient, but personalized, low-effort, and accurate customer support is crucial when they do need to contact the business.

[02:12] Passing customer support data to the product team and business
- Categorizing and analyzing customer insights, feedback, and trends
- Regularly communicating findings, collaborating with product team, and indexing data for future reference

[03:57] Calibration sessions for stakeholder feedback
- Meet with product and customer success stakeholders to discuss client feedback and business level issues
- Collect feedback from phone calls by creating standardized answers and recording caller interpretations for consistency

[05:51] Maintaining quality of service as team grows
- Continuous feedback loop and random auditing to maintain quality
- Calibration sessions to ensure consistency in auditing across the team

[07:49] Challenges with implementing new chat channels and improving customer communication systems
- Introducing chat channels to improve efficiency and dealing with limitations of the current provider
- Working towards a more efficient and unified system for customer communication across different channels and customer bases

[09:50] Customer support evolving to high value, personalized interactions
- Using chat technology for efficient information retrieval and revenue generation
- Shifting focus from FAQs to high-level, relationship-building conversations

[12:08] Phone conversations remain vital despite evolving technology.
- New generations prefer not to use the phone as a channel for communication.
- Complex issues may require phone conversations for quick resolution and better understanding.

[13:58] Customer support as a cost center vs. value center
- Customer support seen as a cost center, but actually brings a lot of value to the business. Challenges in navigating and building team in the context of changing perceptions.
- Efforts to drive down the cost of customer service, challenges in balancing focus on customer experience with driving revenue and building the business.

[16:01] Addressing customer concerns can lead to increased revenue and efficiency.
- Identifying and resolving customer pain points can lead to increased revenue and efficiency.
- Aligning with company goals and maintaining engaging conversations with the team can drive business forward.

[17:54] Customer support needs proactive approach
- Engaging with customers to drive action and buy-in
- Admiration for customer-centric companies Monzo and Zoom

[19:32] Desire for seamless and efficient customer support experience
- Customer prefers not to have to seek out answers and wants support to be readily available without going to a help center or feeling like support is being deflected.
- Customer values the ability to handle all support issues through apps without having to engage in direct interactions with customer support representatives.