Written communication is my key strength and a core factor of this job. Writing gives me the space to organize my thoughts, reflect on my experiences, and express myself more clearly. That’s why I decided to write this article.

I want to thank Lauren, the first person I had taken advice from on LinkedIn. It was nice meeting and learning more about the role directly from the Support Director. I was quite nervous, but the comforting nature made me structure my thoughts.

Note: I didn't record the interview. I'm just trying to recollect the responses. I used Grammarly to refine the sentences for better clarity. Please read the page on a laptop screen, as it's not optimized for mobile screens.

My day in Support

My day as a Technical Support Specialist consists of talking to the customers (I also had a live chat experience of 6 months) over email about their technical issues. The most common issues are platform-related issues on our LMS app, video streaming errors, and any errors that may arise for the user.

If I break down the tickets, it would be around 20% of knowledge queries where I need to educate the customer on using the product better. 80% were tickets that needed debugging, maybe going through the logs or checking for integration issues between plugins.

Something I don't know.

As support specialists, we are always learning, and there are things that we don't know at the moment. What I used to follow is to Google the error at first (90% of the time, someone will have the same issue). I will jump from forum to forum to find the exact issue. In most cases, documentation is where we get a complete answer.

As of today, ChatGPT is also playing a big role in debugging and helping me understand the issue better. If this doesn't help, I reach out to my amazing friends at work, who are always willing to help, and I'm sure we will figure out a solution together.

I communicate with the user to get an understanding of the issue and provide an expected timeframe for when we can have an update.

Collaborating with teams

While launching the community application epiCrew, I was responsible for the technical operations. This app was launched with the help of the development team, and our marketing team did a great job creating content to boost engagement.

In one instance, we started getting feedback stating that onboarding was too hard for people who were not technical. It was great feedback to act upon, and we need to make quick changes. We communicated with the product and marketing team to figure out a solution.

It was a knowledge issue where we need to educate the customer, we came up with the idea of creating Loom recording of how to access the product and this was shared with the customers in their onboarding email. I also followed up with the customer who had an issue to check if they could access the product.

This quick change and collaboration helped keep the customer happy, and the video I created was watched by over 120+ people the following week. While this was a quick fix, the product team worked on a permanent solution to make the onboarding easier.

Working remotely

I have worked remotely in various roles, including my time at Webveda and Wisdom Hatch, where I managed LMS integrations and automated workflows using Zapier. I stayed productive by setting clear goals, using async communication tools, and proactively troubleshooting technical issues.

I’m comfortable working independently, but I also know when to collaborate with my team for the best results. We make use of a lot of tools like Notion, Asana, Freshdesk, and Loom to manage remote work.

AI in work

One hobby project is to use Zapier and Freshdesk to classify user sentiment. I learned more about this AI use case using a Zapier course on Udemy.

Here's a rough idea - If a customer is frustrated, the system alerts a Slack channel for quick attention. If it’s a general inquiry, it sends a templated reply. And if the message is positive, it responds with a thank-you. This basic idea can be done using Zapier paths, but this got me thinking about many ways in which AI can help save time.

Also, I use ChatGPT to learn how to understand a concept like a teacher and troubleshoot errors. Some other AI tools include Notion, KrispAI, Grammarly, etc. I think AI has changed how I work before and after AI - that's probably two eras :))

I like to default to action.

Here's an example of how this Zapier value aligns with my previous experience. When our integrated email provider frequently disrupted our integrations, causing emails to fail, I worked on a backup solution to prevent this issue from happening in the future. So, instead of waiting for the vendor to fix the issue, we can use our backup email integration to keep things running normally.

This meant customers didn’t have to deal with delays or missing emails while we worked on a long-term fix. It helped me solve the issue first and then focus on making the necessary backend changes to ensure a more stable and reliable email system moving forward.

The feedback that helped me.

I recently received feedback that I didn’t share updates frequently. While this was an area for improvement, I see it as an opportunity to grow.

Clear and timely communication is essential for collaboration, and I now recognize how regular updates can help keep everyone aligned. Moving forward, I have proactively shared progress and insights, ensuring transparency and a smoother workflow. This feedback has given me a valuable perspective, making me a better team player.

I am attaching a link to the feedback email I received. Also, here is the recommendation letter from when I left the position.

Questions

I want to thank Lauren for clearing my doubts, answering my questions, and sharing how we troubleshoot tickets inside Zapier. With new launches and updates coming at Zapier every day, I'm excited to be part of the team to make automation work for everyone.