Helping out the CX Community in times of crisis

We’ve got to band together and support each other however we can.

How the Tymeshift team is staying in touch.

In the CX community, and out of it, we’ve got to band together and support each other however we can

My first inkling that things were taking a bad turn was when my mom brought it up.

“Are you sure you want to travel right now?” she asked.

I assured her I’d be safe as I traveled to Miami for Zendesk Relate. If you follow this blog, you’ll know that the event was canceled because of the virus.

Before (and even during) Relate, I had no idea that COVID-19 would be as devastating as it is today. As the deadly impact began to reveal itself a few weeks ago, I knew I wanted to help — I just wasn’t sure how. First, I started with our team. We needed to ensure that everyone stayed safe and healthy. Internally, we built a task force, put out guidelines, and shut our offices.

But, of course, Tymeshift isn’t about just taking care of ourselves, we wanted to help the CX community.

A crazy idea

As the situation continued, people started reaching out to our sales team to sign up for subscriptions without even testing our features with a trial account. They needed a workforce management solution to help their teams transition to working from home…and they needed it fast. Of course, the last thing we wanted to do is charge people for a solution they desperately needed because of the current circumstances and most importantly had not planned or budgeted for.

The impact the pandemic was having on the CX community was clear, and we wanted to be there to support them however we could.

I went to David (our CEO) and he was thinking the same thing I was:

"How can we make even a tiny difference for people during this difficult time?"

That’s how we started hatching a plan to offer some of our features for free to these teams in a WFH Plan. As always, working together makes a bigger impact — and who better to team up with than Zendesk? They invited us to include our WFH Plan as a part of their Remote Support Bundle.

Some Tips

If your team has gone remote, it can be a shock to the system. Everyone acts like working from home is all pajamas and cute pet photos. But it’s a lot tougher to do — and to manage — than you’d expect. This morning I popped into the Zendesk morning show to talk about the issue and offer some advice.

Since our company has been remote and in temporary spaces for years (seriously, we JUST moved out of a shared office before the pandemic had us switch back to WFH) I thought I’d share tips on stuff that works for us.

Here are a few, and you can always watch the recording of the morning show to hear more:

  • Track activity to stay on track — Stay on top of what your team is doing both within Zendesk and outside of the standard tracking activities. Create custom states for meetings, special projects, and breaks.
  • Encourage breaks — Since everyone’s home has suddenly become their office too, it can be tough to achieve a work/life balance. Agents shouldn’t feel guilty for taking a break, they’ve earned it. So make that clear.
  • Use real-time monitoring — Hindsight is 20/20. But if you’re made aware of issues while they happen, you can adjust and assist on-the-spot. Unblock agents that are stuck on tickets before they come to you. Make sure everyone is actually taking their lunch and not powering through. Know what your agents are up to an make sure to help them out where you can.
  • Coach & cheer! — Finally, and this is incredibly important, don’t let the distance get in the way of your team spirit. All we have right now is communication. So if you see something going well when you check in on the real-time stats, celebrate it! If you see someone needing guidance or a nudge, do some kind of coaching.

Help comes from our hearts

I can’t imagine what this time is like for each one of you reading this right now. As a mom, I want to show my daughter how much good people, teams, and companies can do if we work together. The long days it took to launch this new plan were quickly erased by the people who’ve already told us that they’ve found it helpful and been comforted by the fact that they’re not alone in this.

Everyone I work with is committed to learning more about how we can help the CX community even more during this phase so that we can grow stronger together.

Thank you to all of the true heroes in this situation — those on the front lines fighting the illness and keeping our world running in this modified state.

I know that our help is small in comparison, but we hope it makes a few days less stressful and a few teams’ work simpler.

About Tymeshift:

We’re Tymeshift, an effortless WFM solution made exclusively for Zendesk to make workforce managers’ lives easier. Our workforce management tools include shift scheduling, forecasting and analytics. A perfectly intuitive Zendesk integration makes your CX agents’ lives easier. Learn all there is about us and our product on tymeshift.com