Inside Buildertrend: Making an impact with customer support

Show Notes

Every other Thursday, weโ€™ll give our listeners a glimpse into the inner workings of our business with our new โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ series on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ What are our teams working on? What features are coming up and how will they benefit our users? What data and research are being collected behind the scenes? Tune in as we take a look inside Buildertrend.

How will the new Global Search feature help our customers?

Today on โ€œInside Buildertrend,โ€ Tayler Ross, director of Customer Success, joins Zach and Charley to discuss the huge impact customer feedback has on the way we run our business.

Hear about how our award-winning Customer Success team here at Buildertrend uses customer feedback to improve support strategies and the enhancement of our quality assurance processes.

What are the key takeaways?

  • Who is our Customer Success team?: Customer support is a top priority for us here at Buildertrend, and our Customer Success team is one of the best in the business with a record-breaking customer satisfaction score of 99%. Theyโ€™re focused on reactively supporting our customers through incoming phone calls, chats and emails.
  • How many customers are helped each day?: On average, our Customer Success team takes around 450 calls a day. Outside of calls, they answer anywhere from 500 to 600 chats and emails in the same day. But a constant influx of traffic never slows them down. Their average answer rate is around 10 seconds, so customers donโ€™t have to wait long for answers.
  • Documenting feedback for the future: In addition to phone calls and chats with questions, the Customer Success team also gets feedback about the software. This could be anything from a new feature that was released or something that isnโ€™t in the program yet that customers would like to see. Regardless of what the feedback is, everything is documented for use in future software updates.

Why is this cool for Buildertrend users?

Our Customer Success team members are the ones our customers rely on for unlimited support. The problem-solvers. The teachers. The ones who understand Buildertrend like the back of their hand and are ready to answer questions in merely minutes. They play a huge role in our customersโ€™ accomplishments.

Check out the last โ€œInside Buildertrendโ€ episode to get the hear all about the addition of the highly requested Global Search feature.

Subscribe to โ€œThe Building Code,โ€ and never miss an episode.

Got podcast topic suggestions? Reach out to us at podcast@buildertrend.com.

The Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend:

Looking to improve how your team plans projects with the worldโ€™s No. 1 construction management software? Pick up Buildertrend project planning pro tips on the newest season of โ€œThe Better Way, a podcast by Buildertrend.โ€ Subscribe and stream all of these bingeable episodes on your favorite listening app now.

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Transcript

Zach Wojtowicz:

Welcome to โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ Zach Wojtowicz, here.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Hey buddy.

Charley Burtwistle:

How’s it going? Long time, no see.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I know it feels like just yesterday.

Charley Burtwistle:

Maybe about 10 hours ago we were back in this studio. A morning recording today, which is rare for us. So, we got our coffee โ€ฆ

Zach Wojtowicz:

If we seem a little groggy or if you’re on the YouTube stream, and I’m drinking extra coffee, that is … A, I love coffee, but B, we were just talking about that’s my favorite thing. B, a little tired.

Charley Burtwistle:

A little tired and great plug for the YouTube stream. I’m not sure a lot of people are aware that we post all of these on YouTube as well, too.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Do you want to see what Charley looks like … to match that sultry voice?

Charley Burtwistle:

Check it out. Zach, tell the listeners who we got in the studio today.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, we’ve got Tayler Ross, who’s our director of customer support here at Buildertrend. We actually know each other pretty well. We’re going to have to dive deep into that. Tayler is in the studio with us, as you can see, which we love having guests in person. Just a little different dynamic. Tayler, welcome to โ€œThe Building Code.โ€

Tayler Ross:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Zach Wojtowicz:

How are you doing today?

Tayler Ross:

Pretty good.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah? First time on the podcast.

Tayler Ross:

First time on the podcast.

Zach Wojtowicz:

First time on any podcast โ€ฆ

Tayler Ross:

Any podcast …

Zach Wojtowicz:

How’s it sitting?

Tayler Ross:

Pretty good. Not as nervous as I thought I’d be.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Nah, nothing to be nervous about. It’s just Charley and I.

Charley Burtwistle:

Just Charley. Yeah, just Charley. What a condescending thing to say.

Zach Wojtowicz:

What do you mean?

Charley Burtwistle:

Okay. For our listeners out there, tell them a little bit about yourself, your time here at Buildertrend, and the Customer Success team that you work with?

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. I started at Buildertrend about five and a half years ago. Started out as a customer success manager, so handling training’s, phone calls, online chat. Moved into a technical support role, shortly after that, where I diagnosed bugs, worked on QuickBooks calls and then moved into a senior manager role where I managed several different roles in customer success. Then moved into managing our customer support team about two years ago. I’ll talk more about them today, obviously. Then, just at the start of this year, moved into director of customer support where I can focus more on strategy and operations for our team.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, Tayler’s done a lot for us here at Buildertrend. Tons of respect for her on the floor. It’s super exciting to have you on the podcast to talk about our โ€œInside Buildertrend.โ€ We want to get into customer feedback and how that shapes of the way we do things and strategy of support and the things that we’re working towards.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. When we’ve talked about the Mount Rushmore of Buildertrend a few times, I feel like we’d have to put Tayler up there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

When we said that, we said it was Marge … and she and Marge are best friends.

Tayler Ross:

This is true.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I think it has to โ€ฆ

Charley Burtwistle:

I think it checks out. Tell us a little bit more about your current role and the current team that you oversee โ€“ Customer Support.

Tayler Ross:

Yes. Customer Support is focused on reactively supporting our customers. That’s incoming phone calls, chats, emails, even overflow questions that if customers are reaching out to their Buildertrend coach, and they’re filled up with trainings for the day, they can send those emails or calls over to us, so we can get to them in a timely manner. There are mostly one-off questions that we’re handling throughout the day, or if there’s potential bugs or just questions that they’re stuck on … that’s primarily what our team does. We have a team of customer support and then we also have some specialized positions such as quality control, who’s helping out internally with our team on knowledge in the program, helping our team answer some questions. There’s quality assurance, who is monitoring our phone calls and our chats and emails. Really those positions are just helping to make our team the best that they can be.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s amazing.

Charley Burtwistle:

I feel like, as a whole, customer support is either the greatest thing in the entire world or the worst thing in the entire world. I’ve had very good experiences. Very bad experiences. I know at Buildertrend customer support is something that we prioritize a ton and take a lot of pride in. I know we’ll get into the numerous accolades you guys have won, later on in the episodes. Yeah, the one-off questions helping people get through their day without having to take the time of setting up a training, three days from now, an hour long call … I need answers right now and you guys are there for that.

Tayler Ross:

Yep, exactly. We’re doing feedback questions. Honestly, our answer rate is right around 10 seconds for phone calls. Most of the time, depending on the time of the day when customers call in, they’re not having to wait long to get an answer from us.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m just curious. I’m sure … Not to put you on the spot, but you have an idea of how many calls we take a day, right? Just some of the stats for our listeners to know the volume that we’re handling.

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. On average, we probably take around 450 calls a day and anywhere between 500 to 600 chats and emails a day.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. A ton of incoming traffic. It’s a really important job to make sure customers are getting the answers that we’re looking for. I think, by and large, they’re widely celebrated as one of the strengths of Buildertrend. When Tayler and I were on CSM we’re like … we did everything. What has that growth been like for the support team? I mean, when you guys started, what … How have your metrics changed or improved since, when you first … when we decoupled our CSM days to now actually having dedicated support?

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. I think, like Zach said, when we were CSMs, we were answering phone calls in between trainings. We were responding to emails. We were scheduled for online chat. Honestly, our answer rate was pretty low because so many people are on trainings, are working on other things that we couldn’t get to the phone every single time. I think by styling the Customer Support team, it has tremendously helped our metrics. We have on average, probably about a 97% answer rate for phone calls. We’re getting to all the chats and emails quickly. We’re usually handing … handling about four or more chats at a time, when our team is scheduled on there. Overall, it’s been a way better experience for our customers. I also think it’s helped with knowledge across the board with our team because they’re handling so many questions a day, that they’re constantly learning themselves.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I mean, it’s just like a dart board. I’ve done some shifts on the CSS side, and you get a call, it’s just like … you have to contact switch constantly. It’s like, “You’re on this part of the program. Now you’re on this part of the program.” That’s what they do all day. Right?

Charley Burtwistle:

And having to do it immediately โ€ฆ

Zach Wojtowicz:

And quickly. I mean, what’s our average call limit … Or how long is that, the average call go?

Tayler Ross:

Average call is around seven and a half minutes.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, so they’re pretty quick, and it’s on to the next one.

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. We have some that are 30 seconds. We have some that could be up to an hour, which, usually those are training. Sometimes if we’re having to dive into a difficult issue or question, then we’re going to put in the time needed to get the customer helped right away.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I mean, when someone emails me, if I respond at the end of the day, that’s normally pretty good for me. If I was forced to turn around and answer in seven minutes, that’s a lot of pressure.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s just a shout out to all of our friends inside Buildertrend. Like, if you need support from Charley, maybe, yeah โ€ฆ

Charley Burtwistle:

There you go. Maybe go through Tayler … You talked about this wide spectrum of things that you guys are handling … calls, chats, emails. A wide spectrum of context that you’re answering inside the program. Where would you say your favorite part of customer support is where you really take a lot of pride in working?

Tayler Ross:

Honestly, the team. I take a lot of pride in the team. It’s been very humbling joining this team a couple years ago, just because it can sound cliche speaking to the family atmosphere of this team, but there’s nothing that I’ve experienced like this team. They’re just like a family. They’re there to help each other out. If they don’t know the answer to something, one of them’s going to jump in and help out that person or the customer. They’re all in on helping each other hit their own goals and just wanting everyone to be better and feel supported at all times.

Charley Burtwistle:

How many people do you guys have on the team now?

Tayler Ross:

We have about 30 people who are on taking calls and chats, and then we have almost 10 that are in more of the leadership roles.

Charley Burtwistle:

Gotcha. Wow. Have grown a ton there.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, it’s grown.

Tayler Ross:

Yes.

Zach Wojtowicz:

At one point it was just JD, right? Just Jason, right?

Tayler Ross:

I think it started out with about three or four of them. Yep.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Okay. It’s been the fastest growing part of customer success and this wing is the support side.

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. We have almost tripled in size over the past couple years. I know last year, around this time, we were drowning to be honest, just with COVID, and customers being at home and having more time to really dig into Buildertrend and asking questions. From a hiring standpoint, we couldn’t really hire that many during COVID. We did the best with what we had and the team sailed, and they did an awesome job.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s amazing. Let’s talk a little bit about our customers and sort of the things that your team hears from them. I know, there’s a lot of reasons to call support and we want it to be a great experience. What are the things that we’re hearing from our customers when they’re calling in?

Tayler Ross:

Yeah, there’s a couple different main types of feedback that we get. One, is feedback on our support team and that is through phones and chat … primarily through chat. For most of our customers, they know if you chat in … talk to one of our representatives, at the end of that chat, you get a rating request. You can rate our support team on a five point scale. What a lot of customers don’t know is that actually plays a part in their metrics and their bonuses. They are really wanting to provide the best customer support possible. It’s always fun when we get emails or phone calls from customers with glowing reviews of someone on our team, that whether it was a small issue or a larger issue that our team dug into, just making their day or helping to improve their business.

Tayler Ross:

Then, we also get program feedback. I think that’s a huge part of the customer support job. It’s become a huge part. That can be on new features that were released and feedback on how they would want something to function. Or, it could be something that we don’t have in the program yet. Regardless of if it’s new features, if it’s something we don’t have, we are documenting every single piece of feedback that we get. Then it’s up to the Customer Experience team to read through all that and work with product to figure out what we’re going to work on moving forward.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. That has to be gold for them … information, because obviously someone’s reaching out to support is either because they don’t know how to do something or they can’t do something … which is, yeah … We’ve talked with product people on the podcast before and that’s something that they crave is customer feedback in that type of qualitative information to base decisions around so โ€ฆ

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. There’s sometimes where they’ll call in, and they’ll be like, “I wish you guys could do this,” or, “I wish we could do this in the program.” A lot of times we can do it. It’s just maybe an accommodation that we need to work through or talk through exactly what they’re wanting and try to come up with the best possible solution for that time.

Charley Burtwistle:

Is that hard to do through chat? You mentioned, you have emails, chat and phone call. I can imagine it’s a lot easier to explain something on the phone.

Tayler Ross:

It is easier to explain something on the phone. I would say the benefits of chat is that you can type out steps and they can go back and reference those. We can also provide screenshots over chat. Over the phone, it’s easy to really hear where they are in the program and walk through that one-on-one, but at the same time, for the most part, we don’t set up a ton of screen shares. We can’t always see where they are.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m just curious on when we implemented chat. We’ve had it for a while but we’ve … our new partners got a lot more capability … Is on mobile now … Did that impact the call volume at all? Did chat alleviate any of the inbound calls or is it just continue to grow on both fronts?

Tayler Ross:

It’s continued to grow on both fronts. Yeah. I was going to say it’s a little bit hard to tell just because our client base is growing, our volumes growing and yeah … They’re pretty even for the most part.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, for sure. It’s interesting as companies like Buildertrend that offer customer success teams and support, they have different strategies of how they approach customers. A lot of people try to use chat to alleviate the call volume. I think, our industry’s unique to where they’re just used to getting on their phone’s and calling. So, it’s popular. It’s interesting. On my onsite days, people in the office are like, “I use the chat all the time,” and they’re like, “People in the field will be like, ‘I just call in.” It’s great we offer both.

Tayler Ross:

It is great. With our chat, we do have some bots that are presented when they first start chatting with us. Sometimes they don’t even need to get to a live representative. Sometimes they can get their questions answered ahead of time. I think, a lot of times when customers call in, and they find how quickly we answer the phone and how helpful our team is, they’re not afraid to call back, and that’s perfectly fine. That’s what we’re here for.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah. I love hearing stories of people who call in or have a relationship with the … with the agent … That they’re like, “I want to talk to Tyler. I know Tyler.” It’s great. Even though they’re technically not an account rep, they start to develop these relationships, which is my favorite part about our customer base at Buildertrend.

Tayler Ross:

We even get that on chat. We get people who will chat that person and say, “I’m so glad I got you.” Or, even leave review’s saying, “Every time I talk to so-and-so, it’s such a great experience.” So, yeah, they do form those relationships.

Charley Burtwistle:

I love it. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I’ve used the chat feature in program a couple times, just for the bot โ€ฆ

Zach Wojtowicz:

Have you really?

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah. I’m, obviously, I don’t have a ton of experience in CS or product so it’s … Sometimes it’s hard for me to figure out how to do things in the program and it’s super easy as I type in change orders and the bot immediately pops up articles about how to submit them … and things like that.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Can we get chat on your Tableau reports? Just have you there to troubleshoot … help Mitch out a little bit.

Charley Burtwistle:

That would be big time for our team to have some aspect of support.

Tayler Ross:

Charley would never get back to those emails.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, exactly. You just set up a bunch of bots, so you didn’t have to talk to us.

Charley Burtwistle:

That would be ideal. The less time with Zach the better. Obviously, you guys are doing a ton. You’re answering a ton of phone calls. You’re helping a ton of people out. You’d mentioned the CSAT score. What are some other measurements of success or how do you define success for your team?

Tayler Ross:

Yeah. Couple different ways. As far as metrics CSAT which is customer satisfaction and those ratings, all come from the support that we’re providing on chat. Again, they want to provide the best customer support. They want to get you an answer. We also work off of answer rate, which is our other main metric. Of the amount of phone calls that come in, how many of those are we answering again? That’s right around 97%. Last month we actually hit a 99% CSAT score, which was a record breaking CSAT for our team.

Zach Wojtowicz:

That’s across the board, right?

Tayler Ross:

That’s across the board. Yep … as an entire team. Some other things that we’re working on is, not necessarily that we really measure, but we have our QA team in CSS that’s monitoring calls and chats. Not only are they looking out for where we can improve on knowledge, but they’re also looking for process improvements as well. They’ll also work with our quality control team who will then take that continued education on making sure that our team is up to date on all new releases, going over, even past information that our team has learned, just to keep everything fresh in their mind. That in turn, helps our CSAT and answer rate.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Amazing. Well, you guys just won your third consecutive Stevie Award, which is a national award for recognizing extraordinary customer service. I’ll leave you the final word before we close it out. What do you think is the separating factor for Buildertrend’s, customer support? Obviously, we get the accolades, but what pushes us even further than people even probably realize?

Tayler Ross:

I would honestly say just plain and simple, we care. I think, it’s easy you to get frustrated when you don’t know the answer and when you’re trying to provide the best customer support to our customers, you want to know your stuff. Our team cares enough to continue to expand on their knowledge, staying up to date on new releases, making sure that they are showing empathy and providing positive attitudes when talking to customers. There could be difficult conversations that you have to have and you need to move onto the next call with a fresh attitude. We really care about making people’s days and helping improve their businesses and getting questions answered as quickly as possible.

I think, it’s also huge that customer support, the whole team, just cares about each other. Like I alluded to earlier, they are helping each other. They want each other to hit their goal. They want each other to provide the best possible support. They’re really there for each other. I think that’s what makes us really special.

Charley Burtwistle:

And the awards speak for themselves. I mean, back, to back, to back. That’s huge … 99% CSAT. I mean, the list goes on and on. You’ve clearly built a very successful team and a very integral part to our customer success department and Buildertrend, as a whole.

Tayler Ross:

Thank you.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Yeah, Tayler, thanks for joining us on โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ It’s great to have you.

Tayler Ross:

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Zach Wojtowicz:

You ever want to come back … we’d love to have you.

Tayler Ross:

All right. Sounds good.

Charley Burtwistle:

Repeat guests are the best, for sure.

Tayler Ross:

Thank you.

Charley Burtwistle:

Yeah, it’s always the first one that’s the hardest. Then from there it’s like, “I’ll just have them on all the time.” Everybody’s like, “I’ll just be a host for…” Like, great. The more the merrier โ€ฆ

Tayler Ross:

Was going to say, third host.

Zach Wojtowicz:

We’re going to have a council of hosts.

Charley Burtwistle:

I love that idea.

Zach Wojtowicz:

Katie Brown will be here. Tayler will be here. We’ll get Marge on.

Charley Burtwistle:

I’ll be here. You’ll be back at your desk.

Tayler Ross:

Not Charley.

Zach Wojtowicz:

For the listeners, make sure to check us out next week. We do have a repeat guest, Russ Stevens, who is the Co-Founder of the Association of Professional Builders. We had him on 10 to 15 episodes. They just released their brand new State of Residential Construction report. It is gold. There are lots of data in there. If you’re a data nerd โ€ฆ

Tayler Ross:

Charley’s eyes just lit up โ€ฆ

Charley Burtwistle:

Check it out and be sure to like, comment, subscribe. Otherwise, I think that does it for another episode of โ€œThe Building Code.โ€ I’m Charley Burtwistle.

Zach Wojtowicz:

I’m Zach Wojtowicz.

Charley Burtwistle:

See you next time.

Headshot

Tayler Ross | Buildertrend


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