The FT Word

The FT Word is a free monthly newsletter with support management tips. To subscribe, click here. The subscription list is absolutely confidential; we never sell, rent, or give information about our subscribers.

Welcome

to the September 2014 edition of the FT Word. Topics for this month:

Support website ideas – 7 immediately useful ideas from this year’s Ten Best Support Websites report
Hiring CSMs? Get the guide!
An update on The Real Mavens of Social Business

FT Works in the News

A new e-book: Smarter Customer Success Hiring

As announced last month, the newest FT Works e-book is about hiring Customer Success Managers (CSMs), Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and Service Account Managers (SAMs) — anyone whose primary responsibility is relationship management. As with the other hiring e-books (Smarter Support Hiring for support engineers and reps and Smarter Support Hiring II for support managers), the e-book includes both a methodology for hiring and hundreds of questions to choose from to screen candidates and check references.

Since Customer Success is a relatively new field it’s likely that you will have to consider candidates that don’t have a Customer Success background per se — so innovative questions and strategies are especially important. You can find more information and purchase Smarter Customer Success Hiring here.

The Real Mavens turn corporate

I’m very happy to report that I completed the chapter about support communities I had committed for The Real Mavens of Social Business book, being compiled by Shawn Santos — and I just learned that the book now has a new name, How Companies Succeed in Social Business: Case Studies and Lessons from Adobe, Cisco, Unisys, and 21 More Brands.

I can be persuaded to share a few excerpts of my chapter, Social Support Untruths: When Received Wisdom is not Wise, on the blog. If there are any particular “truths” about support communities that you’d like to see busted, post a comment to help me choose the excerpt.

Curious about something? Send me your suggestions for topics — or add one in the comments — and your name will appear in future newsletters.

Regards,
Françoise Tourniaire
FT Works
www.ftworks.com
650 559 9826

About FT Works

FT Works helps technology companies create and improve their support operations. Areas of expertise include designing support offerings, creating hiring plans to recruit the right people quickly, training support staff to deliver effective support, defining and implementing support processes, selecting support tools, designing effective metrics, and support center audits. See more details at www.ftworks.com.