HR Tech Interview with Lance Rosenzweig, Chief Executive Officer at Support.com

Lance Rosenzweig, Chief Executive Officer at Support.com takes us through Support.com’s remote work model while talking about the basic criteria that helps set the right virtual workplace standards in place. Catch the complete conversation:

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Tell us a little about yourself Lance…we’d love to hear about Support.com and its business model!

I’ve been in the customer support industry for over 20 years and over that period of time; the organizations I’ve led have driven two major innovations in the industry. PeopleSupport, which I founded over two decades ago, was the first company to use chat for customer support. Back then, we actually coded our own software and launched what has now become one of the main ways people communicate with customer support representatives. The second major innovation I’ve been a part of was the launch of offshore support in the Philippines, a model that now employs over one million people. Now, at Support.com, I’m excited to be part of a third major innovation: homesourcing.

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For over 20 years, Support.com has been one of the innovators of homesourcing. Homesourcing essentially means that all of our employees, across all levels of the company, work from home – our entire model is completely virtual. It took a lot of time and experience to master it – the culture, IT tools, training and hiring processes are very different than those of a traditional call center, but we’re taking everything we’ve learned to the next level by building the world’s homesourcing leader in customer support – a virtual call center supported by home-based employees and with no bricks and mortar facilities.

What are some of the biggest fundamental must-haves or must-dos when it comes to managing a remote workforce that offers customer facing services?

There are many fundamentals that tie into the success of managing remote teams, and it starts with recruiting. We recruit 100 percent virtually, via web and social media channels, not in-person. To do this well, you need tools that enable you to build a pipeline of great candidates, anywhere in the world. By starting virtual, we have removed the geographic constraints to cast a much broader net to find the best experts.

Of course, there are more nuanced requirements for those working in a homesourcing model versus those in a brick-and-mortar facility. One of the most important is that the people need to be well-suited to work from home. From a technological standpoint, they need the right equipment and bandwidth. They also need a home environment with dedicated space that’s quiet and without interruptions. What’s critical is identifying the candidates that really embrace the idea of working from home in order to set teams up for success. We’ve built a recruiting model that helps us identify those candidates broadly, and assess them through virtual techniques to find experts that are both a good fit for the job and have expertise in our clients’ specific businesses, products, and industries.

Once we have that team, it’s important to train them properly. The training environment is much different for a virtual team – it’s not optimal to just move everything to Zoom. Modern training techniques using synchronous and asynchronous techniques help people learn at their own pace and empower them to ask questions along the way. We have established techniques for learning that are tailored to the types of people we’re hiring.

Once we’re trained and operating, the way in which we manage teams is also different. The traditional call center approach involves a dense environment where workers literally raise their hand and a supervisor walks over to help – we can’t do that virtually. What we’ve created in lieu of that is a system that is more collaborative and “expert-to-expert” so employees learn from each other. This also helps to cultivate community among workers.

Another difference is in quality management. Typically, the QA team is distributed across all the centers they operate and sits with the agents. In our case, the quality team is virtual, and we have quality experts – located anywhere and using modern tools – to automate the processes and drive excellence and speed to competency more quickly. 

As remote work as a concept becomes more widely adopted largely because of the Covid-19 pandemic; what are some of the top thoughts you would share with businesses who are still implementing the right technologies and processes? 

COVID-19 hit very quickly and, in many cases, forced companies that were unprepared to manage a remote workforce to shift immediately. We have found that while this model has since evolved into a hybrid workforce for many companies, it’s sub-optimal. The technologies for effective in-office work are different than full-remote work. A dedicated homesourcing model that is well-prepared to support work from home enables remote workforces to be more effective. There is now the question whether brick-and-mortar centers are even necessary, or if a shift to a fully virtual model can benefit both the workforce and ultimately customers. The opportunity is greater than it’s ever been as organizations reevaluate strategies and consider the shift to a fully remote workforce.

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Managing a remote workforce is one part of the story. What are some of your top best practices for when it comes to training/upskilling and even hiring employees in a remote culture in your view?

First, it’s important to recognize that culture management is just as critical to success as the work your team is doing. Culture needs to be at the forefront of decisions when selecting the right team, motivating that team, and providing rewards and recognition to the team. Much like everything else, developing culture in a virtual environment requires taking vastly different approaches than if you were in a brick-and-mortar environment.

Second, proprietary tools and processes developed specifically to help remote employees succeed help us to not only be more effective, but also to be more engaged. While our homesourcing model removes the geographic constraints from hiring, it’s our processes and tools that help us create opportunities for bonding and developing friendships among people who live nowhere near each other. We encourage collaboration with group trainings, social events, special interest groups, and virtual activities that unite our team based on common goals.

Can you take us through some of the technologies / HR technologies that you’ve used to help enable better employee connectivity in a remote work and create a better work culture?

One thing that really sets us up for success is our online platform. Our proprietary Workbench platform provides our experts with a suite of tools that allows them to perform their job well in a homebased environment. Employees also use Workbench to actively participate in online forums and chat rooms to troubleshoot customer issues and to socialize with each other. The virtual culture is also consistently reinforced through rewards and recognition for engaging with company activities, performance-based bonuses, and prioritizing promoting talent from within.

From our proprietary See Support application that allows experts to connect with customers through live video or photos and see problems in real time, to our proprietary Guided Paths that provide interactive, step-by-step instructions for resolving issues, our Support.com resources are cultivated to set up our homebased experts for success.

What are the top thoughts you would share with business leaders as they prepare for 2021?

COVID has created a new mindset in business, and it’s proven to the naysayers that you can build an effective team that is 100% remote. It’s a great time to capitalize on the opportunity to build a remote workforce that can be every bit as effective, if not more so, than an in-person workforce.  And 2021 is the time to embrace it. It’s better to go “all in” with homesourcing and fully remote teams than to try and manage a hybrid workforce. We feel strongly that the key attributes of Support.com’s homesourcing model – processes, platforms, and culture truly tailored to remote work – are a natural evolution to today’s WFH model.

Before we wrap up, we’d love to hear a little about the employee culture and experience at Support.com!

With our homesourcing model, we’re in the unique position to bypass the barriers that are usually associated with a distributed workforce to hire the absolute best candidates for the job, based on culture fit, skill set, experience, etc. We’ve eliminated geography as a recruiting constraint and as a result have access to an exceptional pool of talent that wouldn’t otherwise be available when hiring within a limited geographic scope.

Nevertheless, we think it’s important to recognize that even with the best of the best, managers need to play an active role in building the culture of an organization. We can’t just think it’ll happen itself – it takes time and effort. When we add that effort into the mix, the rewards are tremendous. The at-home culture is what makes working for Support.com a truly fulfilling experience.

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At Support.com, we embrace the idea that employee satisfaction equates to customer satisfaction; you need to love the job to deliver excellent work. If you can hire and motivate people to love what they’re doing, the customers really feel that ripple effect.