GitLab Group Conversation, 12 Nov 2019

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Support Group Conversation (Public Livestream)

Description

Support Group Conversation (Public Livestream)
Nov 12, 2019 07:49 AM Pacific Time (US and Canada)

A

I, all apologies for that. My computer has this nasty habit of during this hour. Only when I mind zoom crashing and embarrassing me welcome to today's group conversation. My name is Lila Kozlov I am a support. Engineering manager out on the west side of the Americas, specifically Vancouver Canada um I, believe you're already taking a look at our slides and I'm soaking up this dock and see if there's any questions, but I did want to note that these are group conversations, not group, q and A's.

A

So if you put something in this dock, I'm gonna ask you a question first and we're gonna have a conversation. So, let's get into it all right, there's nothing! Yet I can talk I'm, a good talker uh in support right now we are scaling a lot. We've made a lot of really great hires. You can check that out on slide number three there's a couple of folks that were really wanting to get in, though, specifically a new manager up in Americas, North, Latin manager and another person for support operations as we've kind of grown.

A

We need more of a management layer and we need more people. Actually, working on the tools that make what we're doing possible MEC looks like you're typing some stuff.

B

Hey so yeah thanks for highlighting the reference architectures, it's my turn it that on slide, five Scylla can mean a very different context. This is a programming language, so there's just to set the context straight. This is the self manage scalability working group that we're talking about. That's probably a.

A

Typo, yes, we're not talking about the scholar language. Thank you pick. Okay, I will help.

B

A

That, okay, yeah, absolutely cool everyone can contribute.

A

Other things that are happening in support, we should do it to a kind of situation here.

A

What else is happening? Jayson's anything you want I liked.

C

Sorry that I put scale instead of scalability I was rushing through things and wasn't thinking about the coding language at all. No, no need to apologize love and the work that's happening from the scalability group. The 10k, 25k 50k architecture stuff, is amazing and is going to make life so much easier for so many people we're doing a lot of work on improving our kind of support.

C

Knowledgebase we're doing a lot of things improving like the boot camps to have them be a little more test-driven and also be more plentiful to cover a wider variety of subjects. I'm excited for some of the changes that are coming with that I'll stay checked, like the we're doing, contribute 2020 prep, so we're trying to ensure who's gonna, be where at what times to ensure that there's no gaps in coverage for our customer base. I definitely do not want huge gaps where customers can't contact us so for doing the pre.

C

You know we're preparing for that to figure out who's coming early who's, staying late, who's traveling when and where we had a great conversation about how support can better advocate for our customers. That's a great issue to kind of read through and see all the back-and-forth and comments there I loved the collaboration that happens there. I love the transparency that happened there, I thought that was awesome and we're working on improving some of the UX stuff for, like the support forums in the landing page to make them look.

C

Prettier I think that's the right terminology use right. Look: prettier, I,.

A

Think you got it. um One of the things that's been on my mind is sort of in other group conversations. We talk about how you know this piece of the product is viable or lovable, and that's not actually something. We talk about a lot in support, I'm, curious sort of from the room. What does lovable support mean.

D

I just learned about this yesterday, actually through my support, I'm learning, hi I'm, Michael, ECA I'm, a new support agent on America's eise is global. Support would just mean something that's in its right place, but has room for improvement. So there's not like major features that need to be added, but there's things that can be kind of minorly improved. My I'm not sure. If I've I've nailed it there I.

A

Feel like yeah nice I feel, like you have like sort of like the technical, different definition correct but like lovable to me, is sort of like almost like it's an emotional response and it's kind of it's I was kind of sort of reflecting this morning sort of like how did we get to a point where, like and I'm gonna use a product people? Please don't blow me up, I'm gonna, say issue boards, I, don't know if they're actually liveable but wait.

A

How did we get to a point where people love issue boards, like that, doesn't seem like something you can love, but support like we actually are humans that interact with other humans and yeah.

D

That's really it's a really good question: yeah I, don't I! So it's my also I started on the 28th. So this is the start of my third week. So I might not be the best. No.

C

A

Everyone can contribute, and nearly everyone in this room is probably interacted with some support team at some point and you may or may not have had a loveable experience, lift support. I think I mean um before.

D

Being a cat lab I did a support for really a long time and I think something that is very lovable about support. Often times is making things so repeatable that you can help someone faster and I think that when you're at that place, then you can kind of add these little bits that make them even like it just gets nicer and nicer of an experience, and it's almost like you're being helped before you know it and that's what I think is a something that we I like to do and.

A

This is like picking that apart a little bit, it's sort of I'm, detecting a theme of speed, so like quick responses and sort of technical excellence, or at least like the ability to solve your problem. Well,.

D

Even even further than that to like, like someone says, I, really want this McKee up an example, but like I want my emails change and you might be like oh well, here's this. We changed your email and also there's this other thing. You didn't even know about like not even the technical proficiency, but almost like the other things they didn't even know because of your experience.

A

Doing them? Okay, so it's it's not just handling the problem that comes in but handling the root problem or problems that you didn't even know existed. Yeah.

D

A

Those were things I really like great. Thank you. Is there any other ideas out there exceeding.

B

Expectations in as many ways as we can maybe.

A

What kind of expectations do you think our customers have.

B

Like that's, where the speed comes in speed, accuracy, Pythian, succeed,.

A

Anybody not unsupportive want to give a shot. I want to make this a conversation. Hey.

E

I'll chime in here Matt, Gonzalez p.m. for the manager group or stage rather so I. Think for me, one of the things that makes support lovable is when it's a very human interaction, so very conversational, coming from a anti-abuse compliance background. Having to have the harder conversations are, our guiding principle was the best workflow is our best.

E

Compliance workflow is one that the the customer doesn't know that they're going through and I think the positive spin on that for the non frictional stuff is when you don't realize it you're being walked through some sort of support, process or step, or some things in troubleshooting fact-finding when it's effortless I think is lovable yeah.

A

I think I think that's really true. I had an interaction with my bank, who is trying to be very, very hip and millennial, and they sent me you know animated gifs. Yes, I sent it the way that I said it that way on purpose, but it came across not like they're trying too hard to be human so too hard that they ended up being robotic where it was just like I feel like you're. Pandering to me all right.

E

Yep, that's that slippery slope I.

F

Have one I think good morning, everyone / good evening, hello! Well, one thought I have as far as being.

F

Lovable I think it's matching. The customers or users base say not necessarily personality but like their way of interacting I. Don't know how to put that into words.

F

Exactly to give an example: I was I had a support, call with someone where we had a lot of back-and-forth and they were based in France, and so they were super chill and and laid-back, and we went from a very technical English speak to switching to French and then not even using the formal whoo with me, but straight ups, using the two with me, which is one way of being extremely friendly.

F

So just because I think I was able to match their mode of communication or like their level of comfort, and we ended up having a good experience and they weren't too, upset that we didn't have a working solution in the end that they were chilled with waiting until the end of the day. First script that would fix whatever issue they were whatever a broken feature. They had said to deal with.

A

You know thanks for that, sir I think that sort of matching is really important. I know that we've had we have other customers on the other end of the spectrum who have gotten upset when we've replied with their first name and I'm like no. No I am mr. so-and-so. Please address me as such and like okay, I mean yes, no problem, other thoughts, questions, musings, I.

B

Think this is a two-way street, where I think the support engineers should feel that the current process is lovable to make their lives easier, like just make people make our people happy on the process, but also I, think this question should be asked to the customer like how are you loving our support, I think how to capture this is that there are issues are resolved in time in a timely manner, and- and we can take out like that- the end goal is: do they need a new feature request, or is it a bug?

B

But as long as we find a resolution in the timely manner, I think that makes it loveable.

A

Yeah and that resolution time I mean MEC. You and I work together in the development metrics working group and that's something that we kind of were really tackling. Is support can take it to so far, but at some point it can end up in a feature request or in a bug request, and how do we make sure that, as a support team, we're passing those things off to product and those are getting prioritized correctly like? How do we make sure that handoff works well? Does anybody that has any thoughts sort of on on that process?.

D

um That a it's always really important to reach out to customers with anticipating that there'll be a large, maybe I'll impact customer impacting issue. I. Think that's also it's kind of a hard thing at times. Maybe there's like be like heartbleed a few years ago. The very huge bug that impact a lot of people for security and having that communication, open and ready for them to discuss with us I think that's important.

A

Yeah definitely.

B

Well, can I spin that around a little bit can I can I ask the support department? What is the what is challenging right now? What is they? What are the hurdles to go over and your concern about.

B

It support team.

G

C

I think one of the the bigger hurdles, especially when it comes to going from a support ticket to a feature, request or bug report, is that transition of going from the ticket system to the issue, I've noticed a lot of customers or users seem hesitant to switch kind of switch gears to well now we're going to again lab issue as compared to we were having email support, so I think that's that's, definitely a challenge, especially since they have this in their mind of we're.

C

Making this bug report a feature request, because we no longer want to talk to you, which is not the case, but I feel like that is something a lot of them feel. Is we're kind of deferring this off to dev Noll, where it's just never gonna go anywhere again, and we just don't want to talk to you anymore about it. So I feel like that is something that's tricky and something supports constantly kind of challenged by I.

C

Don't have a solution for that, either by the way, so I'm open to any solutions for that one. No.

A

It is tricky, I mean it can be disheartening for for customers. When you know we say this is the issue that affecting you and then like. It's been open for three years and there's no comments on it and it say well you're right, you're, right Mohammed, you had something to say: yeah.

G

So I I'm not sure if Joshua is here in the cooler.

G

Basically there is this thing that has been made together with the data team, which is actually showing the stats for basically customer interest in the issues and and and I think, that's probably the biggest thing that we got in in that sense, like that, definitely will help I mean, sits, still ongoing and all of that basically it helps you that when you know you are working with a customer, maybe it's I don't know two or three weeks whatever, and then you realize you got into an issue and you can't fix it.

G

Then you basically give it to them, and you know look at these that this is what we are working on. This is what these customers requests that actually- and these are basically the priorities, I think that's the direction we should go at all. So it's not only that, but also like basically how how good are we at messaging, our like we, we work in product like when it comes to product like how we are actually prioritizing everything, because you know customer went, went one day I.

G

If it's a paying customer, if they aren't giving us a lot of money and when they say you know, this is an issue of fix this. For me, they expect us to jump and that's not the way we work right, so I think like messaging. That's like the way we work in when it comes to prioritizing, and all of that, like I, think if we improve that I think that will help us and and also like even in support like I, have actually found people onboarding.

G

That actually are not so sure about it, which actually tells me that we don't have a right like really directly in the handbook or an email anywhere else where it is actually explained, like you know, in a bereavement like in a clear manner where it's actually super clear for anyone reading it and if someone in get lab who just joined is confused. I can't just imagine how much actually person who is looking at that, maybe once in their lifetime, will actually be confused about our our our like solutions.

G

So I think that that's the way for improvement for sure I mean it that that's how I feel.

A

In the short-term, like kind of what would you see like? What's the first smallest iteration, we can do I.

G

Would need to look through all of the old and book pages that we have on this I know that I've been looking at them, but it has been a while so I'm, not sure how updated are they at the moment, but I know like I literally saw questions from from peers, like I, don't know, maybe two or three weeks ago that people actually asked about us, which means it's not.

G

You know it doesn't stand out as opposed to, for example, I can get a give actually a good example of which, if we can get to, there should be quite quite cool like, for example, our product categories. Page is just awesome so like when you open it you it's it's basically clear what we are working at. So, for example, you go from the like gitlab home page, and then you start realizing that we have like categories. Then you go on the crop product categories. Pre, you see everything there.

G

It's like a super huge amount of information. Of course, you can't read all of that, but you have it there for prioritizing issues, I'm, not sure if we have like straight way where someone who is a newcomer or someone who is actually not working, they're a product every day can get the information they need like super quickly. That'sthat's just my point, yeah.

A

I think there's there's an interesting balance where we want our customers to understand how we work, but at the same time some customers aren't interested. They don't want to participate in that way. They just want to go back to their lives and we are I think in some cases we are pressing them where it's sort of like well. This is a new and better way of working. You can actually ping the PM that's responsible for this thing. You can actually have a conversation with the actual developers.

A

They're like I, don't want to I just want my thing to be fixed now, they're kind of another thing, though, that sort of was like going through my mind, as you were speaking Mohammed was I. Think one of the things that I'm excited about that it hasn't really in all stages or groups like been used.

A

I think to the maximum potential is our support, stable counterparts, so most of our most of our sections should have a support, stable counterpart, there's I, think, probably nine or so that don't yet and I know that there there are some sections where the support stable counterpart and the PM have a good relationship, and it's working really well and I know there's some where it's sort of like what do we do with each other and so I yeah I'm excited sort of over the next, the next while to to explore that relationship a little bit more and define it a little bit more I know it's been probably frustrating both for support folks and for product folks sort of like we have this thing.

A

How do we make use of it so Sarah and I are taking a look at that.

A

Jason, do you want to say I.

C

Was just going to say regards to the stable counterpart stuff, I think how Eric and the Geo team have been working together is amazing, I use them as a great example, when I try to explain what a stable counterpart is to other people.

A

Well, folks, any other thoughts, questions um I.

D

Had a last one which just came in my head- and this might be a dumb one but I'm gonna say it anyways, um there are there's a video game. Company called Bungie that does this weekend Bungie and they kind of talk about the problems that they're working on for their video game. Is there anything like that with gitlab, like kind of like a weekly wrapup that says like hey? This is a really big thing that happened, and this is what's going on this week like this.

D

Is our big priority, or do we really just point people to issues and say like look at the minut details there, it's every bit of information time.

A

Is there any product folks that would like to speak to that I'm, not aware of anything and I'm curious in a you know, product as big as Gil AB? How what that would look like I'd say the closest analog we probably have would be our retrospectives and kickoff calls where it's like. These are the things we're going to work on. These are things that we did work on and what went well, what didn't I did I just.

D

Had that thought just because I talking about I believe it's Mohammed that brought it just like giving the insight to our customers about the big things that we're working on and I really like that from them. As someone who really enjoys their video game, destiny too, is like we have this big problem and they're talking about like hey we're addressing it, and it won't even be the solution.

D

But it'll just tell you like hey, we know it's a big issue and just kind of summarizes all those little things into just a big blog post, so I just didn't know if we had something like that.

A

That's a great thing: well, folks, if there's nothing else, I had a great time. This felt like a conversation. So thanks you thank you to everybody who participated both from support and from outside of support. Let's go ahead and wrap this up and yeah I'm sure we'll interact in the future, because everybody talks to support, take care all right.