Olark HR and Culture Enthusiast, Kimberly Bringas, shares 3 tips for onboarding new employees: 1.) Clear & Concise Processes; 2.) Pair a new employee up with someone; and 3.) Make it Human.

To read more about onboarding new employees, check out the Olark blog:

http://blog.olark.com/topic/tips-for-onboarding-employees

To sign up for an Olark Cyber Monday Survival Kit, go to:

www.olark.com/cybermonday

Tips For Onboarding (10 - 27 - 15)

Cyber Monday is the busiest online shopping day of the year for many retailers. Mens fashion retailer Bonobos (www.bonobos.com) knows this very well. Over the past two years, they've experienced huge spikes in traffic on Cyber Monday. In this interview, Bonobos head of customer support, Adam Covalt, explains how his team handles the rush of holiday shoppers. 

If you'd like to see the slides in Adam's presentation, you can view them here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QaVkteyNQ8

Olark Cyber Monday Webinar with Bonobos

We recently talked with James Stillian, Customer Champion at Man Crates (www.mancrates.com), about what it's like when things get really, really busy on customer support. Days like Valentine's Day, Father's Day and Cyber Monday, among others. James offers his tips and tricks for staying cool, keeping the team motivated and reflecting on the wins and losses of the day.

You can see the slides for James presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pvfXosOmAk

Olark Cyber Monday Webinar with Man Crates - Part 1

This is part 2 of our conversation with James Stillian, Customer Champion at Man Crates (www.mancrates.com), about what it's like when things get really, really busy on customer support. Days like Valentine's Day, Father's Day and Cyber Monday, among others. James offers his tips and tricks for staying cool, keeping the team motivated and reflecting on the wins and losses of the day.

To see the slides with this presentation, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmPgyLdySfE

Olark Cyber Monday Webinar with Man Crates - Part 2

This is part 3 of our conversation with James Stillian, Customer Champion at Man Crates (www.mancrates.com), about what it's like when things get really, really busy on customer support. Days like Valentine's Day, Father's Day and Cyber Monday, among others. James offers his tips and tricks for staying cool, keeping the team motivated and reflecting on the wins and losses of the day.

To see the slides with this presentation, go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aVqqOw608o

Olark Cyber Monday Webinar with Man Crates - Part 3

Recently I had a conversation with our Technical Support Samurai, Ryan Labarge, to ask him what it's like when things get busy on live chat, and what to do to deal with the rush.

If you've got further questions for Ryan, you can email him at support@olark.com or send questions to us on Twitter by tagging @Olark (https://www.twitter.com/olark)

For more information about Olark Live Chat, visit www.Olark.com

What to do when it gets busy on live chat

We had a bit of an email 'crisis' in advance of Thanksgiving. 

In trying to notify our customers of our reduced support hours around the holiday, we managed to generate a small flood of emails that our customer support team was not expecting. 

In this interview, Olark Customer Service Warrior, Rhoda Meek, tells the tale of the brave warriors who faced this onslaught of emails (some good, some bad, most auto replies).

She also tells of a not so far away galaxy where feedback between customer support and marketing is helping both teams work together more efficiently. 

If you've got further questions for Rhoda, you can email her at support@olark.com or send questions to us on Twitter by tagging @Olark (www.twitter.com/olark)

For more information about Olark Live Chat, visit www.Olark.com

How to deal with an email 'crisis'

Nick Oliverio is listed as Olark's Customer Service Ninja, but he actually holds a unique position at Olark.

Nick straddles the line between support and sales. In his role, he has to shift gears from reactive support to proactive sales on a daily basis. 

As such, he has a unique perspective on how support can make someone a better salesperson; and how sales can sometimes help support people close sales.

You can follow Nick on Twitter (@NickHatesTweets) and email support@olark.com if you have any questions for him.

How support can help you succeed at sales (and vice versa)

Brooke Gosden is Olark's Happy Customer Consultant. She recently wrote an article for the Olark Live Chat blog about someone having a bad day on chat.

(Read the full article here: https://blog.olark.com/what-new-olark-users-should-learn-first)

This bad day could have been easily avoided if this person - we call here Lucy - had just done a few things differently. 

I caught up with Brooke to hear how she gets herself ready for her support shift, what she does to avoid getting overwhelmed, and what she recommends for blowing off a little steam.

If you want to ask follow-up questions of Brooke, you can email support@olark.com to reach her.

How to prepare for your customer support shift - Don't be a Lucy

Kendall Burke, Customer Happiness Specialist at Acuity Scheduling, wants to make contacting Customer Support a happier experience. 

Her team goes out of its way to get to know its customers and forge a personal connection with them - a connection that goes above and beyond the typical, transactional interactions with support. 

In this interview, Kendall explains how her team is organized, her talk at Elevate Summit on finding job happiness, and the three most important traits for Customer Happiness professionals.

How Acuity Scheduling Organizes its Customer Happiness Team

In 2015, Olark enacted a 12 week parental leave policy to cover all employee maternity, paternity, and adoption leave. 

In this interview, we sit down with Olark's HR and Culture Enthusiast, Kimberly Bringas, Olark Full Stack Engineer, Nick Crohn, Full Stack Engineer, to talk about this parental leave.

In particular, Kimberly was responsible for refining and systematizing the leave policy, and Nick was the first employee to take advantage of it. Together they learned how to navigate the waters of HR paperwork and parenthood together.

Karl Pawlewicz's Album

How We Created the Olark Parental Leave Policy

Helping businesses communicate with their customers -- and learn from those interactions. We're Olark Live Chat: easy to use software for live chat and messaging on your website.

Olark Live Chat

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