WFH Persists, Rage at Work, and Other Clickbaity Topics

💖 For Valentine's Day, would you do something for me? Hit reply and just let me know which new podcast logo design you prefer. This is the final choice!

🌎 Around the Web

🏡 WFH wins?

Much has been made of return-to-office initiatives, but "very little has changed since the beginning of 2023 in terms of actual office attendance and the percentage of full paid days worked from home," from a website I'm not sure about, but this overview is interesting.

➡️ Read this article from Wolf Street

📣 TED Talk: 6 Ways to Make Better Connections Online

Margaux Miller gives steps to better networking: it does not mean becoming an influencer - but it is more crucial than ever.

➡️ Watch this timestamp: "don't make it about you."

🤖 ChatGPT 5.0 is coming

Within 'months' and it will be available to free users. "These models will incorporate voice, canvas, search, deep research, and more."

➡️ Read the X announcement or if data is part of your job, check out this Feb 25 webinar.

📈 "how to stay professional when you’re full of rage at your job"

Ask a Manager is so great - and this thread has more than 400 comments. Clearly, it struck a nerve.

➡️ Read and comment: What would you do?

💁 Snatch and Flip!

You know I'm a Myra Bryant Golden fangirl, and I loved this Snatch and Flip method - it's a sticky concept, your frontline agents will likely remember it, and it's all about reflective listening.

➡️ Read her quick post here.

🎤 This Week in the Podcastiverse

🏫 Automated Handwritten Customer Notes

David Wachs of Handwrytten talks about automating thoughtful handwritten notes to your customers using robots - on the Digital CX podcast with Alex Turkovic. If you listen to any episode this week all the way through, I recommend this one. Here are the highlights I enjoyed most:

➡️ What does the robots-writing-notes facility actually look like? (minute 10:30)

➡️ A really great experience where the head of CX reached out directly to remedy a damaged shipment (minute 17:36)

🤜 Advice for new support specialists

Mathew Patterson's recent episode is a mashup of advice from (ahem) seasoned customer pros - what a fun idea!

➡️ Listen in here: jump to minute 8 for yours truly and minute 16 for my favorite tip!

🏃 Chick-Fil-A, Food Delivery Time, CSAT

Craig Stoss shares a study of fast food customer satisfaction and how it's not necessarily based on quick service. In other words, are you prioritizing what your customers are valuing or just what you think they value?

➡️ Watch Neal Travis 🌱's Growth Support podcast- my top pick clip starting at minute 24:38

🤔 "What would have to be true..."

"What would have to be true to accomplish this impossible thing?" - a really useful framework I'm going to start using, from Kimberly Wyman on Blake Morgan's podcast.

➡️ Watch at minute 9:30 for the question and discussion.

💡 New (To Me) Podcasts

I haven't had a chance to check these out yet - any thoughts? Any others you want me to summarize/time-stamp-recommend?

➡️ Punk CX

➡️ The Intuitive Customer

➡️ Happy to Help by Buzzsprout

The Communities

💡 CX Accelerator: how did I not know about this before? Add it to Support Driven and ElevateCX as your go-to communities.

📈 Workforce Management: a practical discussion with numbers about how to calculate how many full-time employees are needed based on number of clients and SLA.

💬 Your input needed in ElevateCX: how often to upgrade computers, Salesforce as a ticketing system?, and recommendations for leadership courses.

🧑🔧 Support Driven discussion: What's your favorite thing that you do to onboard someone to your team in their first few weeks?

🧩 Little Bits

📌 Robots playing soccer: is it weird that I'm inspired by how they fall, then just get right up again?

📌 Interstitial Journaling: how to make transitions between tasks efficient and be mindful, especially when your to-do list is too scary to deal with.

📌 Replit.com: Build your own app, really? I tried this and it was really cool to watch it code right in front of me. But I'm not sure I want to buy credits. Would you? Should I?

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