Sometime in late March and early April of last year I started a new position at work. I acted as the voice of Liquid Web and Storm On Demand, managing the public images for both brands on Twitter, Facebook, and any forums on which we were active. I spent most of my days scouring the rest of the internet for people talking about us, helping and thanking wherever appropriate. The title became “Webhosting Evangelist” as the position was fleshed out, with many people that I encountered on the forums calling me a ‘Customer Activist’. My guidelines were simple: talk to people. Engage them, respond to them, help them, and give Liquid Web the friendly ‘face’ that it deserved.

I'm helping!

I had a great time in that position, got to meet some amazing people, got to speak at a conference about Monitoring, and just generally did what I do best: talked to people and responded to any problems they had as best I could. As the year went on it became more and more apparent to me that, though I enjoyed a large portion of the job and was genuinely interested in the subject, I wasn’t really cut out to be in Marketing at Liquid Web.

Twitter Fail Whale

Last week (in what now feels like a bit of a whirlwind of action and emails) the Bobs and I sat down and had a chat about where I wanted to go in the company. There were a couple options, but we all ultimately decided that I would begin to fill a role that had been needed for a long period of time: Quality Control. In general, the idea is that we have too many techs to know for sure that they are all delivering the same tone of helpfulness and customer appreciation, and we want to make sure that every customer is left with an overwhelming sense of “Liquid Web is AWESOME.” The job description, such as it exists right now:

The goal of the Quality Control Supervisor is:

To ensure each customer, potential customer, and any other external interaction is executed by our employees with the correct attitude and goal, and that everyone is given the tools and coaching they need to provide the best possible customer support experience.

Responsibilities:
* Build a Quality Control program for the Support Department that includes Quality Control Reviews and a retraining path for techs that are struggling.
* Identify problems during QC’s or lack of improvement and provide that information to the respective department head or operations manager.
* Help to improve internal communications.
* Continue to track, attempt to resolve and provide internal follow-up on all public complaints including, but not limited, to those mentioned on Twitter, Facebook, WHT.
* Monitor all ticket feedback (good and bad) and follow up appropriately.

Many, many, MANY things have been left intentionally vague to give me the necessary freedom to figure out exactly how to do everything there. It will probably morph a whole lot over the next year, and I look forward to the challenge.

Quality Control

I could allow myself to feel like the last year spent in Marketing was a failure, but I’ve decided instead to take it as a learning experience. I learned (more than I ever expected to, but I could probably sum it up in 500-1000 words) about myself, about the industry, and about the people I work with. Generally, I’m excited for the opportunity to dive headlong after a clear goal, and to be able to define processes again. I produce amazing results when given a goal, and told to just go for it. I sincerely doubt this will be anything but another way for me to shine.

4:21:32 PM me: I may be a bad person.
4:21:35 PM ani: oh really
4:21:47 PM me: I just caught myself chair dancing to Ace of Base.
4:21:50 PM me: Is there any hope?
4:21:51 PM ani: HAHAHAHAH
4:21:54 PM ani: no.
4:21:57 PM me: damn.