What does Everbridge’s Technical Support team do?
Michael: Our team works on break-fix technical support. Anytime a customer needs help with a black-and-white problem, where something is either working or it’s not, we tell them how to fix it. The idea is to be high-touch and highly technical without stepping over into sales engineering. They are the ones really working with customers to help solve business problems.
What do you do, as director of the team?
As little as humanly possible! Just kidding — I oversee our tech support teams here in Pasadena, as well as Burlington, Colchester, and Beijing. I also drive some of the more strategic things we do. For example, we’re trying to direct more people to our self-service resources, because it’s often faster for them and cost-effective for us.
I joke about doing as little as possible because I try to delegate authority to our different offices. As a team we provide 24/7 support, so we need to trust each other to make good decisions. There’s a manager at each office, and Burlington and Pasadena are big enough that they also have team leads. I also oversee two teams that develop and maintain our online support center. One handles tools administration, the other does knowledge management for our self-service resources. Except for Beijing, I get to travel between all the offices, which I enjoy.
Why did you decide to join Everbridge?
What resonates with me, and I think a lot of people here, is that we actually make a difference in people’s lives. We don’t make more widgets. Every time I hit a rough patch, I think about the emails we get from customers saying, for instance, they used Everbridge to help find a missing kid in 15 minutes. That puts things in perspective. I could be working somewhere else, having all the same challenges, but without the meaning I have here. When lives get saved, that’s some seriously positive reinforcement.
“What resonates with me … is that we actually make a difference in people’s lives.”
When I interviewed here, I asked everyone, “Why do you love Everbridge?” and people all had the same answer: “We impact people’s lives in a meaningful way.” People are passionate about what we do, which has made a huge difference in my attitude about work.
I used to work at an email security company doing the same job, and people would call us because some C-level executive got a piece of spam in their inbox. I was like, “Why is everybody so upset?” It’s spam. It’s annoying, yes, but it’s hardly life or death. Here, people could be put at risk if our product isn’t working well.
Tell us about your background. What were you doing before you came to Everbridge?
I’ve been running global technical support departments for 11 years now. I actually got into tech support by accident. I used to work in IT; then I thought I wanted to be a developer. I don’t actually have a college degree, so I couldn’t use that as a way in, so I got a job in tech support with NetIQ, a software company in Houston. But as I started doing tech support, I realized I loved it. You get to spend your whole day solving problems and making people happy. That’s why I do this job. I’m a helper by nature.
“You get to spend your whole day solving problems and making people happy.”
How would you describe the culture at Everbridge?
We have a pretty familial culture. I think that comes from taking the time to have fun together. We have catered lunch every Tuesday and a happy hour every Thursday afternoon. Last week we took the whole office Go-Karting. We were sponsoring it as team-building for tech support, and it was just a little bit more money to invite the whole office, so we did. We have a very serious mission, but we try to keep things light and enjoyable.
“We have a very serious mission, but we try to keep things light and enjoyable.”
There’s a term, “work-life integration,” that I really like. Our goal isn’t “Be here when the sun comes up, stamp out your widgets all day long, and don’t break the assembly line.” We want people to enjoy their work.
How does that familial culture affect the work you do?
I think we’re all more open to feedback. That doesn’t mean working through problems is easy, or that it won’t take work. But the common mission makes it so important that people listen, so we do. It’s helped us create an environment that’s very open to new ideas.
Is there a specific struggle you’ve overcome, something that demonstrates that approach to listening?
Good question. Earlier today, someone in product management got pulled into a customer issue they shouldn’t have been. They came to me, and we had a conversation. We talked about what went wrong from their perspective. I looked at them and said, “You’re right. We clearly have some work we need to do.”
“Here, people want to talk. They’re willing to listen. That makes a huge difference.”
Sometimes there are aspects of the business that don’t run the way I wish, and that can be frustrating. However, I’ve been at workplaces where people are in their silo and have no interest in what anyone else is doing. Here, people want to talk. They’re willing to listen. That makes a huge difference.
Michael and the support team head to a nearby restaurant to celebrate a team member visiting from the Burlington office.
What changes are happening now? What are you trying to improve?
For one, I think we’re trying to shift the feeling of control. We used to have too much control from the top; we want to change that, to create a general feeling of empowerment. We want people to do their jobs without having to worry about interference from management and the rest of the business.
I don’t want to blame anyone because we’ve grown really fast. We’re learning to scale. Some management techniques work fine when you have four people, but not when you have forty people, and even less when you have 400. I think we’re moving in the right direction.
What does ‘the right direction’ look like?
I can give you a small example. Last week, I had all my managers together and we invited in a coach to help us break old habits that tend to disempower people. We want people to really feel that we trust them. Part of that is admitting to the team that we haven’t always been the best leaders we could be, and that we’re trying to get better.
“We want people to really feel that we trust them.”
Tell me about who does well on this team. What do team members need to succeed?
We need people who are articulate. That’s the number one thing we look for. People who can have conversations with people at all levels, and who can handle tough customer situations. Nobody calls us to give us a high five — people call us because they have a problem.
We need to be able to move a conversation from frustration to a sense of understanding, so people remember we’re here to help. Of course, some technical aptitude is important, too. We hire for both skill and personality. Ultimately, we want a team that’s energized and collaborative, not just punching the clock.
It sounds like that fits with the value you place on open communication.
It does. We want people to be agile, and part of that agility comes from believing in yourself. Sometimes you need to speak up and say, “Hey, you can trust me to do this thing.” Agility also applies to how we define our roles. In some larger companies, people may have a very clearly defined set of responsibilities. Here, your job can and will change over time, so we want people to feel comfortable stepping outside their comfort zone.
We’re working to formalize these role shifts, too. This year we launched a subject matter expert program, which is a promotion path for techs to give them more opportunities besides moving into management. As people build their expertise, they should be rewarded.
Interested in working with Michael and the rest of #TeamEverbridge? Check out open positions here.
