This year, I got a unique opportunity to call in at Mattercon 2020 and give a talk about my experience working on Mattermost and open source software (OSS) in general. I talked about how OSS helped me grow as a self-taught developer and how working on issues from Mattermost’s repos helped me gain experience and confidence in software development. In this article, I will highlight some of the things I talked about and also throw in a few pointers related to working on OSS.

One of the most common frustrations we hear from team leaders who don’t have robust project management practices in place is a feeling of constant firefighting, leaving them unable to complete projects on time or within budget. In fact, in a recent PWC poll, only 2.5% of companies successfully completed all of their projects. Firefighting is a natural human response to a chaotic workload as a means of “getting more done”.

Did you miss Part 1 of this series? It was quite a show! Luckily, you can still go back and read it! We’re looking at different B2B customer support channels from two distinctly opposite perspectives: cost center (support is a necessary evil of business) and profit center (support can hold its own in the revenue generation conversation). In Part 2 we are looking at two of the most modern support channels, self-service and visual support. And we’ve got a bonus at the end!

After careful consideration, Rocket.Chat is officially moving its documentation to GitBook. With this change, we expect to improve the rate of which we develop, fix, and maintain documentation by making sure everyone on the team can edit it easily. Previously, we used Jekyll for documentation purposes. However, as time passed, we faced more and more issues with Jekyll. Therefore, we’ve decided to move to Gitbook which provides a more user-friendly and collaborative product for everyone.

Business communication is a method of sharing information between staff, customers, outside companies, and investors. In fact, effective business communication is crucial for maintaining a successful business. There’s no way a business can function effectively without it. Incorporating steady and reliable communication methods with your workforce, suppliers, shareholders, and of course, your customers is essential.

Smartphones have become a common part of everyday life. Pew research reports that 96% of people in the United States use cell phones. And with their ubiquity, text messaging has become one of the most common forms of communication in modern life. Recent research from Text Request found that 97% of smartphone users had texted in the past week. For businesses, that makes text messaging an important channel to include in your customer support strategy.

In today’s omnichannel world of live chat, social media, email, and more, it can be easy to overlook the critical role that phone support still plays for many customers. In fact, phone is still the most common way that customers prefer to contact customer service at a company, according to Benchmark data.

Zendesk takes security very seriously—just ask the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies that trust us with their data. We use a combination of enterprise-class security features and comprehensive audits of our applications, systems, and networks to ensure that your data is always protected, which means every customer can rest easy—our own included.

Field technicians, as part of their service workflow, are required to execute certain repetitive tasks each day. These tasks improve information dissemination across teams, ensure that the documentation for every service request or task is up-to-date, and help visibility and coordination between helpdesk and field teams. These tasks are of paramount importance for your support and field teams to function smoothly.