Back when COVID-19 triggered a massive exodus for workers from the office to their homes, many organizations found a silver lining to the disruption. They found out what their mettle was made of. They found resilience. Working from home was all the rage. I personally read article after article glorifying the new normal of remote work — and it certainly does have its upside. At the beginning of the pandemic, many companies were concerned that remote working would be damaging to productivity.

The customer has changed and so have their expectations on what customer experience means to them. As these expectations change, so must the company and their approach to customer experience. There was a time when hyper-personalization and chatbots were the leading methods to engage with customers. Today, customers are looking for a very different approach that addresses two key attributes: Access to information and speed to resolution.

Our customers are always looking for ways to work faster and more effectively inside Mattermost. As a remote-first company, we spend most of our time collaborating inside Mattermost, and we’d like to think we’ve learned a thing or two about how to use Mattermost productively over the years. Here are some of our favorite tips and tricks for getting things done on Mattermost. We hope these examples help your team achieve similar productivity gains.

In Part 1 of this blog series, we introduces why it’s more important than ever to revisit how to keep customer support teams engaged with each other and what tools will help enable collaboration and keep agents motivated and excited about providing excellent support to their customers. Now in Part 2, we dive into tips for enabling collaboration and engagement among support team members.

The new rules for customer service outsourcing in a changing world Customer service teams have seen an unprecedented level of disruption this year. Some have had surges in ticket volume, while others have seen business plummet. Agents have to do more with less, all while they’re adjusting to working from home. Regardless of your specific situation, you may be considering customer service outsourcing as a potential solution.

Efficient and frictionless communication has always been an important concern for our company, Quera. In the past, we have had problems using various communication tools. But after finding Mattermost, we knew it was a perfect fit. Now, we use it extensively as our main team collaboration tool.

2020 is a uniquely transformative year. Prompted by a global pandemic, we’ve been forced to change many things about how we live, work and relate. For most businesses, this means a rapid and comprehensive shift toward remote work. While more than half of all employees participated in a rapid transition to remote work, it’s clear that this is more than just a temporary change.

Many companies are very skeptical about remote work – most do not understand how to control employees at a distance and at the same time maintain a productive working rhythm. In 2009, IBM devised a policy to allow 40 percent of its employees worldwide to work remotely. But in 2017, as the company’s revenue start slumping, the management pulled back its decades-old remote work policy. IBM said that the marginalized feel makes remote employees less loyal.