Risk & Business Magazine JGS Insurance Risk & Business Magazine Spring 2018 | Page 18

FEATURE STORY
customer satisfaction as our ultimate
barometer of success. I realize that
every company these days has a
mantra of customer service, but what
does it take to actually make these
words a reality?
I called on David Bryce, the most
customer-focused executive of anyone
I knew at the time, to shepherd this
change. He joined the company in
1999 as the vice president of customer
care. Handing me a book by famed
customer service advocate Leonard
Berry, Bryce set the company on a
brand new path, which he called
“fanatical customer support.” In
a nutshell, we did anything and
everything to service our customers,
as quickly and as efficiently as
possible. When they called on us for
help, we would be there. Period.
Here are a few examples of how this
new philosophy of fanatical support
permeated every aspect of Rackspace’s
corporate culture:
COMMITMENT TO RESOLUTION
No matter how complex the customer
problem, it always had an “owner,”
someone to coordinate the various
support players to get the job done. No
f lipping the account from person to
person. The point person continued
to claim ownership throughout the
resolution period, vowing to own the
problem until it was fixed.
ELIMINATED FALLBACK
POSSIBILITIES
We decided to literally give our
support staff “no way out” when it
came to servicing our clients. We
had installed a new phone system,
but tough as it was, we disabled
our voicemail and auto-attendant
capabilities so it was always on us
to answer each call. We had zero
tolerance for the “I can’t get to it right
now” mentality. Instead, you made it
happen.
ASSIGNED A TIME FRAME
Time matters when it comes to
customer support, so resolving
problems quickly became a priority.
Answering phone calls within three
rings or fixing the problem within one
hour became the standard. We created
a “hustle” mentality and lived it each
day.
“YOUTUBE, WHICH
FAMOUSLY
CALLED ONE
NIGHT DURING
OUR EARLY
DAYS, ASKING
FOR OVERNIGHT
INSTALLATION OF
TEN NEW SERVERS
FOR ITS FLEDGLING
BUSINESS.”
CONSIDERED CUSTOMERS
BLAMELESS
When a customer called, we did not
spend precious time trying to figure
out who caused the problem or play
the blame game. We knew that this
approach was counterproductive and
would not help fix the problem any
faster. We only cared about a quick
resolution so that our customers could
get back to work.
CREATED A MANIFESTO
Our mantra of “fanatical support”
18
became a way of life within
Rackspace, and everyone who was
hired understood that service was
the name of the game. Our company
culture was defined by it and became
known for it, even after the company
went public in 2008.
Once we set these rules in motion, the
marketplace responded. We grew by
50 percent a year for over ten years,
adding fifty to one hundred employees
a month. Our commitment to service
was not an added expense that
dragged us down but a tremendous
motivator to help us always do better.
THE POWER OF GIVING BACK
These days, I spend most of my
time consulting with budding
entrepreneurs, and I recommend
the above guidelines to virtually
everyone in every industry I come
across. I continue to be drawn to big,
transformative ideas and finding ways
to nurture the entrepreneurs that
develop these ideas.
In 2011, I cofounded Geekdom with
Nick Longo, a former Rackspace
colleague who is now Geekdom’s
“mentor-in-chief.” In researching
our initial concept, we found plenty
of office-sharing setups, but we had
never seen one quite like the one we
were driven to create. Our goal was
to develop a collaborative space that
was about much more than shared
physical resources like desks and
meeting space. We also wanted to
share the teaching, training, and tools
that could help people be successful in
nurturing their own entrepreneurial
ideas. The ranks of members we
admit are committed to this principle,
whether drawing from populations
of undergraduate students, basement
inventors, curious entrepreneurs, or
established small businesses.
Geekdom was founded upon what
I like to call “The Five Pillars of
Geekdom,” which consist of the
following principles (according to our