Pylon

Introducing PYLON x DISCORD We've gotten this integration request 128 times. In just 6 days ?? Bennett was able to build the most feature-rich Discord support integration of any we could find. It includes... 1/ Support for posts and chat channels 2/ Tagging users 3/ Reactions 4/ Full integration into Pylon AI features like AI Agents and Ask AI Link to the full docs in the comments ?? -- Video Context -- This was a feature Bennett had been excited to build out since he had joined Pylon, so we thought it would be fun to record the process. What we did not expect was others on the team to start placing bets on how long it might take. Needless to say Bennett crushed it and delivered a massive win for our customers. Enjoy using Pylon with Discord everyone!

Introducing... Proactive Chats! If you notice a customer having trouble in your product you can choose to proactively send them a message. These chats can be triggered via API or manually through the Create Issue flow. Our Intercom migrators in particular are going to love this!

This week on Joelle's CX Brain Dump ?? ?? Use the new, scrappy tools. They’re built on modern tech, actually listening to the market, and moving fast. The big players? Slow, outdated, and coasting on their name. Why not be a little innovative? And be able to influence the future of an amazing product? (Yes, this is mostly about Pylon, but not only about Pylon.) ?? Self-serve is essential…but not everything. Give customers ways to help themselves—always. But just because your product isn’t fully self-serve doesn’t mean it’s bad. People learn differently! Sometimes, a hands-on training call is the move. That’s not a failure; that’s meeting people where they are. ?? Your knowledge base needs to be solid. Up to date, accurate, easy to navigate—non-negotiable. It’s the first stop for customers, the playbook for your team, the brain powering AI, and the best way to stop answering the same five questions over and over. Plus, writing it forces you to make sure your product actually makes sense (which, hi ??, there is at least something that definitely doesn't). ?? Be nice to your customers (and everyone, honestly.) ?Listo! Happy Spring ?? #customerexperience #cx #startups __ I'm?Joelle, founder of SomethingCX. I help early-stage startups turn Customer Experience into a growth strategy, leveraging every interaction for impact and giving founders the space to focus on what matters most.

Taking the Spotlight today: ?? Marc-Olivier Meunier ??, an innovator in customer experience! Marc brings over 20 years of varied experience in product development, customer engagement, and operations. We're excited to feature him today! ?????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???????????????? ??????????????? When I closed Uber as a global client for Smartly(.)io—our biggest deal ever—my strategy was to embed myself in their EMEA office in Amsterdam, network aggressively, and make our solution indispensable. This left little time for reactive work, so I offloaded all of it to our support team, exposing them to a demanding, high-profile client. As a result, the team leveled up significantly. When the opportunity arose to lead that team, I seized it. ???????? ???? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ?????????? ?????????? ???????????????? ??????????????? Saying “Support isn’t just a cost center” is stating the obvious. The deeper misunderstanding is that customer support is the beating heart of any B2B company. Every employee should be exposed to this function. When decision-makers understand customer pain points and product limitations firsthand, decision-making becomes easier, silos break down, and cross-functional alignment improves. You can’t put a price on that. ???????? ?????? ?????????????????? ?????? ???????? ?????????? ???????????????? ?? ?????????????? ????????? While setting up an offshore support team in Guatemala to supplement the US time zone, I was focused on a follow-the-sun model to ensure work-life balance. But I also needed a near-shore option for EMEA coverage. Laura Desmond, our CEO, challenged me: “Have you actually asked the Guatemala team if they’d be open to covering those so-called graveyard shifts?” To my great surprise, they were not only open to it but preferred it! Many found early morning shifts worked better for their lifestyle. The key takeaway? Assumptions—especially about culture and work preferences—should always be tested before designing global support structures. ????????’?? ?? ?????? ???????? ???????????????? ???????? ?????? ???????????? ???????? ???????????????? ???? ???????????????? ??????????????? Whenever I encounter a dissatisfied but engaged customer, I make it a point to jump on a call. I focus not just on their immediate complaints, but on understanding: ? How our shortcomings impact their business ? The ripple effects on their team, incentives, and compensation ? How we’re perceived as a partner across their organization By bringing transparency—explaining how bugs are scored, how feature requests move through development, and what prioritization looks like—I involve them in the process of fixing the issue. This shift from “frustrated customer” to “partner in the solution” has often saved relationships and even deepened trust.

Don't Start A Startup ...unless you have to. tl;dr it's super hard so only do it if you CAN'T NOT do it Had a chance to sit down with EO STUDIO to share my thoughts on: 1/ Whether you should start a company 2/ How we got started 3/ And what we're building at Pylon Enjoy! https://lnkd.in/g6-tA242

I'm excited to share we're now powering our support with Pylon! Customer support has always been important to us. We offer white-glove support with Slack Connect and never want our customers to feel like a ticket in a queue. Pylon has one of the best B2B-focused customer support ticket solutions.

Pylon's ???????? ?????????? ?????????????? is our Analytics. That ends today. We've completely rebuilt our Analytics from scratch. Here's what we tried, what we screwed up, and what's coming. ?????????????? ??, The Basics (Nov 2023) Our first attempt at analytics was quite loved by customers. At the time our customers were mostly small startups with simple needs. We built an out-of-the-box set of dashboards that covered the common use cases of support analytics (SLA-tracking, CSAT, TTFR, TTR, basic filtering...). As we moved upmarket... 1/ Everyone was requesting custom metrics 2/ Queries were becoming inefficient and slow We needed an upgrade. ?????????????? ??, Advanced Reporting (June 2024) We knew custom reporting was going to be blackhole of work that long-term led to fully customer-customizable dashboards. We had four choices:? 1/ Do nothing for now 2/ Do custom work per customer? 3/ Build full custom reporting in-house? 4/ Use an embeddable analytics vendor At the time Pylon was under 10 people total and we had no capacity to do the frontend work so we chose Option 4 (use a vendor). This was the first time we chose to not build a core feature like this in-house as we ultimately want full control of the end-user experience. We built out the new reporting with the chosen vendor over ~3 weeks. On the surface the new reporting looked really good (not visually, but in terms of functionality). You could add custom charts of any type, create custom formulas, label the Y and X axis, and effectively build most of what you would want. It was really great for demos. But in practice it was incredibly hard to use, lacked core capabilities (like the ability to filter off of dynamic custom fields), and visually looked not stylized to the rest of the product. We started to discover some of these issues during the implementation, but it still felt like there was more upside than downside so we released it. Feedback was not great but we hoped our vendor would fix changes quickly. Unfortunately they weren't fast enough and we lost confidence that they would be a good long-term solution. As a stop-gap we also built out a data warehouse integration so customers could export their data back to Snowflake or BigQuery to use with their own BI tools. Finally, a few months ago the vendor told us they were being acquired. That was the final straw. We needed to move off ASAP. ?????????????? ??, New Reporting (Today) Today's release is back to being built entirely in-house. It's been rolled out in beta to all customers with an option to flip back to old analytics until we plug some custom reporting gaps. This time we have the capacity to do it right between Wendy (prev product design at Amplitude), Matt, and Tom. -- *Reached the LinkedIn character limit Link to the full blog post in the comments ??

Introducing... Broadcasts for Microsoft Teams This has been one of the most longed for features in our Teams suite of features. Broadcasts are now officially omnichannel and we'll need to add Email as well. Enjoy!

Shining the Spotlight on ?? Carlos Hernandez ?? and their incredible work in Customer Success! He is currently Head of CS at Eppo, an end-to-end experimentation platform. We're excited to feature him today! ?????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???? ???? ?????????????? ?????????? ?????? ?????????????? ???????? ????????????? As I interview folks and talk to various leaders, I see that their definition of what CS should do is broad —everything from a back-office support function to a revenue-driving account manager role. When I first started, it was all about product usage and adoption. Now, I have a deeper focus on business impact and value. As your industry becomes more competitive and customers are more aware of options, your product or service must directly impact revenue or costs. It requires a unique blend of business acumen, industry knowledge, and a consultative approach to package a winning business case. So, in my opinion, it’s not a support or account manager role; it’s more of a top-tier consultant with strong execution skills. ?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????????????? ???? ?????? ????? I’m unsure if this is a trend, but I’m always intrigued to hear how CS folks create, capture, and communicate value to their customers. Various tools, techniques, and schools of thought guarantee their way is the best. I’ve come to learn that there are no silver bullets. Every customer, industry, product, service, etc., is different, and a tool or technique that works well for one may not work for the other. Instead, I focus on building frameworks to guide me and the team and like to adjust them based on the value-add trends I see. ???????? ???? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ?????????? ?????????? ????? I have a hot take that vendor-led QBRs waste everyone's time. At best, they highlight a few "interesting" insights and new features, but most of the time, they serve the vendor by saying, "Look at all the cool things we are doing for you." Instead, I've noticed a rise in joint customer-solution programs. These programs align tightly with the customer's quarterly OKRs, KPIs, milestones, and roadmap. The renewals are less about the number of seats, products, services, etc., and more about what needs to be accomplished over the next year and the resources needed to hit those targets. It seems so obvious, but people get it wrong all the time. ?????? ???? ?????? ???????????? ?? ???????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ???????? ???? ??????????? Post continued in comments!

The Spotlight finds its way to ?? Kai Moon ??, a standout in CS! Before joining Complete as a Founding Customer Success, Kai built their career as the first CS leader at various startups. We are thrilled to have such an experienced CS leader using Pylon! ?????? ?????? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???????????????? ??????????????? I was first introduced to the world of Customer Success when I joined a startup as an AM. The two roles are similar in many ways, and I made a point to learn more about the unique responsibilities and goals that drive CSMs. If you’re someone that’s looking to get into CS as your profession, beginning in Sales or Account Management is a great first step and will prepare you for the revenue-driven goals of the CS world. ?????? ?????????? ?????? ???????????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ???? ???????? ?????? ?????? ?????????????? ???? ?????? ????? I’m definitely keeping an eye on the new CS tools that are developing in the market. As a broader understanding of what Customer Success is grows, further resources are being allocated to support the function, and with that comes some amazing tools that are being built with CS workflows top of mind (ex: Pylon ??). ???????? ???? ???????? ???????????? ?????? ?????????? ?????????? ???????????????? ??????????????? Many people assume that Customer Success = Support, but there are very different goals, skills, and areas of ownership across these two groups. CSMs should largely be focused on high-level strategies for account expansion and renewal through embedded relationship management, while Support Managers must be finely in tune with customer issues and technical product knowledge. Both roles are incredibly important to the success of any customer relationship but they do operate in their own unique ways. ?????? ???? ?????? ?????? ????????-?????????? ?????????? ???????????????? ???????? ???? ?????????? ???? ????? There is a ton of admin work that can be optimized by AI in the post-sales CS motion, from recording calls and summarizing action items to calling out at-risk accounts and budding expansion opportunities. Once AI tools nail this part of the workflow for CSMs, I expect the role will evolve into a true advisory and relationship-building powerhouse (as it was always meant to be!) --------------------- Have CS insights you want to share? Send us an email - marketing@usepylon(.)com!