A good support team is the ultimate secret weapon to better customer experiences. We don’t design the product, we don’t build the product, and we don’t sell the product. We don’t even fix it when it’s broken (thanks, engineering!). But we do handle tickets from customers if there’s an issue with any of the above.
This makes us really, really good at seeing the full picture. And yet, all too often, support teams are treated like email worker bees, just there to keep the queue down and the angry customer at bay.
In "Uncanny Valley," Anna Wiener describes a moment when the CEO forces engineers to step into the support queue at an offsite:
“The CEO came in and announced that he was flipping the script: to allow the support team some leisure time, the engineers were to do our job instead. Some had been drinking all afternoon...the scene in the condo was one of good-natured frustration as the engineers struggled to explain their own product to our users. The boys on my team mocked the engineers, rolling their eyes and leaning over their keyboards to correct them. At the time, this division of labor was a gleeful respite, a reversal of the power structure. Later, however, I realized the implication: our job was so easy, anyone could do it. They could even do it drunk.”
It’s an attitude that’s all too commonplace. However, support work isn’t punishment, it’s not low-skill, and our team shouldn’t be an afterthought.
At Front’s 2023 offsite, support invited teammates to sit with members of our team to try answering a few tickets. In the weeks after, requests to run another session poured in from those who missed it.
That enthusiasm led Kenji, our head of support, to ask me to develop an ongoing “Hop in the Support Queue” program. I jumped at the chance. The concept of non-support teammates spending time in the queue has been around for ages, but our program was developed by support, for support. Because of this, Front’s “Hop into the Support Queue” program positions our team where it belongs — at the intersection of product, engineering, and go-to-market — and not siloed in a remote corner of the company.
I’ll take you through how we developed this program, and how you can bring it to your organization.
Get everyone on board: why “Hop in the Support Queue” programs are key for company-wide success
First things first, let’s talk about what this program is not. It’s not a chance for support to kick their feet up while another team jumps in and tackles the queue for us. It’s a strategic meeting where teammates can get a glimpse into the how and why of support’s inner workflows.
Here are the benefits:
Sharing product and workflow knowledge across teams
Bringing non-support teams into the queue gives everyone an inside look at support workflows, revealing insights they can apply directly in their roles.
Sales and account management gain a deeper understanding of customer pain points, boosting confidence in demos and reducing routine escalations. Product and engineering teams observe real-world feature usage, driving user-centered development. Marketing benefits by uncovering customer needs and Front’s strengths, so they can align messaging with what resonates most.
Breaking down silos and building cross-functional relationships
Support, often a remote or hybrid team, can feel isolated — but these sessions create opportunities for meaningful connections with other departments. They build trust, foster teamwork, and strengthen culture. Plus, tackling a tough ticket together often leads to a few laughs along the way!
Elevating skills and visibility for support agents
Leading these sessions helps support agents build confidence in public speaking and showcase expertise while positioning support as a strategic function. By using Front’s tool in real scenarios, agents highlight strengths, identify improvement areas, and encourage other teams to see support as a driver for continuous improvement.
Five steps to creating a “Hop in the Support Queue” program
Cool, I’m sold. How do I set up a “Hop in the Support Queue” program?
Glad you asked. Here’s how we did it.
Step 1: Structure sessions for optimal engagement and learning
Our main challenge was to run these sessions remotely without losing the benefits we saw at our offsite. In fall 2023, we ran a pilot program to see if we could make it work. During these sessions, we experimented with the number of attendees, the number of support agents on the call, and the length of the session.
We also ran an A/B test – half of the sessions were run with attendees who were all on the same team, while the other sessions consisted of a mix of Fronteers.
Here’s what we found works best, based on feedback from that pilot program:
Participant mix and size: We found that two support agents (a host and a shadow) and four non-support teammates is the perfect formula. It supplies a variety of cases to tackle, and having multiple support teammates allows attendees to see how we collaborate in real time.
Session length and format: Sessions last an hour. The first 10 minutes are spent on icebreakers and an overview of support’s workflows. Then, each attendee takes a “live” customer ticket and spends five minutes consulting our existing documentation to try to resolve it and draft a reply. After the five minutes are up, we reconvene and each attendee shares their progress so far. Support helps them out and looks over their draft, then, once we’re happy with it, they send it out to the customer!
Scheduling for remote teams: We use Calendly to schedule our sessions. Teammates can sign up for open slots anytime using a link that lives in our internal documentation. Using Calendly means that teammates can reschedule for another session without having to send an email. Also, if specific teammates want to attend the same session, they can simply sign up for the same slot. We’ll often see smaller tiger teams – like a group of product managers working on a new feature – join a session together.
Step 2: Set goals and expectations
Have goals and outcomes aligned for your program. For example, we aim to get 80% of new hires to attend a session within the first three months of joining.
Make sure expectations are set with participants. We like to collect data at the end of the sessions to ensure they’re serving their purpose.
We send out an optional survey after each session, with two simple questions:
1. On a scale of 1 to 5, how useful did you find this session?
2. Any other feedback for us on how to make these sessions more helpful/engaging/fun?
Step 3: Prepare the queue
Before the session, take a few minutes to prepare a set of cases that offer non-support teammates a realistic experience of working the queue without disrupting the rest of the team’s work. Here’s a glimpse at how our team sets things up:
Select the cases: Look for four tickets that don’t already have any back-and-forth with the customer.
Tag and assign: Add a 🐸 tag to each of these selected cases (Get it? Hop in the Support Queue?), and assign them to yourself so they’re easy to locate during the session and don’t get grabbed by anyone else.
Guidelines for selecting the right cases:
Skip complex cases that would require deep debugging or access to support-specific tooling
Avoid cases with past references if resolving them would require digging into previous tickets.
Skip cases with more than three customer questions in the email.
⭐ The goal is to provide a realistic, approachable look at the support queue. We’re not cherry-picking simple issues, but we also don’t want the session to be dominated by a single, tricky case. Aim for cases that can be resolved or responded to in about 10 minutes and give teammates a real sense of support workflows.
Step 4: Encourage participation
You can’t reap the benefits if your team doesn’t know about the program! Fun reminders in our #general Slack channel is one way we keep Fronteers informed:
We make it part of our onboarding process to complete at least one session. This gives new hires a chance to work cross-functionally in some of their first days on the team and learn the product inside and out.
Leadership buy-in is also critical. We presented about the benefits of "Hop in the Support Queue" at a recent all-hands meeting to show our CEO’s approval of the program and get the company excited to join.
Speaking of CEO approval, getting executives to join these sessions has also been instrumental in demonstrating their usefulness. Our new CEO Dan O’Connell stole our hearts by jumping into a session within the first two weeks of joining Front (see below). That’s what we call walking the walk 🚶♂️
Step 5: Iterate, iterate, iterate!
Every company is different. Gather feedback from session attendees, and use these insights to adapt and improve the program continually.
So far, we’ve had very positive feedback. We’ve had 50% participation on our feedback survey, with the answer to “On a scale of 1 to 5, how useful did you find this session?” averaging 4.96. Here are some takeaways from Front team members:
“I thought the session was great, and it’s a good way to build empathy with our customers and our Support team. I think that we should do these sessions quarterly, with a mandatory session for EPD managers / leaders.”
“Gave me a ton of perspective for my customers with a support use case.”
“So cool to just vibe with the support team and help out our customers!!”
“Great use of time. All PMs should attend.”
“This was so fun. I liked the fact that I had a chance to be on a call with people from other teams that I don’t usually work with. Seeing Support troubleshoot issues was a great way to highlight camaraderie on the team and also remind us that it’s okay if we don’t know answers right off the bat.”
We’ve also implemented a few improvements since our launch based on feedback we received:
We’ve set up a one-pager in our internal documentation for attendees so they know exactly what to expect before they attend. Here’s a snippet:
We’ve added more sessions in European time zones to make sure we’re accommodating more Fronteer schedules.
We’re always listening and learning to make the program as helpful (and fun!) as it can be for everyone involved.
Bridging the gap: making support a team effort
In Anna’s scene from "Uncanny Valley," engineers were thrown into the support queue, facing the job with frustration (and not much respect). What we’ve shown with our program is that support isn’t a throwaway team; it’s a connective tissue that can bring every corner of the business together. Every department has a stake in the customer experience. When you put support front and center, you’re not just helping the team — you’re reinforcing a company-wide commitment to empathy, insight, and continuous improvement.
With the right “Hop in the Support Queue program,” we can all become a little more insightful and a lot more customer-focused. So, who’s ready to hop in the queue?
Read more on how to make CX a company-wide objective:
Perspective from Front Head of Support, Kenji Hayward, on the hopping in the queue: Why everyone — from sales reps to C-suite — should hop in the support queue
On-demand webinar featuring Kenji Hayward, Skylar Lowery of Stripe, and Stacey Justino, ex-Loom and Wistia: Breaking the support silo: CX as a company-wide objective
Written by Phoebe Killick
Originally Published: 22 November 2024