Akamai is celebrating its success in winning three prestigious Stevie Awards, underscoring the company’s commitment to sales and customer service excellence. Cassie Bubnis, Senior Director of Customer Support at Akamai, discusses the company’s customer-centric approach and how it is adapting processes and practices to meet customer demands. Bubnis says, “Everything that we do is in service of the customers – advocating for them, making sure that their needs are met while we’re handling things properly, quickly, and to the best of our ability.”

Akamai’s wins at the Stevie Awards and their importance in the industry 

• The Stevie Awards are a prestigious recognition in the industry and Akamai’s focus is related to sales and customer service. The awards acknowledge world-class initiatives and their positive impact on customers.
• Akamai won three Stevie Awards, including gold for Best Customer Service Department of the Year. The Compute Customer Success Team won for Best Feedback Strategy, and the Trust and Safety Team won bronze for Best Use of Technology in Customer Service.
• The Trust and Safety Team’s achievements included creating automated solutions to quickly identify and mitigate abuse, resulting in 6,000 fewer abuse cases and significantly reducing manual effort.

Akamai’s focus on customer support and success and upcoming initiatives

• Bubnis highlights Akamai’s mission to align business goals with customer goals, build collaborative relationships, and enable a seamless customer journey.
• Bubnis discusses the team’s efforts to streamline customer feedback initiatives and how this led to higher-quality feedback, faster identification of customer needs by product management, and more effective solutions.
• Bubnis talks about what makes Akamai’s customer support department unique, emphasizing their commitment to customers and core values. They mention their focus on growth, development, diversity, and inclusion.
• Post-acquisition, Akamai takes a customer-centric approach focused on listening, problem-solving, and treating customers as individuals rather than numbers.
• Bubnis hints at upcoming initiatives to enhance customer experiences further,  including the provision of service level agreements (SLAs), different support packages, and personalized support options to address customers’ needs more effectively.

Akamai’s internal processes for success and the importance of human interaction

• Bubnis stresses the need to establish core values and a mission that the entire team aligns with consistently. By evangelizing these values daily, companies can naturally excel and gain recognition in the industry.
• Bubnis discusses the common mistakes companies make when dealing with customers and feedback. A prevalent mistake they cite is being overly reliant on automation and technology, neglecting the human aspect of customer support.
• Technologies like AI and chatbots offer efficiency but customers still value human interaction and transparency, especially when addressing issues.
• Integrating AI into customer support offers both opportunities and challenges. Bubnis explains that it can enhance customer support efficiency and internal training processes but they emphasize the importance of thoughtful implementation.
• Bubnis discusses the internal processes in Akamai that led to winning awards and the pride associated with those approaches. They reflect on the Trust and Safety Team’s journey, noting its growth from a small team to nearly 20 members.
• Cassie highlights the Trust and Safety Team’s role in responding to platform abuse amid company growth and transition, emphasizing the development of infrastructure, tooling, processes, and policies to ensure platform security.

Guest: Cassie Bubnis (LinkedIn)
Company: Akamai (Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

This summary was written by Emily Nicholls.