Linode, the cloud hosting provider, has recently won the 2022 People’s Choice Stevie Award for Favorite Customer Service in customer services as well as two bronze awards for Sales and Customer Service. This year’s Stevie Awards saw 2300 entries from 51 countries and a range of industries.

In this episode of TFiR Let’s Talk, Swapnil Bhartiya sat down with Cassie Bubnis, Senior Manager for Customer Support at Linode and Joe Bower, Senior Manager for Customer Success, Linode, to discuss what makes the company’s customer service so successful and sets them apart from the other players. Bubnis says, “I think that for us, it’s also just a pride thing within the team and very validating that everything that they put into this job is seen and understood by others, not only in our customer base, but also in our industry and kind of recognized for that.”

Key highlights from the video interview are:

• Linode believes in hiring the right people who understand the value of solid customer support and implement it. The company has a customer-first attitude and works to deliver on this mission. The team believes in being human, owning it when something goes wrong and celebrating when a customer experience goes right.
• The Linode team is varied ranging from people with very technical backgrounds to those without much technical experience. The company has many resources within their training program, mentorship, and coaching to enable team members build those skills.
• Linode’s Tech Touch Customer Insight Program aims to provide insights into Linode’s small scale customers. The company reaches out to a sample of customers, interviewing between 50 and 100 each quarter, and gains deep insights from those customers that can be matched with demographic data and large scale surveying.
• Linode created an internship program with a local program called Hopeworks in 2021 to help roll out new initiatives in customer support to address a growing customer base and new hires within the company. Linode also brought in a new customer feedback platform to better advocate for customer needs.
• What is the secret sauce that makes Linode’ Customer Services even better than hyperscalers like AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and many others?
• Linode attributes its high ratings in customer service to the company’s main core values of making customers happy and earning their trust. If for whatever reason, the customer is not happy then Linode’s customer support team works hard to resolve the problem and build back the trust from the customer.
• Linode is always looking to improve its customer experience year on year, taking feedback on and looking where they could improve. They are looking at ways to measure up against their competitors and make changes based on those findings.
• Akamai’s acquisition of Linode will look at scaling the business, augmenting and improving it but the core values of customer excellence will remain at the heart of the company.

Guests: Cassie Bubnis (LinkedIn) | Joe Bower (LinkedIn) 
Company: Linode (LinkedIn, Twitter)
Show: Let’s Talk

About Linode: Linode accelerates innovation by making cloud computing simple, accessible, and affordable to all. Founded in 2003, Linode helped pioneer the cloud computing industry and is today the largest independent open cloud provider in the world. Headquartered in Philadelphia’s Old City, the company empowers more than a million developers, startups, and businesses across its global network of 11 data centers.

The summary of the show is written by Emily Nicholls.