Arriving @ Awesome!
5-star training for elite customer success reps
Being on the front lines of customer success is tough.
You’re basically paid to give hugs all day without ever getting any back. I know — I’ve done it for 10+ years!
Arriving @ Awesome! is an academy for customer success professionals looking to become elite at their craft — think of it as the Navy SEALs training of success.
Battle-tested from my years as a Happiness Engineer at Automattic and Substack — you’ll learn practical ways to do more in less time, with higher empathy.
Sign up and I’ll personally reach out with more info and a virtual hug:
“Awesome!”
If you talk to customers every day, this one-word response is just *chef’s kiss*.
As someone obsessed with frameworks, I couldn’t help but wonder: Is there a science behind arriving at “Awesome!”?
A simple, repeatable process for turning anyone into an elite customer success agent?
I studied the words, tools, and tactics most effective for me and my teams over the past 6 years and distilled my findings into one word — GUSTO.
Gusto itself means “enjoyment or vigor in doing something; zest” and can be broken down into 5 parts:
Gratitude
Understanding
Speed
Thoughtfulness
“Oh, sh*t.”
These are the foundations of Arriving @ Awesome! Academy, a 4-week course that’ll super-charge your customer success skills.
Gratitude
Whether you know it or not, success work can take a heavy emotional toll.
Ticket queues are slot machines — peppering your brain with tiny shots of cortisol (stresses), followed by intermittent rushes of dopamine (rewards).
Over time, these tiny stresses can snowball into feelings of burnout, persistent dread, or even disdain for your work.
I’ve been through it, and what’s worked best for me is an intentional, daily practice of gratitude.
Gratitude for everything I have, and for getting paid to bring positive energy to the lives of others — yes, even that petulant lady with the caps-lock fetish.
You’re more than a success rep, you’re a goddamn mercenary in the intergalactic war against good vibes.
To fight your best fight, your head needs to be in the right place.
I’d written off meditation as a bit too “woo-woo” for me, but adding 10 minutes of gratitude-focused Headspace to start my day has been a game-changer for me.
Understanding
Communicating clearly is the name of the game.
Let’s say a customer wants to “refund all active subscriptions” — if what they mean by active isn’t what you think it means, there will be blood in the streets.
(True story for another time.)
Communication skills are hardest to teach because they’re more art than science. On the flip-side this means there’s lots of fun concepts to explore here, including:
How To Write Like a Human
Be A Mirror
Get Your Steps In
Just Confirming Your Confirmation
Question Behind The Question
Google It
Defense is the Best Offense
Speed
This is the sexy part.
After Understanding, put your productivity into “Ludicrous Mode” with keyboard shortcuts, predefined snippets, and automated workflows.
You’ll learn a system I’ve refined for years, then adapt it to your favorite productivity apps like:
Alfred
TextExpander
TextBlaze
It’ll take some time to go from 0 to 💯, but you’ll be on your way to doing more in less time — all without ever touching your mouse. 😎
Thoughtfulness
Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It’s absent when something happens to you.
Those two simple prepositions — for and to — express it all.
— Danny Meyer, Setting the Table
Let’s be honest, many of our colleagues in success are cool with doing the bare minimum. But, there’s a reason it isn’t called “Arriving @ Average”. 💩
There’s a key ingredient to the Triple-A recipe for success: thoughtfulness.
We’ll skim over basic concepts like warm, empathetic statements, and take a deep dive into badass tactics like:
Live In All Possible Realities
Persuasive Writing
Say Less
Play To The Crowd
Connecting The Dots
Compliments Of The Chef
Oh, sh*t.
You’ll know you need this part, because you’ll already have summoned it by name.
It has double meaning - because it’s also the feeling you want to invoke in customers when they realize how obsessed you are about making them smile.
Basically, you’re going for this:
It’s the atomic bomb in your arsenal — best used at times you need a guaranteed “Awesome!”. Join the Academy to learn more :)
One more thing…
We’ll be analyzing actual conversations and real-world scenarios — along with the smaller, more technical aspects of a good reply, like:
Intro + Outro Etiquette
Grammar & Punctuation
Spacing
Using cc & bcc
When I said elite, I wasn’t kidding ⚒️
Subscribe here & follow me on Twitter for more on the 🪖 academy and 🦄 community.