As a small remote team we’ve figured out a unique way to celebrate our teammates for all their contributions throughout the year. We call this project Sweet Support. Every month, our Support team sends out a nomination form in Slack. Anyone can nominate a coworker for something they did that month that deserves a little treat! Nominees are sent a note with a small surprise gift that includes why they were nominated that month. Sweet support gifts can be anything that may make someone smile, whether it be a cute sticker, a funny t-shirt, or their favorite sweet or salty snack.
We started Sweet Support to recognize our employees for all the ways (big or small!) they help each other. When you are a fully remote team, you can’t bring cookies into the office as a thank you, or surprise someone with their favorite coffee. Sweet support is our way of saying thanks from wherever we are, and rewards our value of #helping each other grow. (To read more about our values, check out https://www.olark.com/values). And let’s be honest, it’s also really fun to give and receive kudos via surprise mail.
It works so well with our team that we thought, why not try it out as a way to connect with our customers? Many of our customers work in support and service roles. We know that these roles are demanding, especially during the holiday seasons. We wanted to convey our appreciation to our customers for all the work they do. And who better to ask than the people they collaborate with every single day?
In October, we set our plan into motion. Our CEO recorded a call to action video (after many hilarious takes) encouraging Olark customers to nominate their co-workers for Sweet Support. We took the message directly to the people by adding a link to the nomination information in our agent chat consoles. Nominators were asked to submit a short video or audio clip describing why they wanted to send their coworker a Sweet Support treat.
The response was huge! We received more than four hundred nominations from 12 different countries!
After we closed the nomination period, we gathered a team to #make it happen (another one of our values) and started sending out treats across the globe. Each nominee received a card that included: their personal nomination message that was hand signed by a member of our support team, a sweet holographic Olark Sweet Support sticker, and a mystery sweet support treat based on what their co-worker said they might enjoy.
“I think my heart grew three sizes today!”
As it turns out, this was a gift for our team, too! Reviewing these heartfelt nomination messages and then passing them along to the recipient was a real treat. One of our teammates said, “I think my heart grew three sizes today!” after spending the morning listening to people say lovely things such as:
“She is genuine, caring, thoughtful, a great resource and mentor, and she's always the first to remember someone's birthday. She is a humongous asset to our workplace. I look forward to coming into work every day because of our whole team, but really because of her too. She makes it a special place to work.”
“She is so sweet, kind, and helpful. She makes coming to work every day a joy!”
“Even though we're not in the same room, his humor and helpfulness comes through in every slack message and Google meets call. He's the guy who makes you laugh when you've got back to back meetings, and he's always there to help you out on any work mess. It's like he's right there making the whole remote work thing feel less remote and a lot more fun.”
“They have the fastest fingers this side of the Mississippi! On our small team of 3, they are often the first to answer Olark. Seriously, we have NEVER seen anyone type so fast!”
At the end of the day, we felt connected to our customers, and we hope Sweet Support made their day a little brighter. Also, we learned more than we ever needed to know about international shipping.
If you are looking for an authentic way to connect to your team, or your customers, try out Sweet Support and let us know how it goes!