The Avito service is used monthly by 32 million people. We have published more than 400 thousand new ads per day, and processed 1.5 million of their various versions. For content on the site to be high-quality and useful users, you need moderated ads. And, of course, site visitors should be able to quickly resolve any issue arising from the use of Avito by contacting customer support.

Avito is developed in Moscow, and employees of the client service and moderation department work in St. Petersburg. The goal of both is the same - to make using the site more convenient and easier for customers. Developers are preparing a new functionality and developing a service, and support staff are the first to know if something goes wrong and take a hit. Sometimes it is terribly hard. In this post I want to talk about how we in Avito synchronize the work of the development team and support service and what results it brings.

Prerequisites

How does site development usually look like? Everyone does their part: developers are sawing features, analysts are testing hypotheses, sales managers are proposing new options, and so on. All this is important to synchronize, and we are not talking about the technical side of the issue. It is important for us that every team member understands what exactly he is working for and that our common goal is the benefit for the clients of the site, the convenience of the service and the new features.

In order for the entire Avito team to better understand the needs of users, and to improve the interaction between important divisions, we have the Customer Centricity Internship internship program. Every employee of the company's Moscow office must come to Petersburg at least once and fully immerse themselves in the work of the moderation and support department, communicating directly with the users of the site.

The goals set by the program, we formulated as follows:

• intensive immersion in the Avito business and in the work of customer service;
• rapprochement between employees of different departments;
• to give participants of the internship the opportunity to feel the “pains” of users in order to respond to them as quickly as possible;
• search for new ideas for the development of Avito.

This post will give you an understanding of how this internship is organized and what changes it in general.

How to become support agents and moderators

First, a few words about how the site moderators and support agents are trained. The institutes do not teach these professions, so the entire learning process takes place after being hired by Avito. Usually, it all starts with a welcome day, when newcomers are told in detail about the company, the goals of their work and the organizational issues. Then begins training in two directions at once - hard skills (theory and practice on the tasks to be solved) and soft skills (development of leadership competencies). After passing the tests and exams, independent work begins in the line.

In fact, the trainees of the Customer Centricity Internship program act as support agents. In one of the groups I asked to include me in order to firstly tell in this blog how everything is arranged here.

How is the internship

Trainee groups are formed by our HR colleagues. Sometimes these are guys from one unit, sometimes - a team of representatives of completely different professions and directions. As a rule, the group employs 6-7 people. Before the start of the program, each of them receives materials for studying (in addition to the description of the interface of the admin support staff, I received a list of unusual facts about Avito and the “test” of the moderator - there, for example, you could compare your ad test results with a professional speed).

Along with this baggage, we, already charged with knowledge, found ourselves in the St. Petersburg office of Avito. At first we met with colleagues, told who was doing what and what our expectations from the internship. We were told what the different departments of Avito St. Petersburg live with and gave us a tour of the business center where it is located.

These screens show online the statistics of the moderation and support department. It must be nice to constantly see your name on the green part of the leaderboard!

Employees of the first and second line of support work separately from the guys from the call center. Moderators are divided by verticals-specializations - those who by duty know at least 43 names of fishing nets (they can not be sold on Avito) are separated from those who instantly recognize duplicates among advertisements for renting an apartment by lease. Colleagues are very collected, it is clear that this is a job for those who can quickly make decisions and are truly ready to take responsibility. After a brief tour and an understanding of the volume of processed letters, calls, announcements (the numbers on the leaderboards are really impressive), we are going to get acquainted with the mentors - time to start the first line of work in user support.

On the first line

Mentors divided us among themselves by lot. So I met Katya - we will spend the next few hours together. First, we study the workplace of the support employee: mail, knowledge base in confluence with internal regulations, a blog with the latest news about what is happening on the site now. And of course, Helpdesk is our main tool for today. (By the way, it is fully developed by my colleagues - this is not a turnkey solution, but our own product).

Even though I read the guide for admin use, from the mouth of the mentor, the information turned out to be much easier to read. We deal with queues of tickets, filters, difficulty levels of calls, nuances of work of different teams and areas of responsibility. Getting to work. At first, I don’t have time to “follow hands”, as Kate identifies the causes of user problems literally at a glance (for example, on an incorrectly filled email field or on the history of authorizations). It seems that in a second she can find and issue a recipe for solving a problem from the knowledge base. And not just to copy it, but to personalize your answer to the user, and give advice on the sale!

Time and me to take the mouse with the keyboard in their hands. Katya selected for me a dozen appeals to show how different they are on the subject. In fact, after the fact, I can say that it had a great therapeutic effect in two directions at once. First, they vividly demonstrated the slice of tasks that my colleagues from the development still have to work on, and second, they allowed us to become better acquainted with our users.

After that we went to the front. I began to respond to fresh tickets. Of course, it was far from immediately to determine the correct way to solve the problem, but when you are armed with a knowledge base on the site and are not afraid to make a mistake, it becomes not so scary. To be honest, work on the first line requires patience, attentiveness, meticulousness and sincere love for people.

Meanwhile, I deserved a break, said goodbye to Katya, went to drink coffee. This is how coffee points look in our St. Petersburg office. Lunch can bring with you or go to the nearest cafe, but the latte and fruit are unlimited here. Look resting in the expanses of the Neva:

Parse complex cases

No one is immune from mistakes, misunderstandings and complaints. The question is how to treat them and how to work with them later. Our team of interns had to make sure that no user requests were left unattended. The fact that the first-line specialists failed to resolve is handled by more experienced colleagues from the second line of support or from the claim department.

The second part of our trainee work on this day is a theory in the form of stories about the work of experienced support staff and practice: the analysis of complex cases, the search for answers and solutions. The lesson for us was held by Vitaly, the head of technical training. One of the installations that was given to us before the start of work: put the user in the first place and try to help, being his ally.

We are paired with a fellow developer dealt with a variety of tasks. Somewhere the answer for the user was immediately, somewhere had to break his head. Here is a simple example. According to the rules, you can sell a regular battery on Avito, but you cannot sell a vape battery.

Or, for example, you can place only two free ads from the category "Aquariums" per month. Even if you do not want to get paid for the goods that you offer.

This is exactly the situation that the site user faced: she wanted to give a small fish into good hands, which did not take root in the aquarium, but the free limit of ads was already spent. The answer to this appeal has become a kind of "exam" for our group of interns. In a letter in support, the woman expressed extreme concern about the fate of the fish: after all, the little creature cannot wait until you can post a free ad again.

I repent, I immediately had a desire to break the rules of the site for the sake of the unfortunate fish and a strong-willed hand to allow the placement of another free ad. But it turned out that this does not work. I had to think and carefully look through the rules again: the mentor said that there was definitely a solution. This was the winning answer (experts from the moderation and user support department unanimously spoke for it).

Hello, Vera Ivanovna!

My name is Anton, I am an employee of the claim handling team at Avito.
Unfortunately, in the category “Animals / Aquariums” there is a limit of 2 free placements for 30 days.

I understand your situation and want to offer you the following solution:
The rules of our website allow you to place several products in one ad, if they are from the same category. You can add any of your two announcements with information about the fish you want to give.
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To do this, you need to edit one ad (for example, "Feed for fish").

If you need more help, contact me, I will answer your questions.

I hope your fish will quickly find a new home! Have a nice day.

The reward for the winners was that their response was immediately sent to the user. And a gift for me (and probably, for all colleagues too) was the opportunity to be involved in someone's fate, because we could feel for ourselves that we have a tool in our hands that really helps people and gives them opportunities to improve their lives. . And it's not about the life and death of a fish, as you understand.

Our impressions

The internship ended with a collective discussion of the past day. We were asked to talk about our impressions and answer a number of questions. For example, advise what can be changed in the work of client service and moderation. And reflect on what exactly we (or our unit) can do in order to improve our product and customer experience.

After returning to Moscow, I asked my colleagues with whom we spent this day a few questions about their impressions of the trip. This is what they shared.

What did you expect from the internship?

• Waited for a new look at the problems Avito users.
• It seemed to me that it would be difficult for newcomers to understand in a day what the actual working conditions of the support service were. But colleagues managed to arrange a “complete immersion” for us in a day.
• Especially did not expect anything. I thought that there would be nothing new for me.
• Honestly, I expected that all the work for us will be done by mentors, and we will just watch how they work. It also seemed to me that the work of the support is very sample and devoid of a personal approach.

What did you see in reality?

• I saw what I expected. But I also had a different look at the company and at the people who work in the St. Petersburg office (they are wildly cool).
• The office staff in St. Petersburg made every effort so that we feel comfortable and at the same time see the real work of the support department.
• It turned out that the internship was much more interesting than my expectations. Firstly, there were interesting case studies, and it was very interesting to work in a new area. Secondly, you understand how large a company is and how important it is for many people, and that the ideals spoken of at interviews and welcome trainings are not an empty sound.
• In fact, we did everything ourselves and the support simply prompted and helped correct our answers. Of course, for the convenience of support there are dozens of templates for any occasion, but the support staff will never send the standard text. I saw that colleagues from the St. Petersburg office are always trying to understand what a person wants to achieve, and not just unsubscribe and close the ticket.

What are your impressions of communication with users? And the analysis of interesting cases?

• Not to say that for me it was some kind of shock (I’m talking about the “pain” of users), because I often read our NPS feedback. But it was cool to feel like an employee who makes the user literally live better. An analysis of interesting cases impressed me: you need tremendous patience and skill to respond to users who are so upset that they scream.
• Unfortunately, misunderstanding sometimes happens. I liked that no one intends to put up with such cases. There is a special team that will make sure that the person was heard and everything possible was done to solve his problem.

What conclusions did you make for yourself? (And for work, and universal).

• Surprisingly, the cases when a person wants to simply speak out and this, in fact, is the solution to his problem, is not so rare. When we are accused, we tend to get up in a defensive position and try to prove our case. But after this internship, I will try to listen to more people instead of defending my opinion, without fully understanding the problem.

And what does it all change?

Well, the answer to the main question: what does this change everything? I must say that for each of us it was a chance to bleed our stress tolerance, patience, empathy, responsiveness and sense of humor. But in general, it seemed to me that we really managed to synchronize with the guys from the support and moderation team. Whatever you do in such a big company like Avito, it is important to always understand what is happening there, on the front line. Each of those who were with me in Petersburg on this day found application to the knowledge gained and was able to answer the question: “And what can I personally change for the better?”