How we supported customers in 2020 — pandemic and all

The Contentful support team learned how to play a symphony over a video call in 2020. This restorative group of people applied their creativity and optimism to carry Contentful customers through the pandemic. And they’re even better prepared for whatever comes next.

How we supported customers in 2020 — pandemic and all

Covid-19 made everyone’s work harder and everyone’s worlds more uncertain. But don’t worry, we were here to restore your calm. 

• We solved 43% more support tickets than 2019

• We increased our team size by 31%

• We solved chats requests with a median response time of nine minutes 

• We have team members in four time zones — meaning we’re always here for you

As we stood with our friends and family on the final night of 2019, we had no idea what the next year would have in store for us. We were hopeful and excited for the year to come. But, as 2020 took an unexpected turn, we had to adapt quickly. And that is just what we’ve done.

How Contentful reacted: Stop the spread, WFH and additional support

Our co-founder, Sascha, initiated a project called Stop the spread. This project helps any organization aiming to reduce the challenges posed by the pandemic. Partnering with Gatsby and Netlify, Contentful provided a free JAMstack-based static website template. 

The pandemic hasn’t stopped us from working and growing. 

We also started working remotely. On March 5, we swapped our large, brick office with communal kitchens and conference rooms for home offices. We immediately began thinking about new ways to maintain our team connection as we settled into our new normal. We’ve shared meals, gone on virtual shopping trips, waved to each others’ pets and played countless quizzes — all virtually, of course. 

It’s possible this experience has actually given us a unique insight into our colleagues and helped us get to know each other even better. Working from home has also decreased commute time, which has given us more time for family, chores, and hobbies.

But working from home isn’t always easy — especially when you don’t have the proper equipment to do so. Our People team immediately began providing each employee with assistance to build our own proper mini office. They went so far as to set up a partnership with a babysitting agency in Berlin, so that working parents could have at least a few hours of quiet every week. 

We were prepared for 2020. Now we’re prepared for 2021.

While everyone is eager to get back to the usual working life in an office, we’ve also developed new skills that support us in the process. 

We’re an international company, so our expertise in virtual collaboration was already well polished. We managed to hone this expertise into an even greater skill over the last year. This expertise will support us as we continue to expand globally over the coming years.

We might not have been able to meet in person, but we feel like one big happy (virtual) team. 

As a reminder, you can reach out to us on the Support team whenever you like, we will restore order to whichever problem you are facing. 

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