We talked to Jovana Kandic, CAKE.com\u2019s VP of Customer Experience, to learn more about how CAKE.com retains customers and enhances their satisfaction. Here are her insights into the customer experience strategy, the challenges faced so far, and her predictions for the future of work from a customer service perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ve been with CAKE.com for over 4 years now, from its earliest iterations of customer support. Can you tell us more about the evolution of the company\u2019s Customer Support department?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
It kind of started out small and grew organically. At first, I think everyone at the company answered customer emails, even the developers and our CEO, Nenad Milanovic. You can still find some of his replies to users in our ticketing system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the beginning, we only really had email support for Clockify<\/a>, our first app. When I was hired, I was the only one to do support, and that included everything \u2014 from answering simple questions on how to do something to complex troubleshooting, bug tracking, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once our user base started growing rapidly, we hired more agents. Eventually, we also added live chat support and started covering multiple shifts throughout the day and on weekends because we wanted to offer full support at all times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After that, we started offering phone support and added a forum too. So, once Pumble<\/a> and Plaky<\/a> were developed, we had full support for both of those products from the very start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for our Success team, it was formed when we realized that our users could benefit from a more personalized onboarding experience<\/a> and specialized training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With Clockify, for instance, we noticed that people had a lot of questions about setting it up or how to do something in it. They kind of struggled at the beginning \u2014 which is normal, especially if you\u2019ve never used a time tracker before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, our Success team guides users on how to get the most out of our apps once they start using them \u2014 and throughout their customer journey \u2014 all for the purpose of providing our users with the best possible customer experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Overall, I would say we are very customer-focused, so customer experience is of great importance to us. When done right, it can also be a great differentiator from your competitors. A solid customer experience goes a long way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also important for us to accommodate our customers\u2019 needs \u2014 so we don\u2019t discourage people from contacting us, hide behind a paywall, or otherwise make it a struggle to reach us. We\u2019re available 24\/7.<\/p>\n\n\n \n Scale your business with CAKE.com tools<\/p>\n \n Increase productivity and grow your organization with Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky.<\/p>\n \n I grew with the company. As the team expanded \u2014 and the types of help our Support and Success teams offer evolved \u2014 I took on other necessary responsibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting to know the customers \u2014 talking to them, finding out what they need, how they use the app, etc. \u2014 is probably the most important part that is in play even today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Communication in itself is important here \u2014 so I\u2019m happy that others, like the CEO and developers, have been in touch with customers too. It\u2019s so easy to \u201chide\u201d behind the code and forget that you\u2019re developing the tool for people that will use it and have opinions about it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m actually grateful that I went through all of the phases \u2014 first as a support agent, then as a manager, etc. Throughout this journey, I learned a lot about what kind of experience customers are looking for. I know our customers, how they think, and what they feel \u2014 and even though it has evolved throughout the years, I can still feel the sentiment they have about our apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, this helps me direct our strategy of customer experience toward their specific needs to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Further reading:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Customers are an essential part of any business, so fostering a good relationship with them is crucial for the business\u2019 success. Learn more about how to successfully communicate with customers and other third parties in the guide below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For starters, you need to have a good product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no amount of customer support, marketing, or sales that could help you if your product is just not that good. But, when you do have a good product, everything else matters a lot more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You also need to provide specific value \u2014 and that value has to be clear and easy to comprehend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People don\u2019t have the time or the energy to figure out why your tool is so great on their own. So, if it\u2019s not clear what kind of value your tool provides, they won\u2019t even notice the effort you put into it or the features you thought would help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we\u2019re talking about B2B SaaS, the importance of providing value is perhaps even more pronounced \u2014 because the tool is used for everyday work. Chances are the customer chose your tool because they believe it can solve a problem they have, help them grow, or just save them time or money. Therefore, you need to keep successfully solving your customers\u2019 problems, helping their businesses grow, and ensuring they become more productive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Something that might be more specific to modern customers is that they expect you to already know what they need without them explicitly telling you. And they want you to deliver personalized experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s pretty obvious in customer support. It\u2019s not uncommon for customers to send messages along the lines of \u201cThis isn\u2019t working\u201d \u2014 without any context at all \u2014 and expect you to know what\u2019s not working, where, and why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With modern technology, we\u2019ve managed to anticipate some of the users\u2019 behaviors and needs. So they have gotten accustomed to that \u2014 and they expect more of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, they expect fast solutions and hassle-free communication. You don\u2019t necessarily have to delight them in any way, but you need to provide a quick answer to whatever their need is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why I\u2019m proud to say that we have over 95% CSAT (customer satisfaction), a 1h average response time, and a customer support team who is always there to help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think a lot of companies believe that they provide great customer experience and that they\u2019re customer-focused \u2014 but in reality, that is not quite true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Providing great customer experience is a company-wide commitment that starts with leadership and goes all the way through each level and department. So, it\u2019s not enough to have your customer-facing teams focused on the customers \u2014 you need to have the whole organization on board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My department is perhaps the mediator, as we are both the voice of the company when talking to customers and speak for the customers internally. But, we\u2019re not the only department that needs to be involved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, this means that your product team should develop features that solve your customers\u2019 problems, your marketing team should highlight how those features meet customer needs, your sales team should engage the right customers instead of selling to whoever will buy the product, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first thing is that our leadership truly appreciates customer support. They don\u2019t see it only as something that\u2019s necessary \u2014 they see it as something that drives value for the customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If done right, customer support can be a feature. It can be that small thing that makes people buy your product instead of someone else\u2019s, especially if they have already had a poor experience with competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we\u2019re talking about all the practical things we do, I\u2019d say it\u2019s our training that makes a huge difference. We pay a lot of attention to providing extensive agent training, and that definitely pays off in the long run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s not that we only pick smart people for the job \u2014 everyone picks smart people for every position. We also try to find people who are a good culture fit, are motivated to do this job, and have the desire to be specialized in this kind of work \u2014 i.e., the desire to help people have the best possible customer experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We then train them to know our products well \u2014 all the ins and outs \u2014 so that they can help the customer in any kind of situation, even if they have never heard a particular question before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There are no scripts, only guidance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, we let our agents see every problem as it is \u2014 perhaps unique, in some way \u2014 not as something they\u2019ve heard a million times before. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d say it boils down to the fact that we keep it simple. There are no bells and whistles or \u201cdelighting the customer\u201d. Rather, we want people to know what they can expect from us \u2014 and we want them to know that we will deliver that kind of experience every time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a company, we are always looking for feedback by monitoring various communication channels<\/a> where our customers can reach out to us \u2014 from email, live chat, and phone, to social media, product review boards, forums, etc. We then process that feedback to ensure our product and service decisions remain in line with the insights we got from our customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both the Support and the Success team are always open to feedback, too. The Success team may be even more used to it because they are more proactive in their conversations with customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whereas the Support team gets lots of emails and live chat messages, the Success team reaches out to consumers and tries to get their feedback and find out how they use our tools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the comments we get the most on our customer satisfaction survey is that we provide fast support. And, people are really grateful for it! It takes us less than an hour to send the first reply when someone contacts us via email \u2014 with phone and chat, the replies are more instantaneous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Additionally, customers have noticed the agents\u2019 effort and that they nurture a more human approach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though our tools are business tools, communication with our customers is not strictly formal. We try to understand our customers, adapt, and mirror their language to find out what\u2019s bothering them and solve it as fast as possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I always say that, when working with customers, no matter if you\u2019re a part of the Support or Success team, 50% of your job is to solve their problems, and 50% is about how you make them feel while doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think all of this combined explains why we are so successful and why people score us highly.<\/p>\n\n\n \n Scale your business with CAKE.com tools<\/p>\n \n Increase productivity and grow your organization with Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky.<\/p>\n \n It\u2019s not easy in an ever-changing market, especially in times of economic turmoil or world crisis, which we have experienced recently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People are becoming more cost-aware and trying to cut their expenses. Your tool might be the one that gets cut in the process if it doesn\u2019t provide enough value \u2014 and that\u2019s where customer experience comes in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As software providers \u2014 and business leaders \u2014 we need to find ways to help people in times of crisis. We need to ask ourselves how we can support them, what they need, and what has changed for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We saw this clearly during the pandemic. Some things changed only slightly while other things were drastically different. People also developed different needs, so we had to adapt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We are always trying to evolve in the direction that brings convenience and ease to our customers. So we use and create technology that enables this kind of development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the main challenges is probably the most obvious one \u2014 everyone starts thinking about retention when it\u2019s too late in the game, i.e., when people start to complain. Businesses are so focused on acquiring new customers that they often neglect the part where they need to work to keep them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A lot of strategies are based on trying to keep a customer who\u2019s already one foot out of the door. That\u2019s where the main error lies, I\u2019d say. <\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to start working on customer retention from the moment the customer signs up. That\u2019s when the real work starts, and it\u2019s the reason we have a proactive Success team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Once a customer signs up, you need to provide them with what they expect and keep that going for as long as possible. And, that\u2019s difficult to do, because it doesn\u2019t only boil down to a great Customer Support or Success team. A lot of things come into play here, such as providing the right product, listening to your customers, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d say that, to overcome this challenge, you need to start thinking about retention strategies at the very beginning. It\u2019s imperative to monitor Customer Health throughout every stage of their journey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In practice, this means you should ensure customers have been onboarded successfully. Better yet, you should have metrics in place that show if the customers are engaging with the product in a meaningful way and achieving their goals with it, as well as if there\u2019s any friction you should look into.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the main challenges during the pandemic was that people were asking more questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Our products are some of the best tools for remote workers<\/a>, so lots of people started using them back then \u2014 and naturally, they had questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, we saw a spike in email communication with customers. That was a bit challenging to overcome \u2014 because we had a bigger workload, but had to provide the same level of support and experience for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, some research suggests that customers are more likely to badmouth a company<\/a> for a bad experience than share their positive experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Either way, people talk. But, it seems they\u2019re far more sensitive to negative experiences than they are to positive ones. They see a positive experience as something normal \u2014 something expected \u2014 while a bad experience is something they would definitely speak about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And then, the word gets out, and you\u2019ve closed not just the door for that particular customer but for everyone else that person is in touch with. That\u2019s a major issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s just the other side of the same coin. Poor customer experience can be one of the reasons customers decide to ditch your product. Moreover, they can then discourage other people from trying it out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The reason people unsubscribe or stop using your tool is that they don\u2019t see the value in it anymore \u2014 it\u2019s no longer cost-effective for them. And, you cannot have a fixed set of values and keep it that way. As your customers\u2019 needs change, you need to keep providing more, and continue building your product around those needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I don\u2019t think that customers decide to look for alternatives immediately after they’ve had a bad experience, an unresolved query, or similar. This is especially true in B2B. If it\u2019s a business tool, it\u2019s not that easy to switch \u2014 so the customer is unlikely to jump at the first opportunity to go somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But, bad customer experience can happen even when you\u2019re actively trying to prevent it. Sometimes, you may not even know that your customer experience has been rather poor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For example, you think you resolved a question, but then you never hear back from the customer. Flash forward a month or two, and you see they canceled their subscription. In that case, perhaps your inability to resolve that question was partially responsible for the cancellation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, poor customer experience is a strong indicator that your customers aren\u2019t happy with your product. Plus, for some people, customer support is more of a feature and is more important, especially if they aren\u2019t tech-savvy and need a lot of guidance. Those people are more sensitive to customer experience \u2014 in that they value it more, in comparison to those that prefer self-service, reading user help pages, and trying to resolve issues on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was surprised by how committed the company was to focusing on customers from the very start \u2014 and the idea that customer support was important and should be developed internally. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was something we focused on from the beginning, just on a different level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When starting out with customer support for Clockify, we learned by trial and error. Throughout the years, we got to know our customers better to understand how to provide good customer service to them. Of course, we made some mistakes along the way and tried to correct them, so it wasn\u2019t perfect. But it definitely helped our company grow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And, that level of commitment could be seen in our other tools too. When we developed and launched Pumble and Plaky, people were a bit surprised in regard to the level of service they got from us. It\u2019s not so common for new tools to have both live chat and phone support, a fast response time, support over weekends and holidays, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n \n Scale your business with CAKE.com tools<\/p>\n \n Increase productivity and grow your organization with Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky.<\/p>\n \n I\u2019m not sure what it would look like if we weren\u2019t so focused on our customers. The growth itself would probably have been much slower. But, I cannot take all the credit for our success. Customer experience is important \u2014 but there are a lot of other things that go into it, such as the product itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d say that providing products that are useful to businesses is probably the biggest driver of our success, and one of the important aspects of that success is customer experience. But it\u2019s not just about the product or customer support \u2014 it\u2019s everything, from marketing and sales to design and content. Everything, together, is a powerful force that got us to where we are today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the pandemic, in terms of data, we noticed a spike in live chat support. People essentially wanted to talk to human beings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At CAKE.com, we\u2019ve always had this \u2018be human\u2019 approach, so we aren\u2019t simply trying to solve questions or determine bugs \u2014 we are also building relationships with the customers. I don\u2019t think generic responses ever worked for anyone, but the pandemic put more emphasis on that human approach since people were looking for a more personal touch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a bit more small talk during the pandemic, too. Conversations with customers weren\u2019t always strictly related to the problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n People were also more relaxed overall, as far as communication goes. They tried to connect with our agents by asking them how they were doing in those trying times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We also noticed an increase in live chat and phone support in comparison to email support. People simply didn\u2019t want to wait and waste time, as time was \u2014 and still is \u2014 precious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, when everything went online during the pandemic, people expected fast solutions and didn\u2019t have that much patience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Everyone thinks that customer support is difficult to do because communicating with people can be emotionally draining. And yes, when you handle 100 tickets or 20 calls a day, it can be tricky to remember that you\u2019re not communicating with yet another customer. For you, it might be just another ticket or phone call \u2014 but for them, it might be their first time trying to contact the company about a certain problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important to remember that the customer is someone who\u2019s trying to do something. They\u2019re already frustrated that they have to call or write to customer support. During the pandemic, and even after it, it became more obvious that people also want you to make them feel good while resolving the problem. So, it\u2019s not enough to just provide a solution \u2014 you have to be careful about how you approach the customers and handle their problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s why picking the right people for customer-facing teams is so important. You should choose people that have a pronounced sense of empathy, are ready to help customers and understand what\u2019s behind their queries, and don\u2019t take things personally. I\u2019d say having such people on board is another reason we\u2019re so successful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m always wary of anticipating or predicting the future, especially because so many things could change in the digital world in 5 or 10 years. Still, with artificial intelligence being the new hot topic, some predict we won\u2019t have human customer support anymore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don\u2019t believe that \u2014 I think human customer support will always be necessary because humans need other humans. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We got proof of that with chatbots. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When chatbots appeared, everyone thought they were going to change the game and that companies would cut their support costs because chatbots would replace humans. But, it didn\u2019t work \u2014 people were still picking up the phone and calling customer support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some companies, especially larger ones, still use chatbots because they believe they can resolve simple questions faster. But, that depends on the customer \u2014 and if they can figure out the right way to communicate with the chatbot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps AI will fix that \u2014 provide a better service, find out what the customer\u2019s issue is, and give a more tailored response. But, more complex issues will likely have to be resolved by a human, at some point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In general, since AI requires us to be more specific, I don\u2019t think it will replace human customer support. It is, after all, a tool, and you still need people to monitor it. Plus, it may eliminate that personal touch we mentioned earlier, which could distance the customers from your product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yes, AI may help in some other ways. AI might be a good option for enhancing the knowledge base, for instance. It could make it easier to navigate for people who want to self-service and resolve issues on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When it comes to customer support, we can already use AI to tag tickets or pull up information about customers faster. This gives the team more insight into all the customer communication and, ultimately, more data to work with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So over time, AI might make customer service more efficient. However, that might increase customers\u2019 expectations as well \u2014 so you might need another innovation to keep up with that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not sure what that innovation could be, but that\u2019s how we move forward \u2014 through innovations. And, it\u2019s something that could definitely happen in a few years, perhaps even sooner. But we\u2019ll just have to wait it out and see what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n \n Scale your business with CAKE.com tools<\/p>\n \n Increase productivity and grow your organization with Clockify, Pumble, and Plaky.<\/p>\n \n This is the latest installment in our CAKE.com interview series on our Empowered Team blog. You can also read an interview with our CEO, Nenad Milanovic, on the <\/em>future of work from a leader\u2019s perspective<\/em><\/a>, and an interview with our VP of Human Capital, Biljana Rakic, on the <\/em>challenges and benefits of the remote-first model<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CAKE.com\u2019s Jovana Kandic, VP of Customer Experience, talks about the challenges of customer retention and her predictions for the future of work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":1330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-thought-leaders"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAnd what about the Success team? How did it start, and how does it tie into the bigger picture of Customer Experience? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Scale](\"https:\/\/cake.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/banner-standard.png\")
\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\nWhat about your evolution at the company? You first started as a customer support specialist, and now you\u2019re the VP of Customer Experience. What aspects of your previous roles helped you mature into the VP role \u2014 and which parts come into play even today, when you\u2019re not necessarily providing direct customer support via email, live chat, etc.?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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How a customer feels about your product can have a huge impact on your business, and every company must focus on their ideal customer and what they need and want. So, what are the first boxes every product needs to tick, in terms of customers\u2019 needs and wants? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What do modern customers want today \u2014 and which of their needs do companies absolutely have to meet?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In your opinion, what makes customer experience good or bad today?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
CAKE.com has repeatedly gotten high scores for its customer service. How do you explain that? What are you doing better \u2014 or just different \u2014 than other companies? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What are some of the key aspects of providing top-notch customer experience at CAKE.com?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cake.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DSC04598-1110x890.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHow difficult is it to keep customers and ensure they remain loyal to the products?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What are some of the main challenges of customer retention? Do you have any advice on dealing with those challenges? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You mentioned the pandemic, how people\u2019s needs changed, and how the company had to adapt to that. What were the main challenges during the pandemic?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What kinds of consequences could there be for companies that don\u2019t care about customer experience? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
And what about the customers? How does good or bad customer experience affect them \u2014 and especially their purchasing decisions?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cake.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/DSC04613-1110x740.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\nHigh-level customer experience can be a real game-changer for a company, and it seems it has been the primary focus for CAKE.com from the start. So how has focusing on it changed CAKE.com in particular? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\nWould the company\u2019s growth have been slower if it weren\u2019t so customer-centric?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019ve also witnessed the company\u2019s growth before, during, and after the pandemic. Did customer demands change a lot after the pandemic, and if so, how has that affected your customer experience strategy \u2014 and the way your team now handles customer requests, complaints, and similar? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Is there a specific type of people you hire for customer support?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, the strategy you have now seems to be working. Surely you plan on enhancing it as customer needs and wants change \u2014 but what are some of the main ways you see it changing in the future? Can you anticipate how customers will change in 5 or 10 years and what will matter the most to them then?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
So you don’t think AI will replace customer support \u2014 but do you believe it will find its uses\/could be helpful in the field in any way?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n\n\n