In our Growth Studio Spotlight series, CO— aims to connect budding entrepreneurs with business owners who have been there, providing advice that can help bridge the gap between a business idea and successful execution. In this edition, we consult with Hailley Griffis, head of public relations for social platform Buffer, to share her experiences — from finding great employees to tackling competition within the industry. Buffer has been in business for 8 years and has 85 employees.
Here's how Griffis describes Buffer: Buffer is a social media platform used by hundreds of thousands of businesses to plan their content in advance, analyze the results, and engage with their community through social media.
How do you find great employees?
We created our company values very early on at Buffer and they play a huge role in our hiring. We ask candidates about our values when they are submitting their applications and then the first interview candidates go through is a ‘values screen’ with someone from our People Team. These interviews dive into the various ways a candidate might fit with our values at Buffer and help us move people ahead in the process who are aligned with the way Buffer operates.
Having those set values and interviewing for them has been a big part in hiring Buffer teammates who are a great fit with the company.
What’s the one thing your business is known for doing better than the competition?
We have a very high bar for customer support and have consistently heard that our great customer support sets us apart from others. We are a fully remote team with teammates who live and work around the world, which means we have a large range of coverage times for customers.
Work remotely
Buffer manages to have a highly rated customer service reputation even with all of its employees working remotely. Here are some tips to successfully implement remote work at your business.
We created our company values very early on at Buffer and they play a huge role in our hiring.
Hailley Griffis, head of public relations, Buffer
How do you market your business?
A lot of our marketing is done through word of mouth. We have a great customer experience with both our product and our customer service team. For a while now it’s been common for our current customers to promote us on their own social media channels and within their networks.
We also have a strong background in content marketing as a team. We create content related to the questions that our target customers are asking constantly and those pieces get shared and promoted. Those posts are also easily found when someone searches in Google for the keywords.
What is your best source of new customers?
Word of mouth is absolutely one of our tops here, but since it’s difficult to quantify this, search and search engine optimization (SEO) are our biggest channels for customers, followed by referrals and content marketing.
CO— aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected experts. However, before making any business decision, you should consult a professional who can advise you based on your individual situation.
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