Hello, Mumbai! My name is Mahangu Weerasinghe and I’m a Happiness Engineer at Automattic. I work on the team that provides live chat support to WordPress.com users, so there’s a chance that some of you may have already spoken to me online. 🙂

WordPress is currently used by 23.4% of all websites. That’s a lot of sites.

The question then, is this: in an age where everyone is developing WordPress solutions, how do you make sure that your offering stands out from the crowd?

Support

In an increasingly saturated WordPress products and services market, providing quality support is one of the factors that separates good WordPress solutions from the great ones.

My session at WC Mumbai 2015 is titled Teaching Happiness: What WordPress Support Can Learn From the Classroom.

I realise the topic is a little unusual, but it comes from a very personal place. Prior to joining Automattic, I was a high school English teacher, and as I made the jump from teacher to Happiness Engineer, I realised that there was a lot of overlap between the two roles.

What I Will Cover

In this session, I will explore how we, as providers of WordPress support, can see ourselves as teachers instead of fixers, and in the process completely alter the dynamic of the support space, creating a more holistic experience for both our users and ourselves.

I will show how some of the tools that teachers use to Plan, Manage and Follow-up on their lessons can also be used in WordPress support interactions, and how these methods can help our users become more and more independent.

I strongly believe that support will play a pivotal role in helping us reach the next 23.4% of the web, and encourage you to bring all your support-related questions and comments to this session. I look forward to hearing what you have to say!

Session Link: Teaching Happiness: What WordPress Support Can Learn From the Classroom