Get to Know: Sue Morris, Worldwide Customer Service Leader for Microsoft’s Customer Service & Support business
It sounds cliché but my role at Microsoft is the same as everyone’s role at Microsoft – to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As the global leader for Customer Service, my team thinks about how we design end-to-end experiences for our customers and deliver the unifying services like accounts and billing, licensing and subscription management across all our customer segments. Our #1 job is to reduce customer effort by providing a quick and easy experience – a Wow experience – and my not-so-secret aim is that we also create fans in the process.
Microsoft has over 125,000 employees located in 124 countries worldwide. Known for products like Windows, Surface, Office and Xbox gaming consoles, Microsoft is the leading platform and productivity company and the world’s largest software maker. Within Microsoft’s Customer Service & Support (CSS) function, we are on a holistic journey to transform the customer experience. We think a lot about not only helping customers in their time of need, but also how we avoid issues by predicting and preventing them before they even happen. In short, it means partnering with our engineering teams to develop better products, gaining our customers’ trust by protecting their data and privacy, and empowering them to get the most out of their investments in technology.
So how do we do all of that? I will go out on a limb and say our success is 100% dependent on the culture we are building within our teams, and that is where I draw my energy from every day. I am a self-professed “culture junkie” and I care deeply about putting our customers and our people first. If our culture is rooted in fan creation, everything we do should be about creating fans. The team ethos that we continue to nurture is focused on catching our customer advocates doing something right and creating a snowball effect for those around them. We want our people to come to work with clarity, with curiosity and a sense of purpose. That’s half the equation! We then empower them with the right training, tools, and hands-on learning to meet our customers in their time of need.
I am excited to join the Advisory Board of Execs In The Know because I love learning from others and sharing knowledge. The world around us is changing so fast – how do we keep up with customer trends and data? How do we continue to meet the evolving needs of customers and of our employees? I have spent a lot of time benchmarking and looking at innovations, best practices, and performing while transforming at scale. I also bring years of experience in building customer lifetime value and maintaining loyalty. I am excited to talk to others about what we are seeing in our industry and how we continue to get ahead of things like cloud adoption and artificial intelligence.
I grew up in Northeast England though I am adapting nicely to my new life in the Seattle, WA area. Even though my epic 8-year-old daughter’s English accent is quickly disappearing with Americanisms like, “geez dude,” I consider myself English through and through. I grew up in telecommunications when it was becoming commoditized. It was a tough cold calling, outbound sales environment with very few women. The age-old question of “how do you do more with less” was practically a neon sign at my desk and I learned quick lessons in resiliency and optimism and the importance of sparking ambition and curiosity early in someone’s career. At the end of the day, it is the people that keep me energized and ready to take on the next challenge.
Let’s talk culture, fan creation, or Newcastle United! Find me on LinkedIn and Twitter @suekirk15 – Look forward to connecting!
