How to conduct an Ask Me Anything session for your customer-facing teams
One random day, I was scrolling through my Workplace app feed (imagine Facebook, where only your organization is present). A neighboring team had posted about an upcoming AMA session for their product. I googled AMA and got this:
Just kidding.
AMA stands for "Ask Me Anything," which is basically just a trendy internet slang term or acronym used to describe the interview-like process that takes place between the host and the participants asking questions.
This got me thinking.
It’s been a few months since I launched my feature, and I had wanted to conduct training sessions for various sales teams. After seeing this post, I decided that an AMA session would be better than a training session. This way, I will be able to cover a wide range of teams (sales, support, and customer success) and also organize an interactive session.
Hence, the AMA session for customer-facing teams!
I conducted the AMA along with the product team, and it went so well that we’re planning to organize one every month. And, here’s how you can conduct one too :)
1. Decide time slots
Plan the time slots for your AMA a week in advance to ensure maximum participation. If your customer-facing teams are spread across the globe, it’s best to conduct the AMA for each major time zone. Confirm a suitable time for each region by contacting their point of contact. Otherwise, you might end up setting up the session during their busy or family time.
2. Promote internally
Once the time slot(s) are confirmed, promote your upcoming AMA session inside your organization. Send an announcement email, put up posts on workgroups and ask folks you know to spread the word.
3. Improvise based on people’s expectations
Along with the promotion for AMA, share a Google form where interested people can give inputs on what they expect from your session.
Sample questions:
Rate your knowledge on [product/feature], with 1 being the lowest and 5 being the highest.
Do you want a demo of [product/feature] during the AMA session?
Type in the questions you have about [product/feature] here.
Which concepts would you like us to cover during the session?
Through this form, you and the product team can prepare for the session and make sure you have answers to every question. Also, you can gauge the overall interest of your AMA. If you get a huge number of responses, you can set up a participation limit of 25. Because, if too many participate in one session, you won’t have time to answer all questions, and people will be left waiting.
4. Do a mock run
If there’s a demo involved, prepare for it and do a mock run with the product team. In case you find yourself forgetting some points, note them down in a sheet and refer to them during the AMA session. It helps.
5. Record the AMA session
Don’t forget to record the AMA session as you can convert the recording into mini videos. Each FAQ can be a 2-3 min video, and once you put them all in a folder, you can share it with customer-facing teams.
If you’re planning to conduct another session, ask the next set of participants to go through the video folder. This helps minimize repetitive questions.
6. Ask for feedback
If you’re conducting the AMA on Zoom (by setting it up as a webinar), you can ask attendees to rate the usefulness of this session through a poll option. You can also obtain other stats like attendee details, questions asked, attendance rate, etc. This helps determine the success of your AMA session.
I hope this helps. If you want to conduct an AMA and need help, feel free to reach out to me here.
Stay safe :)
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Author’s note: For the past few days, I was feeling low with no motivation to write or work. Yet, if there’s one reason why I completed this article on time, it’s because of my subscribers. I can’t thank you enough😭 You keep me from falling into the trap of giving up too soon.