Jarrett Gucci comes from a retail background that started at Home Depot in Buffalo NY as cashier and 18 months later was asked to be a project manager based out of Carson California with a goal of opening 12 stores in 14 months.
This goal was accomplished. He has also been an area manager at Big Lots and Bed Bath and beyond. He left his very last retail career as a district manager at Linens & Things in 2007 to pursue a hobby of website development as hope he could make some money doing it. After 4 years of building and managing WordPress sites, he founded a company called WP Fix It and since 2011 his company has serviced over 48,000 WordPress support tickets. Something you may not know about Jarrett besides all this, is that when he was 15 his neighbor gave him a 1962 dodge dart and he completely took it apart and rebuilt it.
What else should we know about you that you haven’t included in your brief, third-person, professional biography?
I love to go camping with the family, all seven of us. I have 5 daughters ranging in age from 4 year twins to 16 old boy crazy teenager.
What did you learn at Home Depot, Big Lots, etc… that you were able to carry across industry lines to WordPress and the web?
The greatest strength I brought with me from that industry was customer communication skills. I have found that this has really set me apart from others in WordPress development and support because while many of them are genus behind the keyboard, communicated with customers can some times fall short. I have used training from past experience to train my team and always focus on a high level customer service.
Tell us a bit about WP Fix It, where’d the idea come from and how did people around you react to the drastic career change?
This idea was modeled after the Apple Support program and created one Sunday afternoon in 2011 while my wife was asleep on the couch. After about a year in, it was very apparent that the idea was better than expected and their was a desire for instant 1 time payment support rather than the very common monthly model. Those that knew me for years as a developer were happy for my transition and excited to see a new support option for WordPress users.
What’s a common mistake we might not know we’re making, but can easily avoid, when handling support tickets?
Has been and I think will always be, the issue of submitting the correct login credentials. This has been the number one thing that delays a support ticket being resolved.
What can we start doing today to provide better support?
Education and willingness to learn more each day. The web and WordPress changes fast and we must keep our minds moving with these changes to allow us to provide better support when needed.
Catch Jarret in the Blue Whale at WordCamp Los Angeles 2016 on Saturday, September 10 at 2:30pm presenting WordPress Support Toolkit.