Serve: Working for and loving the success of others

How Bandwidth is living its values in the midst of change, and how you can too.

A message from Ryan Henley, Chief Customer Officer

Company values are only really values if they stand the test of adversity. If they don’t hold up when tested, they’re just aspirations. Right now the cloud communication industry (and every other industry, in fact) is being tested.

I want to share some of the most encouraging examples of Bandwidth employees living out our values during this time, what our company is learning from them, and how you might apply some of that learning to your team. 

The Bandwidth Value

Bandwidth has seven principles that are woven into the fabric of what we do and how we do it. Today, I’d like to focus on one of them: Serve. We define ‘serve’ as working for and loving the success of others. At this time in our history, can you think of a better focus?  

The Test: Work in the Time of COVID

With the shift to remote work, our customers and their missions became even more critical to keeping economies moving, schools educating, and people connected. Companies like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, LogMeIn, 8×8, and many others are essential in this environment. We are thrilled to help power these services. It’s an honor and a great responsibility. And it keeps us very, very busy. 

The Bandwidth Response

Our teams take this responsibility to heart, and we’ve rallied to the cause. For weeks on end, our Product, Technology, and Operations teams worked tirelessly to ensure our customers were well served. They gathered each morning to review activities from the previous night, shared observations, and planned their approach for the day. In the late afternoon, they regrouped to discuss the day’s service levels and finalized plans for the coming night’s maintenance windows. Then, often until 2am, they executed activities to harden our platforms and implement augments for our customers and carrier partners…all in the service of keeping customers communicating.

I found myself marveling at their tireless tenacity: 8:30am stand-up. Prep all day. 5pm stand-up. Execute from 10pm to 2am. Repeat. Over…and…over. Absolutely relentless.

I’ve seen more (and larger) coffee cups appearing on the morning video conference, and many teammates showing-up in increasingly comfy clothes, but I haven’t seen any loss of focus or drive. 

It has been inspiring to watch, and will always remind me of how important our mission is and how dedicated this team is to serving.  

What we’re learning

When you invest your energy into your values practically, they stand the test of adversity. 

Bandwidth has taken great care to weave our values into our hiring process, kudos, emails, performance reviews, awards, conversations, and into our very DNA. And because we’ve been so tactical about keeping our values in front of us at all times, we see them in the actions of our Bandmates who serve our customers and each other every day. Even in the midst of massive change. 

An Invitation

I have a request for you…if you see a Bandmate living a Bandwidth principle, let them know. It’s incredibly meaningful when a customer or teammate acknowledges that their work is seen and appreciated.

But if you ever see us not living up to our Bandwidth principles, tell us.  Here’s a link to the contact info for the entire Service leadership team. And if you can’t reach them, here’s my phone number: (303) 949-5471. That’s not an office line, and it’s not a masked number. That’s my mobile number. If we’re not living our principles, we want to know.

While I can’t promise you that we’ll be perfect, I can promise you that we’ll do all in our power to get there.