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Breakfast & Launch Podcast
Episode 3: Finding dignity in Customer Support | Ayomide Abdullahi-Makinde
Jul 13, 2026
15
00:00
14:51
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TRANSCRIPT
0:00
I sat down one day, I looked at, like, all the accounts that we had, and it was worth one billion. And I'm like, "This is what you are sitting on." Hello, and welcome to Breakfast and Launch. I'm Taiwo, your host.
0:10
I want you to know that this is a space for thoughtful conversations with people who are building meaningful lives. Let's get into today's conversation, and thank you for being part of history.
0:20
Thanks for, uh, making the time, Ayomide. Thank you for having me here, actually. So question, Abdulai, is it, um, is that your maiden name? Yeah, that's- Or-... that's my maiden name, actually. Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm.
0:31
I see, okay. Yeah. Did you come from a Muslim background? Not me personally, um, but my dad is from a Muslim background, right? I see. But he's not Muslim anymore. He's Christian now, and a pastor. Whoa. Amazing. I know.
0:47
I know- That's-... I know, I know. Yeah There has to be a huge story behind that.
0:51
Very huge, and that's why, I think that's also why, like, he never changed his last name, 'cause it's such a good, like, conversation starter. There are a lot of times where, I mean, like, just
1:02
right now, everyone is always interested like, "Oh, like Abdulai, what's going on?" You know, kind of vibe, yeah. Wanted you to introduce yourself to listeners- Uh-huh... to people who don't know you. Yeah. Cool, cool.
1:14
Hi, everyone. My name is Ayomide Abdulai-Makinde. I'm a customer support specialist. I mean, that's the field that I specialize in. I've, I wouldn't say I've loved this since day one, but I love it right now.
1:27
And something that's just very passionate to me is helping customer support specialists around the world, um, really excel and thrive in their roles and not just feel stuck.
1:39
So essentially just helping unstick them if, if that's, if that's, that makes sense. But yeah, that, that's essentially what I do.
1:45
And one of the ways that I do that right now is to really educate, um, people in the field through my LinkedIn posts and, um, also to, you know, really generous with hopping on calls with anyone that needs career direction.
1:58
So yeah, that's it. You studied sociology, right? Yeah, sociology. What, what, what made, what informed that choice? Um, honestly, I wanted to study mass communication, but I didn't get it.
2:10
And then everyone is like- Okay... "Sociology is a good course." [laughs] "Oh, my love, you like it. You'll love it." [laughs] Bro, that sounds like us. That sound like Africa. Yeah, like, ah.
2:23
Omo, that, this, um- [laughs] I know the, um, I mean, like, that's, that's like, "Mo, I know this person" For, let me just speak English, stick to English for s- for people that are not, you know, like Yoruba.
2:34
Like, "I know this person, uh, sociology lo- local." Like, the person who went sociology like, "Omo, omo, ah, omo, enjoy." I said, "But is it gonna get me a job, though?" At that time I didn't know.
2:45
But then, like, everyone just said, "You know what? Like, sociology is, it's a good course." And to be honest, I actually agree, 'cause I really, really genuinely enjoyed it, right?
2:55
I don't, I don't see myself studying, like, if I had to go back to uni, okay, maybe I'll study business administration, but asides that, I'll still pick, um, sociology. Like, it was really good.
3:05
Like, it, it made me think, um, in the way I see the world right now, that has also formed, you know, like, part of it. So yeah, yeah. Remarkable. And what- Yeah, remarkable... what is sociology?
3:18
Um, sociology is the study of the society and, um, the people that live in it, right? Okay. So, you know, h- like how you have psychology- Yeah...
3:26
and that's like the study of, like, the individual, one man, his mind- Mm-hmm... everything, right? Sociology is just looking at the society as a whole and, um, the people that live in it and their behavior. Yeah. Okay.
3:39
Yeah. How did you get into support? That's kind of where you and I begin to- Connect. Mm-hmm... connect. 'Cause I studied- Yeah... medicine myself, and- Which is very fa- Oh, I got into- Which is like, it's still a
3:54
shocker. I'm like, "Wow, Dr. Taiwo. Wow." Oh my gosh. Yeah- Yeah... yeah, yeah.
4:00
And, like, it's funny, we just had that call the other day where I did a consultation for your son, and it was, it just brought back a lot of memories, so [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for that, by the way.
4:11
I mean- You know, like, this is a free consultation that I'll be paying money for, but thank you. [laughs] My pleasure, my pleasure. I'll take it. It was fun. Yeah. Yeah.
4:19
S- so how did you go from, how did the, your journey into tech begin?
4:25
Um, honestly, when I was done with NYSC, I was looking for a job, so I pretty much told everyone around, "Hey, I'm looking for a job, and this is what I studied.
4:35
I'm not sure what I'll be able to do with sociology, but, you know, like, I need a job." And I remember, you know, receiving a call saying, "Hey, there's, like, an internship position available.
4:47
It's for a customer support role. Are you interested by any chance?" And I'm like, "Yeah. Yeah, let's, let's go. Let's do it." And I mean, like, the rest is history. Got into Showcaves and yeah.
4:58
There was a, a bit of providence there. Yeah. And so you started to learn on the job. What was that experience like learning on the job?
5:05
It was good 'cause I had a great manager, and I need to shout out to her, Fisayo Nana. She was, um... It was really good, honestly.
5:13
She gave me, like, a really good foundation on, you know, like, what customer s- what good sup- customer support should look like. She was, she was really friendly, but also at the same time, like, a no-nonsense person.
5:24
Like, when it was time to work, we, it was, you know, like, it was work time. And then when it was time to play, like, we really played, like, really hard. But she was my- Wow...
5:33
first point of contact, and I'm very grateful for that. Um, I think it's also part of the reason why I grew to, you know, like, love, um, to love support as well. I imagine that if my,
5:47
um, first contact was horrible, maybe, like, I wouldn't be, you know, in this role right now, right? I mean, like, getting in, I really didn't want to do it, to be honest. But then, like,
5:59
her touchpoint was also, you know, like, along the way. It wasn't the only thing, but it was also, like, a really good thing.
6:06
Imagine not, not liking or being skeptical about, you know, this career path, and then the person You're reporting to is just like bonkers, right? So- Yeah. Yeah... so yeah. So she was really good.
6:16
She was really, really good. Really good. Yeah. I, I remember one of the things you said when we spoke for the first time- Mm-hmm... was how when you go to parties and people are saying, "Oh, I'm the- Oh, wow...
6:28
treasurer of this one, that one." Mm-hmm. So and so, I'm the chief financial, "" Or that something, something for our non, uh, Nigerian audience. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you how... Just wanted you to bring us into that.
6:42
Into that, right? Um- Like your experience with, yeah. Honestly, w- and it's one of the reasons why I also was very s- you know, like skeptical about this, like, career path, to be honest.
6:53
Back then I think I had, like, a bias, and I really believed that, um, um, this is not a very honorable role, you know? Like if, for context, like if you're African, right?
7:08
Like African parents believe, or just Africans in general believe more in, you know, introducing yourself as, "My name is Doctor this," which is why I don't understand title, right?
7:20
[laughs] We'll, we'll leave that for another time. But, "My name is Doctor this. I am Engineer this. I am Barista," you know, like heavy, heavy, you know, professions like that, so to speak, right?
7:33
And then I would go out, and because here, here I was in customer support, right?
7:37
So I would, I'd go out, my mates would be introducing themselves or saying, "I work at JP Morgan," or, "I work at, um, I work at JP Morgan," or, "I work at, um, the fintech industry or as an engineer," or, "I work as, you know, like a developer," and stuff like that.
7:57
And I'm like here, I'm like, "Oh, I work as a customer support intern," or, "I'm just in customer support." And the moment you say that, you can see, you can literally see
8:07
the interest literally drain from their faces and they're like, "Oh, you're working customer support. Okay. Yeah, like cool." You know, so you're just calling, you're just calling people.
8:17
[laughs] You're just saying, "Hello, good morning. How are you guys going?" You know, stuff like that, right? And, and that's about it to your job, right? So I really hated that. I really hated that.
8:25
For the longest time I was like, "Nah, nope, this is not the career path for me." We've both gone from being in that place of feeling self-conscious about being in support to a place where we're like, "You know what?
8:37
It is what I make of it." How did you make that switch? I sat down one day in Showcase.
8:42
I looked at like all the accounts that we had that I was sitting on as head of customer support, and it was like worth like one billion. And I'm like, "Hey, like
8:54
you're s- you are literally the account manager," because at the time I didn't know I was doing cu- a bit of customer success as well, but then that's also what I was doing, like making sure the accounts were healthy, making sure that they were coming back as repeat customers.
9:07
So like, and I'm like, "Hey, like this is what you are sitting on. Like if anything goes wrong, like there's actual business value or business impact like attached to this.
9:18
Like this is not just, this is not just customer support." Right? And I'm like, "Hmm. Oh wow. Like this is, this is, this is, this is crazy."
9:30
Another moment as well was while I was at LeadDyno, um, different environment, international company.
9:37
Just seeing the way the organization treated its support team, how they had regard for a support team, gave me like just
9:46
huge level of insight as well to be like, "Oh wow," like, you know, like nope, this is, this is not a just anyhow profession.
9:55
And, and what I believe is that I believe that those of us in customer support, we haven't really done a good job of articulating the value that really comes with, um, doing this job, right?
10:06
Um, not just for those on the front lines, but for the managers as well and for the leaders, the team leads.
10:11
I don't think they've, we've done like a good job at ac- at articulating the value that we carry as a department. Mm-hmm.
10:17
I think you've keyed on a very important point about how support agents themselves haven't articulated the value of what they do. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I think that's, uh, definitely something to look more into. Mm-hmm.
10:28
I think as well, there are companies where they celebrate support. Yeah. But there are also some companies where the manager of support looks down on- Yes.
10:38
[laughs] I've worked in North America for the past five years in success- Mm-hmm... and support roles. Mm-hmm. And it's definitely not just a Nigerian problem about the way- Oh, really? Mm-hmm... support is seen.
10:47
It's very rampant here. Oh. I had a manager sit me down, and he meant so well about, "So what future do you want? Where do you see yourself going?
10:58
I know nobody ever says, 'I wanna be a customer support specialist' when you grow up." Yeah. And that's coming from the director, and it's like, wow. And I couldn't start to educate him on the value of what support is.
11:14
Mm-hmm. And if you think about it, Ayomide, um, you want to be s- you want your spouse to be someone that supports you in life. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You want your family to support you. You want to support your son. Mm-hmm.
11:27
Like, support is such a beautiful word- Yeah... except when you bring it into tech. Exactly. Then it's seen as a, as a dead-end role. And, um, anyway, what would you say is the, uh,
11:38
the promise and the potential of the role? It has a lot of, it ha- it ha- definitely has a lot of potential, but
11:47
to be honest, how I'd, how I'd answer that is it also depends on the growth stage that, uh, of the company that you're, you're, you know, like joining at the moment.
11:56
I usually would, you know, like advise people, if you're just getting into support, go, go do support at a, at, at a startup. Like you'd learn so much.
12:05
I've seen people scale from customer support to customer success, right? I've seen people scale from customer support to customer operations as well.
12:12
And depending how big your organization is, you're going from customer support, um, team lead- From team lead, maybe team lead one, team lead two. From team lead, you're becoming a manager.
12:24
From becoming a manager, you're on the path to becoming a director. Like, so it, it depends on how you, it depends on how, how you wanna go. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. Yeah.
12:35
Um, one of the things you mentioned when we spoke was
12:39
as you, you're looking for something new that you want to build such a strong brand that if ever you're on the market again, people will be like, "Yes, we've been waiting for you."
12:48
So I wanted to know, how did you discover the power of personal branding and, and what is that? Uh-huh. So I've been, I've been hearing about, you know, personal branding from-- I've been hearing about it for
13:00
the longest, right? But honestly, no diss to anyone, but I-- what everyone was saying about personal branding didn't really resonate with me, my values, what I believe, until I found Caleb Ralston, um- Hmm...
13:17
and shout out to him, right? And, um, I listened to his six-hour YouTube video on personal branding, and then like- Right... it clicked for me. Yeah. Um,
13:30
one of the things that he believes in, and no diss again, but you know how now, like, everyone is like with personal branding, next thing, launch a product, sell something- [chuckles] Sell, sell, sell something.
13:42
And then like- Yeah... you buy the product and it's half as valuable as what they advertise, right?
13:49
So, um, for Caleb Ralston, his, his mindset is the other way around, and he says, um, if you wanna build your personal brand, you have to focus on value. Hmm. No, don't focus on virality.
14:02
Don't focus on necessarily the numbers, what the numbers are saying. Your goal is to give value consistently and give it free, right?
14:12
Um, what people now pay you for is for the personalization or the customization of the value that you continue to put out. Yeah. Amazing. Oh, that's, uh, that's food for thought. Okay. Thank you so much, Ayomide.
14:25
Everyone, she's, uh, she's amazing at the personal branding stuff. Her content is so meaningful.
14:31
So if you need help with, uh, getting unstuck, I recommend you reach out to Ayomide Abdullahi Makinde on- Yeah, I'll be happy to chat... on, yeah, on LinkedIn. Hey, thank you for spending time with us.
14:43
If today's conversation gave you something to think about, I'd love for you to subscribe and join us again next week. Until then, keep building with intention
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