Eunice Goh, SmartUp’s Head of Customer Success, talks to us about what her job is like and how it has changed since Covid-19 pandemic.
As the Head of Customer Success, what is it that you do?
“I lead the customer success practice and work with our clients on solutions to help them roll out their learning and engagement programs.”
We imagine it must be hard being caught in the middle? How do you balance the needs of the clients with the needs of the business?
” It is actually the most interesting part of my job and it is great that our clients are all so collaborative and understanding of us as a startup! When a client comes to me with a need, I will first try to understand the end goal that they are trying to achieve, then assess whether our platform or services can support their requirement. If the client’s requirement is something we have overlooked on our platform, we get to solutionize together and ultimately improve the product as a whole – and this improves the business, creating a win for all!”
Have Covid-19 and Singapore’s Circuit-Breaker measures changed the way you work with SmartUp’s clients?
“Pre-Covid, we have always been in close contact with our clients over email or calls. I would not say that has changed much, there are just more emails and calls and even messaging now. The only thing that I am missing is meeting our clients in person.
In general, I can feel that everyone is more caring now, be it clients, partners or vendors. It comes across in emails where they start with “hope you and your loved ones are keeping well” and signing off with “stay safe”. The pandemic has broken down some formality in business and brought everyone closer together, bringing out the kinder side of us all.”
Now that you can’t meet some of your clients in-person as frequently as you’d like, do you miss the interaction? Why?
“I miss the casual parts of in-person meetings where we can talk about less serious stuff, before or after discussing business proper. I also miss meeting over coffee or food and greetings such as handshakes or hugs. We might not see the immediate tangible benefits of these little actions but the trust and understanding built over in-person meetings do strengthen the partnership and help everyone work better together – almost like colleagues.”
Without the frequent interaction, what do you do to make sure your customers remain top of mind? Is it easy to be “out of sight, out of mind”?
“If we do not proactively keep in touch with our clients, it is definitely easy to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I do think it helps that we have quarterly client reviews where we get to check in with our clients on how they are using the platform. Otherwise when there is relevant content for my client, be it content from our course library or just content creation tips shared by our instructional designers, I will drop them a note to inform them about it.”
Can you tell us more about Smarties 2020 and what is the message you hope to send to your clients?
“Smarties 2020 is to recognise the different ways our clients are using SmartUp and the awesome work they have put into making it a success! We are looking forward to more breakthroughs with our clients as our platform will be nothing without our clients spending the time and effort in driving it forward.”
Find out who are our winners of SmartUp’s inaugural Smarties here.
