Our distributed North American team recently descended upon Chicago for a rare in-person meet-up. Not only were we able to take in the sites, culture, and all the wonderful food that Chicago has to offer, but we also had the pleasure of attending UserConf, a 1-day customer service conference about keeping your customers happy.
WooTrips have become part of our work hard/play harder formula. The recipe isn’t an exact science, but we know these in person meet-ups help fuel the magic that is our culture.
The value of a trip like this for a team like ours simply cannot be quantified in numbers. How can you measure the excitement of meeting someone in person for the first time? What is the return on investment for shared experiences? What is the net profit of collectively attending customer focused conference? The bottom line is that in person retreats create energy, creativity, and long lasting memories for our team which is an investment that continues to pay dividends long after we’ve returned home.
Watch our short video above, edited by Danny Santoro, for more insights into this meet-up.
Below, our team describes the value of these WooTrips in their own words:
Meeting co-workers for the first time, priceless. Userconf experience further reinforces what our belief is, which is to be transparent with customers. Roy Ho
I liked learning about the different ways everyone does great support. Michael Tieso
UserConf was a great opportunity to hear from customer support people from around the world, from a variety of different fields, on things like how to streamline processes, communicate well with clients in a crisis, and scale for releases or aforementioned crisis beforehand. Kai Suess
UserConf was fun, engaging, and thought provoking. It was so valuable to hear from a collective of like minded people who are all about providing the best support possible. Ryan Ray
The idea that happy customers start with happy employees. It is important to do what it takes to help keep our employees engaged, interested, motivated and also empowered to make decisions on behalf of the company. Maria Scarpello
Userconf taught me any crisis can be reverted by being human – communicate, communicate, and communicate. Thu Quach
It was great getting a chance to meet my team – in just a few days really connected and built a strong team bond we couldn’t get anywhere else. Danny Santoro
Userconf showcased how other tech companies were handling the customer experience and how we could improve. A torch was held in the darkness of tech customer support. Erica Kuschel
I was able to chat with other professionals doing the exact same job in a different industry. It was a rare opportunity to talk about the fundamentals instead of the tech. Patrick Rauland
Finally, we’d like to give a big shout out to Sarah Hatter for hosting such an awesome event and for going the extra mile to help us attend.
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GET BACK TO WORK!!!
With all the problems you’ve been having lately, every single WooThemes employee better be securely in front of their computer 24/7!
You have to work hard to play hard. Clearly there’s more playing hard than working hard!
Tim
Thank you for taking the time to reply. The beauty of our distributed team is that we are able to work from anywhere and did so on our trip to Chicago. As explained above, we also attended a conference focussed on continuously improving the customer experience.
Good job bringing value to the conversation Tim.
WooThemes team: Thanks for all the work you do!
Looks like alot of lessons learned and Woo is the stronger for it. Well done to all the American crew and keep up the great support work. I for one appreciate all the efforts by everyone in woo very much. Cheers
Thanks, as always! We say it often, but these kinds of meetups are crucial to our company culture. We always come away as a stronger and more cohesive Woo. 🙂
Had no idea there are Austinites on the team helping to keep Woo weird. Picked them up during a SXSW visit?
Two Austinites keeping us weird in the best of ways! 😀
Hmm, seems interesting. Seems like you have a lot of fun.