Written by Jim Tauer, Director of Customer Solutions at RoboHead
On a regular basis, our customers reach out to us simply to express appreciation for our customer support, personalized training, and true partnership that the RoboHead team provides on a daily basis. You’d think, based on this unsolicited feedback, that we have a well-oiled machine of a team with rock-star level leadership (and you’d be right). You probably also envision daily stand-up meetings, constant banter back and forth, KPIs and OKRs being met, goals being assigned and results blown out of the water.
What most of our customers don’t realize is that this level of customer service is accomplished without any of those things – and done by a small team that has worked 100% remotely for 18 years.
So how do we stay organized, communicate well, know who is doing what, and meet every deadline? We actually use the product that we sell – and it works.
While RoboHead is the best project management tool for creative and marketing teams, its flexible, customizable nature also makes it a powerful tool for managing the needs of our customers—new and existing.
Although RoboHead has dozens of features (and more being added frequently), our team mostly utilizes three core pieces of functionality: Schedules, Notes, and Reports.
Our process starts when a new customer comes in. A contract is signed, and typically within minutes a Project is created in RoboHead to track all the steps (Tasks) we need to complete to get them up and running quickly. This schedule is then shared with the customer, so they are on the same page with expectations and timing to get their team up and running with RoboHead. A Project Template is used for this, so we follow the same tried-and-true, repeatable process to set our customers (and us) up for success.
Once we start the implementation and training process, anyone in the organization can immediately know – at any time – where that new customer is in the process.
The benefits of having each customer’s implementation schedule all in one place are many:
✅ Sales doesn’t need to ask the Training team how things are going. It’s clear from the Project Schedule what is done, what’s not, and what is happening next.
✅ Senior management doesn’t need to ask direct reports for a “Status update”.
✅ Managers can keep a “pulse” on their team’s workload and shift priorities accordingly – all without having meetings or interrupting people during their workday.
✅ Customers who need extra attention can be color-coded with a “red” status – and we’ve set up email alerts on our Project form for when immediate action needs to be taken on something.
✅ Nothing is “Forgotten about” – Tasks are always front and center in each team member’s list. If something slips your mind, we get email reminders about what to do and when.
During the customer journey, we use RoboHead’s Notes features consistently and often. Notes are added to each implementation Project to track and communicate items such as:
✅ Customer goals, questions, concerns
✅ Touchpoints and action items
✅ Training points of emphasis to review later or follow up on
The great thing about Notes is that they are totally transparent – nothing is buried in a team members’ inbox, ticketing system, or notepad on a desk.
Our team is trained so that almost any relevant customer conversation be entered in RoboHead – so we can see the entire history of touch points, from contract signature through training completion and team adoption.
Finally, whenever we need to summarize information, we make use of RoboHead’s robust and flexible reporting features. Some of our day-to-day business needs solved by reporting are:
✅ Monthly business unit data – number of implementations in progress, on hold, canceled, completed
✅ Average timelines for implementation – we’re able to look at customers holistically for those that went well, and those that didn’t – and for the latter, use Project information to discuss and improve our processes for the future.
✅ Weekly status reports – which quickly show where each customer is at in their journey, what got completed that week and what’s coming up.
In summary, we simply couldn’t do the great things we do without using our own product. If you’ve tried using spreadsheets, status meetings, or email to manage your work, I’d encourage you to give RoboHead a try. Keep it simple using the core functionality of the product – and you too may start getting the same unsolicited, positive feedback from your customers as we do.
