I work at Cloudpermit, a U.S.-based software solutions company for community development. We empower local governments, development communities, and the public with online land management processes for planning, building permitting, and code enforcement. 

My title is Director of Customer Success, North America, and I lead our team of Customer Success Specialists, Managers, and Support resources to implement, advise, and support various levels of government with their planning, building permitting, and code enforcement needs.

How big is it?‍

Cloudpermit is made up of 45+ staff across our Leadership, Product, Customer Success, Marketing, and Sales Departments.

In Customer Success, I manage 5 Customer Success Managers and 1 Customer Success Specialist.

‍Where are your teammates located?‍

Our team is in the U.S. (IL, FL, NH, and VA), Canada (B.C., Toronto), and Finland (Tampere).‍

What does your team do? What are you responsible for?‍

The Customer Success department is responsible for three key functions – implementation, support, and customer success. ‍

Implementation: We implement our software solutions for local governments across three countries in record-setting time.

‍Support: We receive, triage, and resolve customer issues, bugs, and feature requests. ‍

Customer Success: On a monthly and quarterly basis, we reach out to key resources for each of our clients to ensure they are up to date on our software solution, we are meeting their needs, and have our ear on the pulse of our client’s needs.

Leadership is the most important component of a strong remote culture. Leadership starts at the top and trickles down, but not in the way you’re thinking; it trickles down by empowering your staff to be leaders in their tasks, clients, and deliverables. When you do that, you create a culture of responsibility and accountability.

We commit to weekly or semi-weekly one-on-one sessions that are dedicated to the customer, not the leader or manager. Our remote team can provide their insights, concerns, needs, and goal updates. We make sure any admin updates are done at the beginning of the one-on-one session to allow the team member to have as much time as they need to discuss what they need.

We also commit to weekly sip-and-learns, so our whole team grabs their favorite drink at the end of the day on Wednesdays, and a different team member presents on a relevant topic every week. This can be on anything from product updates, implementation success stories, client feedback workshops, or professional development.

Each team member is responsible for their project (including updating project notes, confirming dates, and following up on any customization tickets with our Product Department). We leverage Jira to track all our projects.

To keep in touch, we use Teams and WhatsApp to create groups – Teams is used for work-related matters, and we use WhatsApp to share fun posts and company-wide wins.

Remote work requires autonomy, time management, and personal accountability. Depending on each person’s background, sometimes those qualities are strong, and sometimes they’re not. When they’re not, it requires a level of micromanagement that can pose a challenge when you’re working remotely. When this happens, we work hard on daily plans, and I commit to physically meeting with that team member to dive deeper into their professional development.

All of the above. Each half of the year, we have a kickoff that gets everyone together as we drive the next half’s expectations and KPIs. We will break out ‘sip-and-learns’ to just chat sometimes and we share personal stories when we can to build a rapport stronger than just a work bond. At times, we will have in-person leisure functions and we always go to dinner together if we are in-person.

Not with me, but the resources that live near each other frequently hang out 3-4 times per month outside of work.

Normally each resource has the floor about new happenings.  We are a close-knit team so these can at times be icebreakers and, at other times, we end our calls with happenings.

We use several tools and products to help build culture and culture – Teams, WhatsApp, our software Cloudpermit, and Trainual. Teams is great to engage as a department to share department-wide news and updates, and it engages the team better than email. WhatsApp is leveraged for more personal or social company-wide conversations to give a break from day-to-day work and helps everyone feel more connected to one another. We make sure to stay connected and boost each other up to maintain good morale and positive work culture. It’s important at Cloudpermit that we work as a team and staying connected helps us do that.

Cloudpermit is our proprietary software and the key IP of our company, and we use it daily with an established mentor/mentee relationship to train, engage, and empower staff. It’s also important for us to keep track of our standard operating procedures and onboarding courses to give our team an opportunity to train and improve their skills, and as a bonus, it also allows us to work together on time management goals.

There are so many great resources out there that can help you grow as a leader. One of my favorite sites that has a lot of fantastic leadership resources is Masterclass, and I’m subscribed to the Harvard Business Review where I get a free management tip of the day that keeps me engaged. I also recommend reading The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni, The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, and The Best Team Wins by Adam Robinson.