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Throughout December and January, we will be sharing Reflection stories from some of our Qualtricians. These stories reflect on the last year and beyond — recognizing the good and the bad, the struggles and the successes. Today we are featuring a story by Cole in Customer Success.
My name is Cole Hammond and I’m a Customer Success Consultant serving on the Public Sector Portfolio team. My team supports our public sector clients who are doing enough work to need some tailored guidance and support, but not quite mature enough to require the white-glove service that our Covered Team provides. Within the Portfolio team, I work almost exclusively with our federal clients.
Is there a project or something that had a big impact on you and your team this year?
Video Feedback was an absolute game changer for Customer Success. Across the public sector, this feature rollout proved to be a great way to kick off upgrade conversations with our customers. Video feedback has been groundbreaking for customers interested in bringing their focus groups in-house and customers who are interested in accessibility.
What are you most proud of in 2022?
Everyone knows that the last-minute three-pointer from out deep never fails to make a crowd go wild, and rightfully so! When we score proverbial buzzer-beaters at Qualtrics, it’s an incredible feeling and it deserves to be celebrated. Before that can happen though, there are the countless layups and hours of preparation and practice that go into mastering the basics. For me, 2022 was all about nailing the fundamentals. I started with Qualtrics in June and was able to get fully ramped and integrated with the phenomenal public sector team at Qualtrics by year’s end. I’ve left myself and my team in a great position going into the new year, and I’m very proud of that.
2022 has been quite the year, if there's one thing you'll remember it for what will it be?
Change. When I think back on 2022, I’ll remember it professionally as a year of change. Coming to Qualtrics was a big change for me, and ever since I started the changes haven’t stopped. The market at large has changed drastically in the past year, and we’re starting to make some major changes to how we work internally. This amount of change can be overwhelming at times, so 2022 meant a lot of learning to ride the wave of change.
If there's one story you'll tell about 2022, what would it be?
My favorite memory from this year has to be my first day in the office. I started onboarding with Qualtrics in June, and I had my first day in the office on June 16th during Portfolio's team-building day. Walking into the office for the first time to be immediately greeted by a basketball court and a manager eager to show me around was a great experience. I’ve never worked in tech before, and I immediately fell in love with our beautiful Provo campus. My team was the icing on the cake, who all went out of their way to make me feel welcome and answer all of my many questions.
What's something that you did in 2022 that you didn't expect to have so much autonomy over?
I never expected to have quite so much autonomy over my role and how to achieve my performance metrics. My teammate Jack is an absolute wiz with our dashboards and consistently impresses clients with his technical expertise. I don’t know that you could meet a more authentic partner than my co-worker Ashely, and every client she meets with can feel how invested she is in their success. When I approached my manager to clarify what is the “correct” way to support our customers, he made it clear that there are lots of ways to partner with our clients. We are allowed, and encouraged, to tailor our approach to the needs of our clients, and I love that about Qualtrics.
Moving into 2023, what lessons will you be taking with you from this year?
I came to Qualtrics from a much smaller organization, and Qualtrics is a big company. There are a lot of great things about working for a larger organization, but I’ve quickly learned how that size can work against me if I’m not fully embracing the Transparent part of our TACOS values. The more I’ve prioritized communication with my team in portfolio, my AEs, and the organization at large, the more I’ve been able to leverage all of our institutional knowledge and talent to win.