Published December 29, 2022
Every smart business operator knows that to grow successfully, you need to retain your customer base. That’s why Picnic focuses on providing world-class customer support through stellar employees such as Vincent Liew and Sally Hall.
With more than 15 years of customer success management experience each, Sally and Vincent have both been with Picnic since 2021 and focus on providing integral support and service for the company.
Vincent is the first to dive into the details of what his role entails and how Picnic puts customers at the heart of everything. He starts, “we are customer success, and that encompasses both support and services. We don’t do technical support, that’s usually left to the field service engineers. However, we need to know enough to be dangerous.”
He continues, “our role is as liaison between the customer and our services, our engineering teams, and so forth. We want to speak for the customer but also be the conduit that transfers information and feedback to the engineering and product teams.
We have our hand on the pulse of the customer to read what their current sentiment is. We try to understand what their status is, their feelings toward the Picnic Pizza Station, and ensure that they receive value from their investment and partnership with us.”
Sally adds that “it’s also our role to advocate for the customers within Picnic. We share what we hear directly from external customers. We are in the kitchens more than engineers, so we see the station in use. We help prioritize some of the requests or push for certain updates and really escalate pain points.”
Sally was in software for 15 years before Picnic. “I’d been in the same field for quite some time, and I was ready for a change. A person I worked for at my last company was working at Picnic and brought me over, and I absolutely loved working with her. So when I learned more about Picnic, I was really excited about robotics and about learning more about this new industry. The people at Picnic are amazing, and it was just a really exciting opportunity. It made me want to take a chance on something new.”
Before Picnic, Vincent spent his days in various customer success post-sales roles, focusing mainly on customer advocacy and service delivery, with a particular emphasis on the software as a service (SaaS) domain space. His previous experience includes stints with companies including Microsoft, Apptio, Auth0, Amperity, Sprinklr, Conversocial, and many more.
He shares his journey to joining Picnic: “I was approached by a recruiting company and introduced to the VP of Customer Success. The main “hook” was when I was asked if I’ve ever heard of Robotics-as-a-Service and if I was intrigued with food automation. It just blew me away that I’ve been in the SaaS domain for decades, and RaaS was such a new term and domain space for me. Not to mention an opportunity to contribute to a new space and participate in food automation. Let alone an AI-driven, robotic pizza-making station?
It was a combination of conversations with my hiring manager and the opportunity to connect with Clayton personally that sold me on joining Picnic. ‘Where’s my seat on this rocket and where do I hold on?’”
Vincent sees his role as an essential link between the customer and Picnic. He tells us, “feedback from teams and partners of Picnic is important. Customers provide feedback so that we can improve our products, and it’s invaluable information.”
He continues, “they know that Picnic is cutting-edge technology, and they’re willing to ride this rocket ship with us and provide that feedback in good and bad times. Kinda like a marriage where there are good times, and there are bad times, and we’re here to ensure that that communication tunnel is continually going back and forth.”
Sally adds, “the feedback loop and keeping it fresh in people’s minds is so important—especially where we have a bug, and we have a workaround.”
“I think Picnic has outstanding customer success,” says Sally. “One of the things we get the best feedback on is our support and how we work with customers. We’re very high touch, and I’ve heard it referred to as white-glove. We’re extremely responsive if we don’t have someone that’s available to go on-site immediately. Picnic as a whole is very dedicated to making sure we’re fostering that kind of environment.”
She goes on to say, “I think as long as the customer feels like they can trust you and you’re being very transparent about the good and the bad. We try to be very understanding of our customers and how issues impact their business from day to day.”
Vincent and Sally are completely committed to being available points of contact for customers throughout the week. On a day-to-day basis, their roles are varied, with an emphasis on prioritizing any infield issues.
Outside of solving problems for customers, Vincent and Sally spend their time ensuring that they report back to Picnic about how customers are using the Picnic Pizza Station and what they’re producing works. “That’s a great indicator that everything’s going smoothly and it’s successful for the customer,” says Vincent.
He continues by sharing that “we have check-ins with our customers to ensure good customer health and hygiene, that everything’s going well, they’re happy with their investment, and there’s nothing that has come up that may be a risk factor.”
Vincent is keen to refer back to the feedback loop and how that provides constant insights to the Picnic team. “It could be working with our program managers on some new process that they’re implementing or testing our new ERP and providing feedback there, or working with our sales teams and helping them position a new customer and coordinating having potential customers come to a demo site.”
To help the team prioritize their workload, Picnic uses Jira as their ticketing system, and Sally shares that HubSpot is the company’s choice for customer relationship management.
Picnic encourages employees to explore their interests and hobbies outside of work. Sally shares that she is “obsessed with college football” and spends time volunteering with the Junior League in Austin. She also recently got a new foster dog, who she’s enjoying getting to know.
Vincent spends his free time focusing on his family. He has a super supportive wife and two young children, whom he spends most of his time doting on. He also loves cooking, baking, and hiking. “I’m originally from Vancouver, BC, so we love doing all the outdoor stuff, even if it’s raining out!”
Sound like a company you want to be part of? Learn more about careers at Picnic.