Each day, everyone at Springworks comes into work with a true passion for building products and tools to simplify the lives of hiring and recruiting managers. We are artists, innovators, achievers, and dreamers, with a one-track mind to fine-tune the products that we build on the blockchain, achieving precision. We showcase our team members, their roles, and what a typical day looks like for them through this series of posts. You can check all the posts here.
Naga Manikandan joined Springworks in July 2019. Before Springworks, he worked as a Business Development Executive at an EdTech startup where he was involved in both up-selling and building selling strategies. However, he wasn’t happy with his work there.
The interesting fact behind him landing at Springworks is that he didn’t intend to apply for a job role here in the first place.
He already had a job offer, but a stroke of luck introduced him to an opportunity at Springworks. He chose Springworks because he could see himself more aligned with the culture and job role at Springworks.
“Before Springworks, I had no direction in life,” he says.
Let’s dig deep into his overall journey with Springworks as a Product Evangelist.
What is your job like as a Product Evangelist?
I started off at Springworks by understanding the product SpringVerify from the core and the whole digital verification process that is followed here.
As a Product Evangelist, I find big problems that our SpringVerify customers are having, communicate with the marketing and product teams, and find solutions.
This can be a daunting task requiring technical knowledge of the Product, some creativity, and a lot of patience, so it’s important to have the right personality for the job.
Understanding the customer’s pain and coming up with the best possible solutions are the two things I love.
What are the challenges working in a Customer Success role, and how do you go about solving them?
The challenge is to regularly check in about how our product meets customers’ needs and whether there are areas for improvement.
When gathering feedback, pay attention both to feedback on the product itself and feedback on the overall experience of using the product – whether the documentation is easy to use, whether the transition to using the product was smooth, and so on.
Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond for a client.
A start-up was in the middle of its vendor transition process because they weren’t happy with their existing outsourced services.
Right after onboarding with us, they wanted their 75 employees to get verified, all at once. It turned out to be challenging for us because we had to communicate with them on a daily basis and make sure there’s no room left for the discrepancy. If there were, we would immediately work on it to resolve the issue.
The process was time-taking, of course, but we made sure to add value to the services we provide.
What is it that you love about your job?
My work isn’t repetitive here, which keeps me away from boredom and drudgery, which drives me to perform at a high level.
Also, by proactively relaying the gained insight and customer feedback to the product team, I can impact product decisions.
Walk us through a day in the life of Naga!
- Get up at 9 am
- Have Breakfast
- Start working at 10 am
- Check my Slack and work emails.
- Attend calls from clients
- Check my to-dos
- Catch up with the team
- Get work done till 7.30 pm
- Watch movies/web- series during breaks
- Have dinner
- Spend some time with family.
- Head to sleep.
What do you think of the team at Springworks?
The best organization I’ve been with so far! People are super encouraging, approachable, and you can easily speak out to anyone without hesitating! I’ve never seen a company where the founder is this approachable and reaches out to employees himself to make sure they are doing okay.
A great place to work, hands down!
What advice would you give to people working as a Product evangelist?
While handling multiple operations and tasks, we are likely to forget the key details. It is important to follow up with even the small attributes of a task and cultivate that as a habit. This is how one can be as structured as possible.
