Both at Airtame and further afield, remote work is more often than not structured within product or engineering teams. We’re not averse to thinking of such a policy for other departments, we just haven’t got there yet. Still, we’re proud to say that we have several remote workers as part of the Airtame team and due to that benefit from a more diversified workforce.

But not all companies think that way. Having remote workers can be intimidating because it requires employers to rethink management structures. And while it’s probably true that not all businesses find it advantageous to have a full-scale remote operation, building an effective remote team infrastructure does have major benefits that should be considered.

What is remote work?

There are essentially two types; permanently remote team members, versus workers that work remotely every once in a while. The definition of remote work stays the same, however, whatever the scale of the work policy. In this article, we define remote workers as those who work at least three days a week remotely. 

Remote work is a situation where one or more employees mainly work from another location than the office and communicate by email, telephone, Slack, etc. rather than face-to-face. This means that a workplace has to adapt communication and management methods in order to stay in touch with remote workers and make sure they’re not left out of important conversations, and feel just as much a part of the team as those congregated in an office.  

Another perk of remote work is that it allows employees to work outside of a traditional office space and be based in a different city or even a different country – or even just from home. It’s founded on the idea that work doesn’t have to be done in a specific work environment for things to get done properly.

The advantages of remote working

Flexibility. That’s really the main point worth mentioning. Most work done today is 100% digital, and that means we should be able to do it from wherever – yet that’s often not the case. Giving employees the possibility of doing their work from a location of their choosing will ensure a more enthusiastic workforce with a happier work-life balance.

Remote workers might even see this opportunity as a reward for doing a good job and thus feel more motivated to excel further.

Less turnover and fewer office costs are of course valuable perks as well, but we think it’s first and foremost about ensuring an employee’s wellbeing.

A few more pros – acquiring top, specialized talent in one location can be hard; it gives the company a more varied, international perspective; it can help sow the seeds for future business development – and opening new offices.

The downsides to remote working

On management’s part, remote working requires a lot of re-structuring. Not only that, remote working is mostly based on trust and in the faith that an employee gets the work done and structures their time appropriately to finish projects on time. Whether the employee needs a work permit or social security papers will fall upon management to figure out, for example.

If the trust and right means of communication aren’t in place, the remote workers will feel disengaged very quickly and management will not get the most out of that employee.

There’s also the strain and toll on the employee themselves. Even though remote working sounds like a bit of a dream scenario, in reality, it can be quite stressful because the employee might feel that they’re never ‘off’ or have to stay in touch at all times.

If no policies are in place to support remote workers, these employees by default can’t bring the same value to the table as their in-house colleagues.

Airtame’s remote infrastructure

Airtame currently has little less than 100 employees, five of them full-time remote workers. About one-third of the engineers work remotely several weeks each quarter, and several other teams enjoy the flexibility of semi-remote work throughout the year – although not as frequently as the engineering team.

For that to work, we have a couple of guidelines we try to follow. I conferred with Attila Sükösd, one of Airtame’s founders and semi-remote workers, on what those guidelines are.

“When hiring candidates (especially full-time remote workers), we put extra emphasis on communication as we’ve found that they need us to be more proactive for them to stay engaged,” Attila noted.  

We also try to bring in people as much as possible for social events during the year, just as we onboard them on-site, so they can meet their co-workers in person and form a more personal relationship.

Attila continues: “Once the onboarding process is complete, we sync remote workers and the team up on a daily basis through standup sessions (a roll-call or daily scrum where everyone relays their projects and activities).”

How to establish a successful remote team infrastructure

First and foremost, being successful in this endeavor requires a lot of the individual remote worker, not just management itself. These are the two most important variables to factor in when setting up an effective remote infrastructure:

• Culture: Culture isn’t just about social events and in-person gatherings, it’s about a positive tone-of-voice across all channels and platforms. Remote workers should be encouraged to speak up, ask questions, and make themselves heard just as in-house employees should be encouraged to do the same and reach out to their remote colleagues. Prioritize frequent one-on-ones between the worker and their manager over video and include remote workers in all-hands sessions.
• Communication: Chat tools like Slack, Basecamp, and Favro ensure that communication is transparent and recorded, and we add in regular video conferencing. Beyond that, deadlines, check-ins, goals, and feedback will help create a stable foundation for the expected tasks. Oh, and don’t leave out remote people when important decisions are made. Everyone is equally part of the team, regardless of their location. Check out our guide to the must-have apps that make your business meetings run more smoothly.
  

Accommodate remote workers and get a more effective team

In a recent survey by TalentLMS, 88% answered that they would recommend a remote work career to others – and we’re all for it as well. You don’t have to go all the way and become GitHub where everyone works remotely, but supporting the right hires in what’s best for them will ultimately turn out to also be the best for your company.

Yes, there’s less traceability when you start allowing people to work remotely, and yes, you need to take some extra steps to assure you’re all aligned. In Attila’s words: “When you start trusting people to do a great job, regardless of where they’re sitting, you’ll find yourself having less of a need to “stay in control” and micromanage your team.”

Happier team = better work. It’s a win/win for everyone.

Did we pique your interest? Check out available jobs at Airtame!

The post Building an effective remote team infrastructure appeared first on Airtame.

In total, Airtame has about 90 employees, most of them located in Copenhagen, Denmark, where our headquarters is. In the beginning, the Copenhagen office took care of all areas such as marketing, product development, and sales, while the North American team – at that time a lot smaller – was mostly focused on sales, support, and demo calls. However, as the North American team expands and diversifies, so does their focus areas.  

Currently, our North American team consists of 15 members, the majority of them placed in a WeWork coworking space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They’re as much the backbone of the Airtame experience as our headquarters in Copenhagen. Here’s why.

Who are they?

It all started with one lone sales manager, Daniel Schiffer, all by himself in a WeWork office in South Station, Boston. He’s our Head of Sales in the North American region, and he’s since then built a super-team.

Right now, it’s an almost even split between salespeople and support, and we regard the unit primarily as a commercial team with limited development. Most of the product development happens at our headquarters in Copenhagen, though this is changing, with one of our senior software engineers relocating to the States, and new marketing hires on the horizon.

Our North American efforts are almost purely customer-facing, meaning that we’re here in the right region and time zone to take care of all requests and support right when it happens, and we leave hardware and firmware to the dedicated teams in Copenhagen.

How does the team function?

The sales representatives are split territorially and each covers a specific region. If they’re not in the office taking lots of calls, writing emails or doing web demos, you can often find them traveling so they’re on-site with resellers, meeting face to face with end customers and occasionally with distributors too.

They also attend Pro-AV tradeshows, both heavy-hitters and the more local ones. The team will go themselves or match up with someone complimentary to the work we do. Most of the events are Education sector focused, as this is our current market focus within North America.

Then there’s the other half of the team, the customer success side. They’re broken up into customer support and tech support.

Both support teams are focused on making sure that leads and current customers get their problems solved straight away. Seeing as some challenges are fairly complex and need attention right away, it’s fantastic for us to have a team in the same time zones as the challenges arise, ready to address problems as they come in with no delay.

A simple thing like working in a WeWork shared coworking space is actually one of the things that makes the team run so smoothly. WeWork takes care of all things logistical so the North American team doesn’t have to worry about any practical issue. Oh, and if they need to work from another location because they’re on-the-go, that’s fine too. If you’re a part of the WeWork family, every WeWork office is your home.

Differences and similarities between our two offices

Obviously, the two offices differ in size on the personnel side of things. In Copenhagen, we’re also focusing on product development and marketing efforts, and that’s deliberate. Such a big market as North America deserves a local, attentive team that is able to hear exactly what people need and what they need from a product like ours. In real-time. No delay.

With a local team, we’re able to dig in and be more nuanced about the process and we get to visit and travel and see people when they need someone from Airtame. We wouldn’t be able to grow as much without the focus on what’s going on specifically in this market.

One thing that always stays the same across offices, though, is the company culture. The North American office is their own little ecosystem, which has its own culture, but every Airtame employee no matter where they’re situated taps into our overall company values. Even as we’re scaling, we work hard to maintain a thriving company culture.  

The value of the North American team

While still relatively small in size, our North American branch has made a significant impact in the region.

Up until now, we’ve focused hyper-locally on a state-by-state level, building a customer base and attending local tradeshows. This year, we align those efforts into something bigger, exhibiting at professional tradeshows such as InfoComm, the largest pro-AV event in all of North America, and ISTE, the leading global edtech conference.

It’s a complete no-brainer for us; we have to show up at these events. It’s where the industry’s leading members meet, where trends are displayed for the first time, and obviously where we can find our current and future customers.  

Read about the trends we discovered at Integrated Systems Europe 2019. Integrated Systems Europe is InfoComm’s sister event in Europe and we had a strong presence there this year. Take a look at our learnings from exhibiting at such a big event.  

In North America, we experience many customers that handle larger organizations with several locations, such as a large-scale enterprise with many branches or a school district with numerous schools represented.

Being in relatively close proximity, we can help out, thus meaning they don’t have to waste any time trying a setup that doesn’t work or wait for answers to their many questions.

Check out how simple an Airtame business rollout is and the equivalent for an education setup.

Support when and where you need it

We didn’t open up an office in New York because we wanted to or because it sounds cool on paper. No, it was because it was a necessity for our business to grow and for it to continue growing. We call it value for our customers rather than pure entrepreneurial spirit.

We encourage open communication and a sense of community. If you’re a customer with us, we’ve got your back no matter where you’re located.

Have you got any questions about the North American market? Give us call. Plus, we’re hiring! Swing over to our hiring page for more info

The post (Re-)Introducing the North American Airtame team appeared first on Airtame.

The work that goes into developing a new product is not always obvious, even when the Product teams who develop the products are sitting a few steps away from Sales and Marketing. It takes the motivation of the teams working with product development to create that awareness within their own company.

To help our company better understand the product development process, our Hardware team initiated the Hardware Community project.

The Hardware Community project aims to reinforce Airtame’s strong culture so that our work processes reflect our solid social ties. The project aims to create more transparency and, more importantly, to help the company as a whole identify with the new hardware products we develop as we continue to grow.

Better together

Like in many tech companies, fostering strong work relationships between product teams and user-facing teams takes constant work.

We don’t mean to brag, but we at Airtame have strong social relationships between our teams. This didn’t happen on its own. It took a conscious effort from our founding team early on to create an open culture that encourages cross-team collaboration.

We believe it is vital for every one of our employees to understand the Airtame product from all aspects. It is not unheard of to have someone from the Product team or Marketing team jump into the customer chat support to experience the challenges our users might face firsthand. In fact, we wrote a piece on our all-hands support program last year.

The value this creates for our customers cannot be underestimated. When everyone in the company has a deep understanding of our products and how they’re created and used, it makes it possible for us to create a truly user-friendly solution.

How does the Hardware Community project achieve this alignment within our team? By holding internal info sessions that dive deeper into existing and upcoming products and their features, they give Sales and Customer Success teams a new perspective of our products, which brings huge value to our users.

For example, the Hardware Community project has held talks on topics such as Airtame’s mechanical construction or the form factor of Airtame 2. It helped clear up any confusion around our new Airtame 2 product.

Talks like these give the Sales and Customer Success teams a chance to share their insights from their daily interactions with users. Our software developers, who are part of the Product team but on the software side, join in to share their ideas on performance testing and ideas for optimization.

By combining our product-facing and user-facing knowledge, we make the best product we possibly can.

This project goes beyond the doors at Airtame. The Hardware Community project also aims to build stronger relationships with the external product development community.

Learning from the best

Our team is no doubt talented and passionate about product development. Part of being at the top of your game, however, is finding industry leaders to consult with. This is vital to our research and development on any project, for instance, when we worked on our RSDB WiFi chip for the Airtame 2 with our supplier, Cypress.

An important reason why we reach out to the experts in the product development community is not just to learn from the best. Knowledge sharing is a two-way street, so of course, as part of the community project, our hardware team plans on sharing their learnings publicly.

 

Giving back to the hardware community

As our team grows and learns, we want to share our learnings with our community.  Writing pieces that showcase product development is a nice start, but we also want to meet our community face to face.

We have already hosted two events since the project was initiated.

Our first event was a talk on sustainability at Herningsholm HTX/HHX upper secondary school in Herning. We had the chance to talk about the ways Airtame develops with sustainability in mind, such as our sustainable packaging, product optimization to minimize waste, and logistics and supply chain improvements to name a few topics.

We most recently hosted a student visit from Aalborg University’s Department of Architecture, Design, and Media Technology at our new Copenhagen HQ in March. Students from the Industrial Design program came to tour our office, hear how we do user research and hardware development, and got hands-on in a workshop on product interaction.

The Hardware Community project has more exciting events planned in the coming year, so keep an ear to the ground for more news!

Would you like to talk about collaborating on an event in the future? Reach out to us and be sure to mention the Hardware Community project!

The post How our Hardware team builds products in a community appeared first on Airtame.

Now that we’ve taken the first bite out of 2019, we think it’s the perfect time to speculate on the future of the workplace, for this year and beyond.

Here are some of the trends and changes we foresee coming to offices across the globe this year.

Technological office trends that shape the digital workplace

The future is wireless

The smart office is a reality. We’re not just connected to each other, all of the things in an office building can be interlinked. Smarter technology gives us the freedom to roam and brings about a more dynamic way of working.

Being connected means we gain specific insights into performance stats that can help us improve our routines. Lighting, ventilation, heating, room scheduling, presenting … all of it becomes a breeze when we’re hooked up wirelessly to an intelligent network.

An intelligent office is more dynamic and efficient, and we think we’ll start seeing more of that in 2019. Going in a more wireless direction means that your business becomes more agile, intelligent, and collaborative.

Going BYOD saves time and money

BYOD or “bring your own device” is steadily becoming more popular in many workplaces. It gives employees who bring their own smartphone, tablet, laptop or “virtual assistant”, such as a smartwatch or voice-activated assistant, more freedom to do their job when and as they please.

In addition, employees actually work faster when they utilize devices they are already familiar with and it reduces the cost of having to equip every employee with tech gear they might not be comfortable with.

That means that personal smartphones, wearables, and applications stop being only at-home playthings and instead become increasingly integrated into the workspace. They keep track of our progress, schedule appointments, respond to messages, and help us with errands and meetings. As the virtual assistants become more sophisticated, they will eventually free up a lot of time for us, the employees.

We predict even more mobile assistance this year as well as more focus on BYOD environments (and the security issues that follow).

Watch this short video explaining how the Airtame 2 works in a BYOD environment:

The Digital Age calls for enhanced security

With more wireless connections and many mobile devices hooking up to internal networks, we’ll also see more data stored on the cloud. It’s a big blow to companies if that data isn’t secured well enough. We predict more focus on cybersecurity efforts in the 2019 workspace.

And that’s not all. Physical privacy is top-of-mind too. Companies are also opting for more personal privacy by creating smaller, enclosed spaces where employees can take a phone call or meeting without the rest of the office eavesdropping, for example, an office pod or call booth.

If you need a guiding hand, check out our article on obtaining enhanced network security.

Is a reception area for you?

The reception area isn’t necessary for all sizes and shapes of organizations. We made a small guide here to help you figure out if it’s for you. For larger companies with many visitors, a reception or lobby is absolutely vital, but the very nature of the reception space is seeing some change.

There’s isn’t always as great a need for a receptionist to be tied full-time to the front desk. Instead, companies are using smart sing-in kiosks and other signage solutions to welcome and guide visitors. Technology can help guide, inform, and support your guests in their visit, and smart solutions like sign-in kiosks and proper digital signage are just a few of those initiatives.

Workspace design trends that increase employee engagement

Healthy people = good work

It’s a pleasant transformation to see companies focusing more on the humans that do the work rather than the other way around. After all, we spend a good chunk of our lives in the office, and if we connect with our workspace and feel comfortable there, we’re more likely to invest energy in it. If you want an employee that feels ‘at home’ and great about putting in more time, invest in comfort and wellness.

But how, you ask? It’s all about the way we perceive the rooms we work in. If you include elements that are dynamic and stimulating, it makes for a happier work environment. Sunlight, good air quality, plants, healthy snacks and access to outdoors can all help counteract the static, dormant conditions of sit-still work. And if you want to take it even further, opting for recycled work materials, a clean work environment, and CSR programs can make a big difference too.

According to the Harvard Business Review, wellness programs don’t work unless leaders create a culture of understanding and acceptance. We think corporate wellness will be more inclusive and thought-out in 2019. When done right, wellness programs can boost confidence (and thus productivity) as well as prevent burnouts.

Once you go “green” …

Every office creates waste. The more people, the more waste. Soda cans, plastic bags, food waste … In 2019, we think employers will opt for greener, more environmentally friendly solutions and focus on recycling and finding simple ways to be more energy-efficient.

We’re starting 2019 off at Airtame with two recycling bins reserved for cans, one for used batteries, and a firm promise to eliminate plastic in the kitchen.

The “green” mindset doesn’t stop there, however. Including nature-elements such as ‘green’ walls or natural elements like wood will make the office seem alive and welcoming as opposed to cold and mechanical.

Office trends that create a “home”

Diversity drives innovation

Embracing people from different cultures than your own can prove to be enriching and productive for the work environment. Just take a look at us – 90 people and 30 nationalities represented, and we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.

We see this as a continuing, deeply significant trend. Human Resources and People teams this year will look into how they can continue to grow businesses in ways that positively reflect cities worldwide. Moreover, they will focus on how to do this in a way that is constructive for company growth.

But diversity is so much more than a language or skin-deep construct. It also reflects how multi-faceted the thoughts and feelings of the staff body might be, and how these teams have to go to some lengths to accommodate every type of professional.

Increased flexibility boosts satisfaction

Experience-based office designs, remote working, shared office spaces … yes, the 2019 workforce is even more focused on flexibility in the workspace, and a modern office needs to take that into account.

Coworking spaces around the world (here’s a list of our favorites) have already embraced this trend of increased collaboration, flexibility, and community management, but more ‘traditional’ companies are starting to follow suit.

We predict that companies will allow for more personalized spaces in the office, such as remote working zones and designated team collaboration areas.

A fat paycheck isn’t everything

A fat paycheck just won’t cut it anymore. Attracting and retaining top talent requires intimate knowledge of the individual and their individual needs. Playing around with these perks will ensure that employees feel supported, even empowered, rather than looking at them as mere money makers.

Something that can make a big difference to a lot of employees is a retirement plan or health insurance. Struggling with financial challenges is emotionally challenging for anyone experiencing them, so an effective financial program will eliminate that stress and leave the worker less worried and therefore more focused on the tasks at hand.

Others perks could be stock options, tuition grants, paying off student loans, unlimited holiday, unlimited remote work, choice of hardware … the list is long and the options are many, and choosing just one or a few of them is sure to leave a lasting, positive impact on employees.

Community management drives company culture

Community management is hard in this period of individualism. The employee experience and the human aspect should, therefore, be prioritized. That means workspaces need to cultivate community-like environments with creative spaces to share and facilitate ideas. Breaking down walls and designing recreational areas a good way of evoking that feeling.

Business meeting trends that streamline working

Huddle spaces help productivity

With an increasingly diverse workforce and more flexible arrangements, the 2019 workspace needs more than just a conference room and cubicles. Huddle rooms or smaller collaboration spaces give teams the privacy and collaboration tools they need to be productive (described by us here).

Stay aligned with virtual meetings

Because the number of independent contractors and remote workers is rising, the need to dial in from afar is greater than ever. The remote workers need to be kept up to date with what’s going on at headquarters and businesses need to tune in to what their clients are saying on the other side of the globe.

That’s why we’ll see an increase in virtual meetings in 2019. AV gear is now so good that it’s almost the same as being in the room with the person you’re calling, so there’s no excuse not to equip your office with conferencing equipment. It reduces cost in the long run as you won’t have to travel further than your designated meeting room to have a chat with someone far away.

People matter more

In 2019, there’s an increased focus on people metrics. How you design your workspace plays a significant role in performance and productivity. Physical working conditions, mental health transparency, and an overall increase in flexibility. Why? Because people matter. Support the employees and you will reap the benefits.

These are just some of the office trends we can start to predict from the communication we have with over 18,000 organizations. Any we missed? What are you excited about seeing? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Additionally, if you’re curious to kit your office space out with Airtame, reach out. We’re here to help.

The post The future of work: office trends in 2019 appeared first on Airtame.

It’s been a marvelous 2018 for Airtame’s people team! It started with bringing in two strong players. Mark Gray took a leadership role in People team aiming to scale People Operations through the company’s growth. Ana Visan, the most organized person and the best problem solver joined us as an office manager.

Together we have achieved incredible results that helped the whole Airtame company step it up this year.

Here are some of the key 2018 outcomes:

• Doubled the size of the team from 40 to 88.
• Narrowed the gender gap 25% of the company is representing our Women in Tech community (while it was only 15% in 2017).
• Kept a high score of employee engagement (a rating of 9.3/10 – as generated from the service provided by our friends at  Peakon).
• Implemented two HR systems, Bamboo and Greenhouse, that help us with employee management and maintenance, and recruitment processes, respectively.
• Successful handling of new and utterly confounding GDPR concerns.
• Implemented sick and vacation policies.
• Moved to a new temporary but fantastic HQ in central Copenhagen.

Beyond the headlines, I discovered some things this year that will help me to make better choices as a People person in 2019.

How to learn from our differences

We grew substantially in 2018 – with 48 new employees joining our now 88-strong team. This amounts to 28 different nationalities.

But it’s so much more than a number. For me, this growth has made me realize that I was amazed at how people with different backgrounds and experience can change my way of thinking, work approach and the overall magnitude of our projects.

I didn’t change my perception of the diversity completely but I grasped it on the deeper level. We learn and improve from our differences, and that’s something we want to focus on in 2019.

Scaling the business while saving the culture

There was a big revelation in autumn this year when our CEO and co-founder Brian stood up in an all-hands team meeting and highlighted that “We are no longer a startup. We are a company now.”

There a lot of cases when startups just fail. We have found a way of succeeding. However, we stay humble and try to make sure we don’t go from a DIY startup spirit to a suit and tie enterprise overnight. That’s a team effort, but the People team are accountable for carrying the torch for our company culture.

The hardest part about scaling a company is not losing track of the things that made you great in the first place.

Airtame today is different from Airtame 1 year ago, but we still have this charming mix of an enjoyable, energetic and balanced environment; where people can try new things, have fun and learn from each other, all while building an awesome product.

The big challenge for 2019, is looking at how we define that culture – built from our startup days – within the new “company” status we have earned.

The importance of a smart workflow

As we have grown this year, we started feeling the urge to build new People processes and optimize the old ones.

One of the biggest issues we had to solve was a decentralized recruitment process that requested a lot of time and resources from team leads.

First, we identified four key interview steps:

• Initial interview with a recruiter.
• A task that helps us see how a candidate thinks and rationalizes their work.
• Interview with a hiring team member.
• Final, cultural fit interview with potential teammates.

We conducted thorough research about possible tools to help create a harmonious hiring experience and decided to go with Greenhouse. The platform helps us optimize the entire process – from job ads to applications, screenings, and interview scheduling – plus provided insightful recruitment data thereafter.

We also had to establish an internal framework that would let us to optimize the onboarding/offboarding processes and organize HR workflow. We value the role of modern technologies in everyday life, and thus decided to take the Human Resouces Information Service (HRIS) called Bamboo out for a spin.

Bamboo helps us automate the most of internal processes – such as logging sick and holiday days, presenting onboarding procedures and outlining team structure – all while boosting our productivity.

We’ll continue to uncover the benefits of the HRIS in 2019, starting with the way we conduct 1:1s, set team goals and establish performance reviews.

What about 2019?

It has been a busy year, full of challenges and wins. But there is the incredible number of fascinating projects that we will be working on, and a variety of obstacles that we will need to overcome in 2019.

Here are some upcoming projects of People team:

• Roll out of performance management program.
• Implement a career development plan.
• Develop a training program.
• Unify the style of interviews.
• Move to our official new HQ in the most beautiful spot in central Copenhagen.

And now it’s the time to rest up with friends and loved ones over the holiday season. Stay tuned. 2019 is expected to be a bold and exciting year for the Airtame team!

The post 2018: Reflections from the Airtame People team appeared first on Airtame.

That’s why I have an immense amount of respect for the Customer Success team at Airtame.

Our Customer Success team (learn more about the team here) is always on support for those of our users out there in need of assistance. Sometimes, they get help from their co-workers, like me. We call this “all-hands support”. I want to give you a run-through of what that process looks like and how it makes up the foundation of the Airtame employee experience.

Want to know the difference between customer support and customer success? Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered.

What is all-hands support?

All-hands support at Airtame is established as a 10-step program, with all of us getting the offer to join the customer support chat for 10 individual hours during which we get paired with a buddy from the support team to guide us through the problems we are likely to run into.

After finishing the program, the employee is awarded with a gift card or voucher plus public appreciation across Slack channel. Being celebrated and praised for helping out is a great incentive and also serves the purpose of sparking the interest of other employees.

Helping out on chat (we use Intercom as our customer support tool) is voluntary, but strongly encouraged from the Customer Success team, and upper management as well.

The Social Media management tool Buffer (which we use and love, by the way) actually recommends implementing a rule where everyone in the company spends around 5% of their total work time on customer support. That’s no more than a day a month or two hours a week. The reason why is super simple; to keep in touch with both the product and the customers.

The big guys like Zapier and Basecamp are fired up over the same idea as well, so don’t just take it from us. Even McDonald’s sets a requirement for every new hire to join the front of the line (I know, burger flippin’ isn’t the same as customer support, but there is a connection), no matter if it’s the CEO, accountant or an actual salesperson.

Joining all-hands support every once in a while is not just beneficial for company culture purposes but product-related issues as well.

Way back when…

Let’s go back in time for a moment so you can get the full scope of why we decided to invite all employees to join the support team from time to time. We start with the beginning; the founders.

After our initial crowdfunding success and the troublesome birth of our first product, the founding team took it upon themselves to reply to every person out there with a comment or problem.

Since then, we’ve done a lot of scaling (something I’ll get back to), and we actually hired 35+ people in 2018. That made it the perfect time for our Customer Success team to re-establish the “all-hands support” methodology.

The benefits of all-hands support for employees

All-hands support isn’t just about making the lives of your customers easier. It’s about changing how you work as a team and grow as a company.

Learn directly from your customers

Who will give you the unfiltered truth about your product? Your customers. Who can tell you about the challenges they run into on a daily basis? Your customers. You get the gist.

I know for a fact that everyone at Airtame who regularly joins all-hands support gets something different out of it. Luke, our Director of Communications, writes down the most common worries so he can create a content plan that addresses those problems and opportunities with the product. Andrew, our UX Designer, learns exactly what parts of his design are confusing and which are spot on.

And me? By joining all-hands support, I learn a lot about how to communicate with the customer when they’re frustrated.

Learn to work in a stressful environment

Our average response time is a little less than 3 seconds, and we work hard on maintaining such a low response rate during standard working hours in Europe and on the Pacific time zone.

With the buddy system of all-hands chat, I can learn how to work steadfastly, aiming to get the best possible answer and advice to any customer on the other side of the chat window.

Learn what your product is all about

Sounds stupid? It’s not, I promise. Employees usually only know what the product is all about from the inside or, even more limitedly, from their own department focus. They don’t immediately consider the overall user experience of the product they help deliver to market.

Helping out on all-hands support forces everyone to learn about the product in general, as a user sees it, instead of just their focus area.

Learn to help

Not to be overlooked, learning how to help both your colleagues and your customers will make you stronger as a team as well as a company.

Sometimes a user might ask such a specific technical question that our customer support team need to lean on the expertise of others’ in the office, such as engineers.

By bringing the product team onboard in all-hands support sessions, an engineer is able to develop a more direct understanding of how their hard work lands in the hands of a user, and what blind spots they may have overlooked. We call that customer empathy.

That means more motivation to quickly solve issues and fewer support tickets in the future. All in all a happier team and better business!

The benefits of all-hands support for the customer

But what’s in it for you, the customer? Let’s break it down.

Better support

Our Customer Success team is incredibly good at taking care of our customer needs, there’s no doubt about it. But customer support can always be improved.

Our 10-step program improves our ability to provide technical, diverse feedback because more team members bring valuable knowledge to the table.

Better product development

Input a customer or lead presents to us is more likely to have a genuine impact on the product roadmap. If, say, one of our engineers encounter a problem first-hand in a chat session, they are motivated to fix the issue faster than if they hear it from someone else.

A better understanding of the product

I’m not talking about the benefits we, the employees, gain from knowing the product better, but rather the insights a customer gets from talking to someone in our team.

With more hands joining customer support, they get the chance to hear a specific solution to a problem, straight from the specialist’s mouth – and hopefully more quickly.

Why all-hands support should be mandatory for everyone

We have started thinking about making all-hands chat sessions part of the job description at Airtame.

When people start a job here, we expect them to set up an Airtame all by themselves and to learn more about the product by talking to other department leads – even join a demo call. Next step is making sure everyone understands our customers and how we deal with them daily.

We’d like to think our team is approachable and friendly, and we can see that in the feedback we receive from our support sessions.

We’re doing an awesome job when our all-hands support initiative is not only proving beneficial for our team, but when customers don’t even know they could be talking to a total customer success rookie like me, and still receive 5-star service.

Want to chat to the Customer Success team? Do it! You can reach out to us here

The post All-hands support: The benefits of joining your customer success team appeared first on Airtame.

In every office space, you need an area dedicated to bigger team assemblies. Room for all departments, individuals and maybe some visitors. That would be the all-hands room.

The essentials:

• All-hands rooms can be committed meeting spaces or double up as a common area
• They need to be kitted with good tech, most notably microphones/presentation tools
• In some form or another, we deem them essential for a scaling company of 30+ people

Check out our rundown of how you can improve your workspace with huddle rooms and office pods.

What is an all-hands room?

It’s a sort of town hall meeting space where everyone at the office gathers regularly to share updates and accomplishments, bring wider team alignment or host Q&A forums. In the all-hands room, you can gather for all-hands meetings.

The name really says it all, doesn’t it? An all-hands room is crucial for work environments that are advocating for flat hierarchy and it’s a space that encourages people to speak their mind, without being intimidated.

All-hands meetings are about the team. Team wins, team learning, team strategy. Running regular all-hands meetings has the benefit of empowering your entire staff as well as keeping them in the loop. And if you – like us – have remote workers in other offices or locations, this is the perfect time to connect with them as well.

At Airtame, we call it the all-hands room, but perhaps you call it the general meeting room or something entirely different.  We use the second largest room in our office because the largest is used for dining and not equipped with the VA gear we want for our all-hands meetings. It’s not perfect, but we’ll get back to that.

No matter the size of your company, you must have an area that can accommodate everyone for when you need to share a collective message. You can use the all-hands room for:

• Larger meetings
• Q&A sessions
• Company celebrations
• Updates
• Company-wide tactics
• Open forums
• Workshops

The key elements of an all-hands room

The all-hands room could be a room that’s already doubling as something else; your canteen, reception, larger conference room – maybe it’s a separate room, though ideally, it’s its own space.

Large

That the all-hands room is big should come as no surprise, seeing as it hypothetically needs to fit all employees in there, plus a few guests. Of course, as a smaller organization, your all-hands room doesn’t have to be extremely spacious, but if you have a large staff, then your all-hands room needs to match that.

Good seating

Equipment is crucial for the all-hands room, but so is good seating. We think desks aren’t quite so important – they would make the space too formal, and thus less approachable for people to speak their mind or, hint hint, raise a hand.

That being said, they do need a place to sit while meetings take place. Benches, for example, are a no-go as there’s no back support. We can testify to that! Find comfortable seats for everyone with good back support. Back support doesn’t mean bean bags – you don’t want participants to doze off either.

Well-equipped

Because it’s one of the largest rooms in your office needs to meet so many different demands, it should have the equipment to cater to all requests.

We’re talking big screens – quite possibly more than one – plus microphones and camera equipment to support video conferencing with your remote team members or clients. Collaborative tools such as whiteboards or interactive sketch boards will help flesh out all of the ideas that pop up when you all meet and get creative.

Flexible

What might be the biggest room in the workplace shouldn’t only be reserved for special gatherings once in a while. Design your all-hands room in such a way that it will meet various meeting needs – both for employees and outside clients who may want to utilize that space. Otherwise, this huge conference area will just waste space.

Ventilated and well-lit

Often overlooked in big spaces but certainly one of the most important points to make. A lot of people in the same, big room is bound to come with poor air quality. You want to make sure you can crack a window in the peak of summer, and that the lighting is inviting, though not dim. What you should go for is neutral.

How to set up a successful all-hands room

It’s important to have an area in your workplace where people can get together for bigger events or discussions. It should be separate from the main workspace so as not to distract those who might not be a part of whatever is going in there.

Additionally, if this room or area doubles up as another space (canteen, reception, work area, etc.) then you need to be able to transform it with ease so that it takes on more “weight” as a serious conference space.

An idea could be to have room dividers that easily slide to the side when you need the whole space ready but can serve as decorations or dividers for when more than one group want to make use of the space.

It’s also important to build a space that is inviting and encourages very active participation from all attendees. Just think about it – the bigger the room, the more likely people are to have reduced focus, be procrastinating or simply switched off.

All-hands room technology

You need a lot more than just a big space. It’s important to consider supporting AV equipment, depending on your company size. You should incorporate larger form projection spaces, conferencing functionalities and microphones for teams/individuals that are working remote or out of office.

Of course, technology should always be up to par with your team’s requirements but in the all-hands room, this is especially important. Microphones, and potentially a raised presentation space, will make it easier for presenters to get their point across.

Just make sure your tech solutions are not too complex, or you will end up wasting time trying to set it up or work it out. Go for something simple, yet stable.

Is an all-hands room for you?

Airtame’s all-hands room is by no means perfect for several reasons. It doesn’t have seating for all employees and the acoustics and sound gear aren’t the best, to be frank. But we have plans to set up a bigger and better all-hands room once we move into our new HQ in mid-2019.

As a company that considers itself to run a collaborative, open culture and workspace, we can’t live without an all-hands room. Everyone is encouraged to voice their opinions on how the new all-hands room should look like and what it should include – to make sure that it is, indeed, a room that works for everybody.

Likewise, you should ask your wider team how they imagine improving a communal space that’s used for cross-communication.

The core principles are pretty much transferable to any company of any size. What makes them distinctive is the requirements, skills and wants of your team. Without their counsel, this will end up being an uninspired and uninspiring place to listen and communicate.

The post Office essentials: the all-hands room appeared first on Airtame.

We have professionals with an engineering background that are leading the development of our hardware; we have sharp marketers that make our brand distinctive around the world; and amazing customer success representatives that can resolve any tech problem. Then there’s my closest colleagues from the People team, who are making sure we continue to grow in a diverse and scalable fashion, all while making sure the team is happy.

We have so many high-achieving ladies on board, but it can be hard to exchange lessons learned during a busy workday. We’re swamped with our daily routine and barely could find time for a chat and share ideas, concerns and discuss vital topics.

I wanted to arrange a small event for our women community that will help us to work on our professional development together, or just talk about the most prescient topics on our minds, and all in-person – a new Slack channel is not enough.

Salon … like a beauty salon?

I stumbled upon an interesting article from First Round’s former Head of Knowledge, Anita Hossain. She was sharing tips on how to make social work events successful and pitched the idea of ‘salons’.

Salons have been known from the 16th century, when intellectuals and socialites were gathered by an inspired host, committed to sharing knowledge and enlightening the community. Hossain sees the Salon as an event that “allows people to get to know each other’s goals and challenges quite well — especially when the same people are brought together repeatedly — unique bonds form.”

While salons aren’t gendered by definition, it was tempting to gather all talented ladies and discuss the most relevant questions.

My colleague and I started brainstorming issues we could cover, and we decided our first session would focus on the hefty subject of professional and personal development.

Ahead of the meeting, I communicated the subject to all attendees and asked them to prepare actionable examples and thoughts on the topic. The more prep, the better!

Our first salon

The day came for us to unite for a two-hour session. We tried to make this event as informal as possible, so it was “hygge” atmosphere (which is, in effect, Danish for “cozy”) that encourages people to open up and share their main concerns. We had some food, bought some wine, and very much considered the session as down-time away from the workplace. 

We went around the room, and everyone presented at least 2-3 stories on how they perceive personal development, and what it means to them as individual women within tech.

We all agreed that being reflective made us slightly vulnerable, but through this, we were able to build self-awareness and team trust – a foundation that has helped us define our workgroup.

The value of feedback

The second important discovery was about the value of quality and constructive feedback. It also helps us to define our shortcomings and master our skills. We talked about ways of asking for feedback and sharing it with our peers in a direct yet customary fashion.

It seems like most of us tend to overthink some work situations, mostly for the worse, and worry about upsetting a colleague if we are critical. Again, this is where constructive feedback can step in – the fear of offending is more demotivating than receiving that critical, and perhaps severe, input in the first place.

We defined how we would like to receive constructive feedback from our managers and peers, in asking:

• What do you think about X situation?
• What do you think about my approach? What would you do differently?
• What are your concerns about X?

This may seem simple, but actually providing a framework for giving feedback is crucial for transparency and personal growth within the tech industry, and beyond.

As further homework, for those curious around this subject, I recommended reading leadership coach Kim Scott’s book, Radical Candor, which does a great job at disseminating use cases around the feedback-leadership paradox; on how to be a great, constructively critical boss and still humane in your approach.

Constructive learning

I shared a concept that I’ve heard about in my previous company, it’s called the 70/20/10 model for learning and development. The methodology can be broken down as follows:

• 70% of our personal and professional learning is from experience; the challenging tasks we take on, and the mistakes/wins we make.
• 20% of our education is coming thanks to our colleagues, friends and role models. It’s essential to observe others and learn from them.
• 10% of our learning and knowledge base is coming from books and courses.

I emphasized to the group that it’s important to be surrounded by people who you can learn from. This could also materialize in the form of mentorship.

Reflections

Women in tech is a growing force globally. Here, in our tiny corner of the world, we are a small but growing group and voice at Airtame. We come from 10 different countries, all with myriad education and professional histories, and yet we share a lot of common truths. This was the big learning for me in conducting the salon.  

We face the same challenges, we worry about the same things, and we all try to find the right way to develop ourselves. Now, acknowledging the similarities, we are a stronger collective force.

I hope that this continued move towards transparency and allowing for dedicated time to reflect – in something as enlightening and fun as a salon – can encourage positive change to the broader tech world, across Copenhagen, Scandinavia and globally.

Want to join our diverse team? Check out our open positions on the Airtame jobs page.

The post Women in tech: introducing ‘salons’ at your workplace appeared first on Airtame.

We’ve listed all the business meeting apps and tools that we find helpful. They are compiled into the following categories: Planning, Communication, Virtual meetings, Feedback – and Everything else.

There is some overlap in functionalities for some of the apps, just as some apps have similar features. They won’t all fit your needs, but some might solve the most obvious problems you face in a business meeting – both before, during and after the meeting occurs.

Apps, like many other digital tools, should support your work instead of creating more clutter. We think this list contains many suggestions that will help with exactly that. Consider this list a grab bag of possible choices where you can mix and match to your specific needs.

Jump straight to each category by clicking one of these links:

• Planning
• Communication
• Virtual meetings
• Feedback
• Everything else

Set yourself up to be a business meeting A-player and check out our 50 golden rules for better meeting etiquette.

Planning

This is the organizing phase of any meeting. It’s where you ask yourself how much time you need to set aside, who should join and what you’ll be discussing. Take note of these handy planning apps:

Zapier

Note-taking, calendar bookings, virtual meetings… Not Zapier. This is the app that connects all your other apps, and it’s awesome because you can automate workflows and routine tasks.

For example: If you get an email prior to a meeting in Gmail with an agenda attached, Zapier is triggered and copies the attachment from that email to your Dropbox folder while immediately alerting you in, say, Slack. Alternatively, you could set it up to trigger a video conference when your meeting appointment is about to begin. The possibilities are endless.

Source: Zapier

Zapier is a killer automation software, and when we say killer, we mean it. Because it kills all that time-consuming, annoying legwork you’d typically have to do yourself, leaving you with extra time and a smoother workflow.

Calendly

No matter what software your team or people outside of your organization are using, Calendly is embracing them. It makes it easy for you to organize meetings and let others pick available times because they’re not restricted to one calendar system.

It’s also the system that we use to process demo and support calls, and it’s invaluable for our Sales team. With it, all of our customers or potential customers can book a time to get an introduction to Airtame or get help with an issue.

Pick

Set your availability, share a custom URL with the people you want to meet with and have them book a time slot that fits your schedule. Pick is hassle-free and straightforward, and that’s something you can’t have enough of in business meeting settings.

FirstAgenda

If you’ve ever dreamt of having your own secretary, you can stop now. Assistant by FirstAgenda is basically like your personal assistant in an app.

Even cooler, Assistant uses speech recognition and machine learning to record your meeting and send out a summary afterward with the most important keywords from the meeting. Important decisions are archived, and you don’t have to worry about losing the minutes ever again.

Hypercontext

Streamline your meetings, whether they’re one-on-ones or include the entire team. Hypercontext allows users to create shared agendas anyone can contribute to, take notes you can automatically email out at the end of the meeting, and create post-meeting next steps to follow along with whose responsible for what.

JotForm

We love JotForm. This easy to use form builder will help you communicate more effectively across larger teams. Need to align on meeting availability? Use JotForm. Looking for team feedback on your last sales sync-up? Use Jotform. The no-frills UI makes the tool easy to use and and intuitive.

Communication

Communication is more about collaboration and teamwork than anything else. Even with the right amount of prep, your meeting isn’t destined to succeed unless you know how to stay in touch with the key people around you.

Great communication tools won’t just help you stay focused; it will help up productivity levels as well. Why? Well, good communication is a guard against missing any critical steps, omitting others or losing track of your purpose.

Slack

We’ve mentioned Slack earlier as a great time management tool, and we have to add it to the top of our list of useful tools for better meetings. If your inbox is always cluttered, how will you know what to focus on?

Slack is the best internal communications tool out there, and with its many app integrations, you never have to worry about things getting lost again. Set up meetings, forward agendas, remind invitees to attend and keep track of follow-ups. It’s also applicable for 1:1 video calling/screen sharing, something we often use when working remote.

Slido

Business meetings are not only about agendas and project assignments. More than anything, they’re about the people attending, the audience.

Slido is an audience interaction tool for meetings and events, where attendees can help drive the conversation with questions during the meetings or engage with live polls.

Comments and questions can be presented with a name, or anonymously. The anonymity will help bring forward more honest answers.

Dropbox Paper

None of us are strangers to Dropbox, the cloud storage service. Not all are aware that it’s a useful tool for more effective meetings. How? With files and folders online, you can share it with other team members and visitors, and you can even collaborate directly with others in Dropbox Paper, a document type designed for team collaboration.

It’s a useful tool for brainstorming or project-based meetings, where team members all need to contribute to one document.

It looks a bit different than Google Docs, maybe even refreshingly so. Many online collaboration tools are based on old-school paper formats, something only necessary if you have to print it afterward. It’s nice to see a format that isn’t tied to the past.

iBrainstorm

What’s better than a creative collaboration tool? A creative collaboration tool app! All your sticky notes and fancy ideas all have a place in iBrainstorm, just better organized and more accessible. It aims to replace the whiteboard, and because of its user-friendly interface, we can see how that could happen.

Evernote

Evernote has been called the best note-taking tool by many. We’re fans too. The platform provides several smart templates that make business meetings more productive, such as Meeting Agenda, Project plans, Timelines, and many more.

Share notes with your teammates, tick off items as the meeting advances and present your documents in slide mode. For individuals, Evernote is a great help. For teams, it’s a time-saving productivity boost.

Virtual meetings

More and more people are connecting to conferences and meetings online. For that to happen as smoothly as possible, you need a video connection that works and tools that drive your presentation.

Smart and simple apps for virtual meetings are especially helpful for blending in-house employees with remote workers when meetings are scheduled so as to not to leave anyone out.

Skype

Skype is quite probably the biggest competitor on the video conferencing market.

Because Skype is a Microsoft product, security is a big issue. So if you’re keen on that plus excellent integration with other Microsoft packages, then Skype could be what you’re looking for.

Skype for Business is free for up to 25 people to use. For larger corporations, Skype for Business has various plans that unlock more features and the capability of hosting bigger meetings, for example as a part of the Office 365 business essentials package.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts, a free HD video call service with instant messaging features and great conferencing options for up to 10 people and group chat for up to 100.

As it’s a Google product, it easily integrates with Gmail. Using machine learning, the Hangouts Meet service in Google Hangouts gets better at suggesting meeting times and booking meetings over time, which is a pretty cool feature.

GoToMeeting

We also want to mention GoToMeeting, a web conferencing software for conference calls. GoToMeeting hosts up to 100 callers.

It’s especially convenient for organizations that have colleagues all over because conferencing and even demonstrations are easy. You can share or turn over the control of the meeting if more than one is in charge and record important meetings for playback later.

join.me

Lastly, there’s join.me. join.me works directly from the web, meaning business meeting guests or remote workers don’t have to download external applications or the like.

It’s quick to host and join meetings with join.me’s simple interface. It removes the hassle of having to download cumbersome software, and there are lots of opportunities to personalize and work together.

We could have slack here for internal meetings as well

Feedback

Sure, meetings can be valuable without follow-ups and feedback, but we don’t believe they’re truly great if you’re not listening to inputs on how to improve.

Continuous feedback should be easy to track, follow up on and plan accordingly to afterward. These apps all help with the process of reaching organizational as well as individual employee goals.

Taplause

Taplause is a feedback management app. It’s designed for managers and business owners who aren’t in regular contact with customers or users. Taplause gives you all the negative and positive feedback instantly so you can focus on solving the issues that come up.

Duuoo

Besides team development and feedback, you want to focus on individual performances as well. Duuoo helps you secure actionable results through a performance management tool that keeps track of 1-on-1s, feedback, goals, and performance.

TruQu

You can’t reach your organizational goals without continuous feedback. TruQu is an easy feedback solution where you can ask and receive real-time performance feedback as an employee or customer.

This will help encourage employees and help them identify areas that might need improving, as well as tracking their progress.

Everything else

Team building isn’t just a Friday Bar exercise or something you do because HR said so. Regular team building exercises can increase productivity and higher job satisfaction, simply because you know who you have in your corner every day.

Even for regular-based business meetings, small teambuilding exercises such as survey questions before a meeting can help your team work more effectively and respectfully.

Kahoot!

Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform. You can administer quizzes, discussions and surveys, all in a game-based, mobile environment that grabs the attention of meeting attendees in a fun way while everyone gets to know each other.

Conclusion

It doesn’t have to be a hassle planning a meeting and following up. Find the right solution that’s going to keep you and your team motivated and more productive about setting up meetings, communication with your team and improving your business meeting structure with the right feedback.

Let us know if any of these apps work for you or if there are any other awesome apps out there you’d like to see on the list.

The post 19 must-have apps for better business meetings appeared first on Airtame.

And the good news – we’re hiring! Right now, we are looking for an NY-based Technical Support Representative to join our expanding, global team. Here are some of the reasons why you should apply to join us.

You’ll be helping people make the most of a great product

Airtame is a device for streaming content wirelessly. Airtame is used as a wireless presentation – and digital signage – solution in businesses and educational settings all around the world. Since getting started, we have sent out more than 100,000 Airtames.

In order for users to make the most of their screens with Airtame, we offer ongoing support via live chat, email, and phone calls.  We help train people in how to get set up and use Airtame the right way, and we assist if any issues come up. In addition, we focus on finding new creative ways to improve every stage of the customer journey – from initial awareness through to collecting feedback and upselling.

You will develop a variety of professional skills

Supporting people on a daily basis, and thinking long-term about how to help them excel in collaborative environments, is at the heart of what we do.

In helping to establish relationships with a wide variety of partners using Airtame – from startups to large enterprises and educational institutions – you’ll learn about the needs and the struggles of people who want to wirelessly use screens in presentation settings (such as meetings and classrooms). Here are the skills that you need, and that you’ll be building on, in a career at Airtame:

• Patience, attentiveness, clear communication, and time management: these will be key to engaging with customers on a day-to-day basis (both in written conversation and over the phone) in a way that is polite, clear, and efficient.
• Product/technical knowledge: understanding and being able to explain how screen mirroring works, how devices are able to wirelessly communicate, and the role that the physical and network setups play.
• Cross-team collaboration: working with colleagues on the Product, Sales, Marketing, and Engineering teams. This multi-level involvement means that you’ll gain a holistic appreciation of the Airtame product, services, and communication strategy.

There are no limitations to growth, and you can decide what areas you’d like to specialize in going forward as a member of the Airtame family.

The Customer Success team covers many different aspects of our customers’ experiences, meaning that there are opportunities for you to grow in the fields of:

• Support
• Technical support (physical hardware, software, and cloud)
• Automation (using software for planning and organizing marketing communications)
• Testing and implementing new projects
• Tracking and analyzing data

Find out more about our approach and the difference between customer success and customer support here.

You will be working in an environment that’s the right combination of friendly and professional

Airtame has two locations – one (our HQ) in the vibrant area of Christianshavn, in Denmark’s capital city Copenhagen, and another in the swanky WeWork office in South Williamsburg in New York City. Both workplaces present a lot of diversity not only in their surroundings but also in people that you’ll be working with.

We come from a variety of backgrounds and continuously collaborate across countries and cultures – both between our US and Denmark-based teams and with our partners and customers around the world. You’ll even get the opportunity to do some traveling for team building trips.

Joining us will mean taking on a steep learning curve and working alongside many different departments and clients. We hire ambitious talent whose enthusiasm is matched with challenging but gratifying work. On our CS team, we have an average response time of under 3 minutes when getting back to customers and an average satisfaction (CSAT) score of 90%. We hold each other up to high standards while being open and supportive.

With everyone from our developers to our CEO sitting in to talk to customers and leads, everyone gets to know about the people we interact with and how they understand our product. In turn, the CS team has a great opportunity to learn from the other departments within our flat working space, from marketing to hardware, sales and development.

You will have flexibility in how you fulfill your responsibilities

While you will consistently catch up with colleagues and our team lead, you won’t be micromanaged. We all trust in each others’ abilities and know that if there is any uncertainty we can always handle a case together.

Depending on which tasks you have, it may make sense to take a morning or day to work from home. Our office spaces are quite open, which makes it much easier to ask questions back and forth throughout the day. When expertise needs to be quickly shared, working in close proximity makes a lot of sense. Sometimes though you may want to get some things done in isolation.

While we do have quiet spaces around the office for that, you can also opt for working remotely.

You will work with people who are generally happy and positive

Some work days will inevitably be more challenging than others. That can be said about pretty much any job. The differentiator though is that at Airtame you’ll be part of a team where people do not let circumstances stress them out – or rather, people who don’t let a stressful situation completely take over their mood and the atmosphere in the office.

Here, you can be busy without being frantic. It helps a lot when that’s the shared attitude. Exercising a calm demeanor, even when assisting someone who’s feeling frantic, is a great disposition to master.

You will work for a company that cares about its employees as much as its customers

Airtame strives to be customer-focused, and the Customer Success team serves a core role in making this a reality. It’s nice to know that, while you’ll be helping many people on a daily basis, you’ll be contributing to a company that takes care of its people. From offering a competitive salary and parental leave to a daily catered lunch, fun events, a yearly workathon, quarterly hackathons and treats on your birthday, you will feel well looked after.

Jimmy has been on the CS team for over two years now, handling the marketing and automation side of the job. Here’s his take:

“Being part of the Customer Success team has been a very gratifying experience for me. I can see the direct impact of my actions on a daily basis. Combine that with a couple more very important aspects. One, the flexibility I’m given to act in my own creative ways. Two, effectively being able to branch out to almost any other team in the company.

All this along with all the fun we have in the process makes for an amazing opportunity for my professional development.”

How to apply

We are looking for a Technical Support Representative to join our Customer Success Team in New York – find out about the position (and how to apply) here.

Airtame is an equal opportunities employer. You can also visit this link to find out about other open positions at Airtame. We hope you’ll join us in making a wireless world possible.

The post Why you should join Airtame’s Customer Success team appeared first on Airtame.