Certify’s management team spends a lot of time thinking about what makes a successful startup. We study all the latest unicorns, as well as companies that are demonstrating more moderate levels of success, searching for common themes. We reflect upon our own successes and failures, seeking to extract valuable principles that can be applied to future situations and events. In this blog post, I want to share some insights that have worked for us here at Certify, as well as some valuable nuggets from two fellow CTOs at other exciting technology companies.
Since Certify early days, we have worked to define, refine, and crystalize our company culture, boiling it down into ten core values. Each of the ten values has a single keyword that expresses it. Those ten keywords form the acrostic, CPR SERVICE.
We find that we achieve our most successful outcomes, as well as the most satisfaction in our work, when we give our customers CPR SERVICE. Frequently, our customers come to us beaten and bloodied, emotionally damaged by other software vendors and the poor treatment they have received. We can hardly blame them for what comes next – they start off by transferring pent-up anger and wrath from their former vendor to us. We have seen the pattern so many times that our knee-jerk reaction is to perform CPR SERVICE. When confronted with an upset customer, our employees have learned how to stop and think to themselves, “This customer needs us to prove that we care. They need to know we are listening. When we prove that we care, then they will experience customer happiness.” And then the employee proceeds to apply CPR SERVICE. What is CPR SERVICE exactly? I’ll save the details for another blog post, but at the most basic level, it is putting the customer first while demonstrating the highest level of integrity.
CPR SERVICE has been so effective, that our management team regularly receives direct communication about specific employees and their exemplary service. We just received a voicemail this week from an 85-year-old man, absolutely thrilled with the kind and helpful service he received from one of our Support Experts. When we receive these glowing reviews, we take the opportunity to share it across the entire company, giving formal recognition to the employee. Our goal is to cultivate an atmosphere of CPR SERVICE and recognition, and here at Certify, we have learned that this culture is one of the secrets to startup success.
I asked John Boxall, CTO at Mobify, for his ideas on what makes for a successful startup. He was kind enough to share what he calls his “Zen of Mobify.” How exciting! Anytime someone gives me their carefully curated list of startup wisdom, I pick up my small cup of hot green tea and listen closely!
What I especially like about John’s list is that these points are intentionally somewhat nebulous. We are supposed to read them and then ponder them. They are not explicit statements with simple, one-off applications. These are very “sticky” phrases that are meant to remain in our thoughts and guide us through lots of varying circumstances. And so, without further elucidation, here is John Boxall’s “Zen of Mobify”: Read more.
