In this spotlight Q&A, we caught up with Karen Nugent, CAKE’s Client Services leader with over 20 years of experience in digital media and SaaS organizations. She is passionate about helping customers get the most out of the CAKE platform, achieve their business goals within their expected timeframes, and nurture customer relationships for long-term growth and success.
Here are some highlights from our conversation.
What is your role and tell us about your journey at CAKE?
As CAKE’s Senior Director of Client Services, I oversee our Client Services Team that includes the onboarding and training, client success, and technical support groups. I joined CAKE in August 2013 as a Client Strategy Director to support our enterprise customers and help them maximize their usage of CAKE to more efficiently run their businesses. As the company and Client Services Team grew I was promoted to the Senior Director of Client Services. In this current role, I am focused on client partnerships as well as all internal management of our groups and processes so that we can provide the best service to our customers.
What separates CAKE’s onboarding, training, and customer support from other SaaS tools?
It truly is the incredible people that make our Client Services Team so exceptional. We know that supporting customer relationships is essential to sustaining a long-term business partnership. So we do just that. We build partnerships with our customers to really understand their unique business models, and provide solutions that enable them to meet their business goals. Since CAKE’s inception, we have established a precedent of putting our customers at the core of everything we do. Every CAKE employee really cares for our customers and is invested in making them as successful as can be while leveraging CAKE.
How has CAKE’s Client Services Team pivoted to help customers handle changes due to COVID-19?
Like most companies, CAKE transitioned to working remotely and the change was seamless for my groups. Together, we continued to create initiatives geared towards helping our customers succeed. We’ve increased the frequency of our video calls, which has improved both customer engagement and overall customer satisfaction. Since March, we’ve also rolled out free support for every single CAKE customer, in addition to a more formal quarterly business review (QBR) process for our customers. With the QBRs, we can more easily and regularly deep dive even further into our customers’ businesses, including their company goals and metrics of success. We explore any challenges they may be experiencing from a holistic perspective as opposed to just looking at one segment of their businesses. We then provide a strategy and specific solutions for how CAKE can help solve their business challenges.
The Client Services Team is hard at work on building additional ways for customers to interact with CAKE and share their feedback. We can’t wait to roll out these initiatives with our customers soon!
Three words that describe how you work?
Empathetic, efficient, and organized.
Outside of work, what do you enjoy spending your time doing?
- Agility class and practice with my French Bulldog, Penelope! You can follow her on Instagram @PranceswithPenelope.
- Since I live near the beach I like to take advantage of riding my bike to the ocean and going for a nice swim.
- I also love to spend time with friends and family enjoying delicious food, whether in my hometown or somewhere else in the world!
What do you love most about heading up the Client Services Team?
Can I say it again? The people! I work with tremendously smart, energetic, positive, and empathetic people who make for an outstanding client services team. I pride myself on how caring the employees are and how they are always willing to go the extra mile to help our customers. The Client Services Team has truly helped turn our customer relationships into true partnerships, going above and beyond just providing support.
What are the interesting trends you have seen from customers in the last year?
Growth, expansion, and a willingness to participate. Our clients continue to grow and use CAKE to do so! It is really gratifying to know that solutions within our platform allow for businesses to experience growth when they are implemented. Additionally, our clients seem to adapt to changing trends in the marketplace and subsequently expand their overall offerings with their partners. Finally, our customers have really stepped up to help influence the CAKE product roadmap and the features we develop through our exclusive customer community, The CAKE Idea Portal, and customer surveys.
How can new or existing customers get the most out of CAKE and what advice do you have to offer them?
Nurture relationships. From day one, commit to building strong relationships with your partners and continue to nurture those relationships to create a mutually beneficial partnership.
Keep your finger on the industry pulse. Stay up to date on industry trends, privacy laws, browser initiatives, and digital marketing best practices. The CAKE blog is a great place to keep tabs on the evolving performance marketing industry.
Lean on our Services and Support Teams. Leverage our onboarding and training, client success, and technical support groups to discuss what you want to achieve. We would be thrilled to partner with you and give you a personalized roadmap for success. Finally, if we don’t have an out-of-the-box solution to meet your needs, we just might be able to build it for you. CAKE has an additional Professional Services Team dedicated solely to providing custom solutions that enhance business processes for our clients.
To learn more about CAKE’s customer support offerings, visit our website here.
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