Back in September, seven Gleansters across Customer, Commercial and Technology (including Engineering, UX & Data) headed out on a four day trip to Minnesota with the objective of fostering a deeper understanding of our customers and user base.
During the trip, our Gleansters met with several higher education institutions where they conducted in-depth interviews, allowing us to gain valuable insights and knowledge on customer challenges, workflows and desired outcomes.
These face to face visits allowed the team to observe real-world use cases and witness how Glean's products and solutions are used first hand. For the Technology team, listening to feedback that can help with product development, identify areas for improvement and better support customer needs was a great way for them to stay ahead of industry trends.
The Customer team were also able to put a face to a name and further expand their relationships and trust with customers who genuinely want the best outcomes for their students and learners.
What was the highlight of the trip for you?
Rachel Swift (Software Engineer): “It was pretty awesome to meet the students that use Glean. Sam did an amazing demo on campus and the students that came had so much love for the product.
When your day to day is spent in visual studio code, it can be easy to miss the impact of what we do. The students' enthusiasm and stories really helped remind me why we built Glean.”
Emma Smee (Senior Data Analyst): “Meeting everyone at the institutions - they were all so welcoming! It shows what an amazing job our Customer Success team does at building relationships, they really wanted to look after us when we visited.”
Blake Searl (Senior Software Engineer): “It was great to work with and hang out with departments that I wouldn’t normally speak to on a regular work basis. I got to understand more about what people do and what is important to them, and also got to socialize with some really cool people.”
Mala Benn (Head of Engineering): “I was really excited to see how much Disability Support Services (DSS) love Glean!
They play a key role in making sure students with disabilities have equal access to education and campus resources, providing accommodations, support, and advocacy. With Glean, we've helped solve so many of the challenges they face.
By empowering students to take charge of their own learning through effective note taking, we’ve really made an impact. It was great to see that for ourselves.”
What was the benefit to you and your role having the opportunity to meet our customers in person?
Emma Smee (Senior Data Analyst): “As someone new to my role, the whole trip was the most amazing opportunity to get to know more about Glean and understand the world from our customers’ point of view.
I was able to see, first hand, the way we are able to change a student’s academic experience which reinforces the purpose of my role.”
Mala Benn (Head of Engineering): “Due to the changing demographic of college students - the New Majority - it has put a lot of pressure on Disability Support Services (DSS). They're often a small team with limited staff and resources, but now they’re having to support a growing and more diverse student body.
That’s why as an engineering function, building more features into Glean to support these students will be a huge help for DSS, making their jobs easier while giving students the tools they need to succeed.”
Nicole Nash (UX Designer): “A huge part of my role as a UX Designer is empathizing with the people that use our platform. Getting to meet with our customers in the place they do all their amazing work really helped me to understand their experiences; above and beyond what I am able to capture through emails or video calls.
I left the trip with a whole new level of empathy that I am able to apply day-to-day when trying to solve the problems our customers are facing.”
What surprised you most about meeting end users?
Emma Smee (Senior Data Analyst): “The number of students each admin has to support, it only reinforces the point that we need to make a product that is easy to use that is incredibly intuitive!”
Blake Searl (Senior Software Engineer): “The dedication that the admins have towards improving the wellbeing and outcomes of the students that they support.
A good proportion that we met had a disability and had gone through education at a time where there wasn’t as much awareness or support available. They clearly want to make this better for the current generation of students.”
How did you decide which customers you were going to visit?
Sam Robins (Customer Success Team Manager): “Minneapolis quickly rose to the top of our list when we started planning a trip. It's a real hub for us, with over 15 institutions we partner with across the city.
But the plan for the trip was born at the AHEAD Conference in July when Angus and I got speaking to a few of our amazing customers, Shamma at Macalester College, Allie at Mitchell Hamline School of Law and Katie from St Thomas.
We shared some initial plans and they were so keen for us to come visit. Their passion was infectious, and really got the ball rolling for the whole trip. So that was that, the start of our plans to Minneapolis were confirmed that night.”
How did the trip meet your expectations of what you wanted to achieve?
Nicole Nash (UX Designer): “The visits met our expectations and more! Before going, we discussed and decided on what topics we were interested in learning more about and arrived with a list of questions and a set of shared goals.
Through the eye-opening conversations we had with our customers, we deepened our knowledge of them in these areas, whilst also learning about experiences we never would’ve expected to hear before going.”
What has/is going to be implemented with the feedback and observations made with customers and users?
Emma Smee (Senior Data Analyst): “The discussions we had have inspired many sessions within Glean; they reinforced the importance of being able to remind students of their recording policy, the banner for this went live last week.
We’re also doing lots of work behind the scenes to try and make more data available to the institutions. The first step of that is the Customer Success team has a report they can generate to provide an overview of usage but we are investigating how we can make more information available within Glean Admin.”
Outside of meeting customers, you got to embrace some US activities and food - how did this add to your experience?
Emma Smee (Senior Data Analyst): “Allie and Kate took us to see a Women's Basketball game - it was great to experience the atmosphere whilst spending time with our customers.
Also shout out to Angus who sought out all the best coffee stops, made sure our eggs were cooked just as we liked them (over-easy!) and explained what all the specialities were... including biscuits and gravy.”
Mala Benn (Head of Engineering): “Minneapolis is also known as the “City of Lakes” so we made sure to visit Lake Minnetonka as recommended by Allie, some of us had a swim, and we also visited Minnehaha Falls which is a wilderness waterfall on River Mississippi but in an urban setting.
I felt that we got a nice mix of city and outdoor life in Minneapolis.”
Find out more about what it's like to work at Glean here.
