Keap is an innovative B2B company delivering products and experiences that empower thousands of small businesses to grow and thrive by turning leads into happy clients.
In order to help so many customers succeed on a daily basis, Keap remains dedicated to fostering an equally empowering employee experience. A large part of delivering that experience is making sure each member of the team is supported, heard, and acknowledged.
To learn more about how Keap uses Polly to deliver such a great employee experience, we caught up with Allison Burke, Keap’s Manager of Internal Communications & Experience. She explained why feedback is crucial to supporting her team.
“We want our employees (Keapers) to feel as though they can share feedback at Keap, and we truly want them to have a great experience. It’s important for us to hear their voices so we can support them.”
Weeks with surveys; a day with Polly
In the past, Keap used a third-party solution to gather feedback as part of its annual employee survey. Quarterly feedback was gathered through similar surveys.
Using these methods, it would routinely take several weeks and multiple reminders to reach a 70% response rate. It was a lot to manage, and that process ultimately resulted in survey fatigue for employees.
By replacing more heavyweight sentiment surveys with a quick, contextual polly, Burke and her team were surprised to find that they received a number of responses that would normally come in over several weeks within the first day.
Automated onboarding saves hours while delivering a consistent experience for new Keapers
Onboarding is a crucial part of the employee journey, and Keap uses Polly to help guarantee a great onboarding experience for each new Keaper.
“The software we build is all about automation, so we love when other tools allow us to automate, and Polly allows us to do that for onboarding, which is really cool.”
When we bring on new Keapers, we add them to a Slack channel called #new-keapers. As soon as they join the channel, that triggers an automated process where a polly goes out on their first day, as well as 30 and 90 days in. It helps us review our process and make changes where needed to ensure a great experience.”
Transitioning to remote work without skipping a beat
Transitioning abruptly from an office environment to full-time remote work is a challenge no matter how well you’re set up. Like many others, the Keap team left their office in late March. Within the space of a few weeks, they were fully remote.
This sudden change meant Keapers needed to find new ways to support one another in their roles. One of the simplest, but most important steps early on was to check in with fellow Keapers, using Polly to ask a few key questions:
- Do you have the tools and technology you need for your role?
- Are you getting the support you need from your leader?
- Are you getting the communication you need to stay connected?
By checking in, the Keap team could catalog requests and identify Keapers who may have missed a communication and follow up to make sure they had everything they needed to be successful working from home.
“I think COVID has been a forcing function for many of us to re-think which roles can be performed remotely,” Burke said. Capturing ideas and sentiment was a crucial step in supporting team members in those roles. “Pulses allow us to support employees more holistically than we would otherwise.”
Staying engaged as a distributed team
While working remotely can offer several benefits for both businesses and employees, it can also be more difficult for teammates to connect and bond. Knowing this, Burke and the Keap team put their heads together to make sure they’d still have plenty of opportunities to bond. She shared this about their strategy:
“After we all transitioned to working from home, our team rolled out a new channel in Slack called #the-clubhouse where we have various programming to help Keapers connect with one another.”
Keapers also do Polly trivia sessions twice a week.
“Weekly Polly Trivia has been a popular activity - we have had leaders request we run Trivia in team huddles as well! It fosters engagement and has helped us stay connected with other Keapers we might not normally be in meetings with.”
A safe transition back to the office
Many employees appreciate the flexibility working from home provides; however the Keap team recognized that there are reasons it might not be ideal for everyone.
Some employees wanted or needed to return to the headquarters, and it was Keap’s goal to provide that option for the team as soon as it was possible to do so safely.
“As restrictions lifted in Arizona where we’re headquartered, we started to make our office available on a voluntary basis to employees who needed a dedicated space to work.”
The Keap team used Polly in multiple ways to help make their workspace available to those who needed it.
“Pulsing with Polly initially helped us gauge interest in returning to the office, but it also helped us manage the intake process for those who wanted to return. It also gave us a way to check in daily, making sure everyone who chooses to work from the office on a given day is feeling healthy.”
Tips from a Polly pro
As someone who delivers so much value to her team through Polly, we asked Allison to share a few tips to help other users get the most from their experience.
“Think beyond the basics. Every team is different, and there are a lot of unique ways to leverage Polly.”
Quick feedback is just the beginning. Keapers use Polly for everything from employee experience to team bonding.
“Think about how you’re going to communicate why you’re sending a survey with your team so that they are excited to give feedback versus feeling survey fatigue.”
Polly’s customization options make it easy to focus your message so your team understands why their input is so valuable and how it will be used.
“Consider your strategy so you’re not inundating your team, but you still capture the information you need to support them.”
A short, single-question Polly is a great way to gather quick feedback like health check-ins or standups on a daily basis. For a longer, multi-question Polly, consider sending less frequently. If you have questions, your account manager is a great resource for tips and advice.
Moving forward
The Keap team already found Polly to be helpful in many ways, but Allison and her team are always thinking of new places where a quick, simple means of capturing feedback could improve current processes or make new ones possible.
From automated, contextual follow-up on internal IT tickets to bringing instant feedback to leadership during all-hands meetings, Burke and her team continue to find new ways to innovate with Polly and bring more value to Keapers every day.
