Skill Struck is a 45-person startup with employees across the country and a legal headquarters in Utah. Its mission is to provide equitable access to computer science for K-12 schools.
Since the launch of their platform and their first partnership with a school in 2019, they have been growing rapidly to meet the increasing need for computer education in early education.
In order to fuel this rapid growth and hire top talent, they've decided to hire from East to West regardless of location, thus becoming a remote company by default.
Nurturing client's relationships
As the workplace is being reinvented, old traditional practices like meeting your prospects in person can prove challenging. Yet it is often during these occasions that you learn important things about your customers: What makes them laugh, sad, or nervous.
Skillstruck's Customer Success team has resisted the classic Zoom building relationship in favor of creating several learning retreats called Skilk Summits for their customers and prospects.
The Customer Success and Marketing team is often very busy and has little time to plan those retreats. With the first event date rapidly approaching, the team needed assistance to make this event successful in such a short timeframe.
"Imagine not having WIFI for 3 days while working remotely, this is the equivalent of stress TeamOut saved us when planning for this event" Director of Customer Success at Skill Struck
Seeking help to shortcut the planning process
A careful evaluation of multiple vendors later, Skilstruck chose TeamOut for three primary reasons:
- TeamOut was able to get faster responses from venues and vendors due to their privileged relationships with their network of partners.
- With more than 150 retreats to their credit, TeamOut knew exactly what it took to make this event successful and sped up the process without sacrificing quality. Among other things, they took shortcuts by pointing us to the right locations and vendors right away.
- TeamOut's team was on top of things and understood what needed to be done before the deadlines. Having that part of the process covered, relieved Skill Struck of the stress they had been experiencing before they got in touch with Teamout.
"We definitely saved weeks of coordinating everything by using TeamOut" Director of Customer Success at Skill Struck
A curated experience designed to educate and close sales
The following program was assembled in a few weeks using a combination of TeamOut marketplace and trip designers.
"TeamOut made the collaboration so easy. It never felt like more was put on my plate but maybe a couple of calls of what I wanted and boom, everything was ready after that" Director of Customer Success at Skill Struck
Zermatt, Utah
It was determined that Utah had the lowest flight cost based on a careful mapping of each customer's location using the flight estimator. With its wide range of team-building activities, Zermatt Utah became an immediate favorite. There are a myriad of activities available in the area; from skiing or snowmobiling in the winter to zip-lining, river rafting, or horseback riding in the summer months, making this hotel a great choice for team retreats.
Midway, Utah's Zermatt Resort is an ideal, year-round getaway conveniently located between Park City and Sundance and only 55 minutes from Salt Lake City International Airport with direct flights from major US cities. They offer very competitive rates and have convenient meeting space and excellent catering services, making it perfect for conferences and workshops.
The full agenda
The trip was designed with a balance of workshops in the morning and exciting activities in the afternoon in order to optimize for fun and learning without overwhelming the agenda. The overall idea of this retreat was to also be a relaxing and re-energizing experience.
See full agenda here.
Increased customer loyalty and more sales
According to Donaly Crull, Head of Customer Success at Skillstruck these events have been an absolute success.
"Our customers who attended our retreats not only became much more engaged with our mission and product but when we organized a retreat for leads in our pipelines it closed a good chunk of those deals" Samantha Sappenfield, CMO at Skill Struck
As Skillstruck plans these events twice a year, they have been relying on TeamOut to streamline and automate the planning process.
"The customer experience was our favorite part of using TeamOut ! Everything from the sales rep to the team on the day of the events is great. The partnerships that they already have setup with local vendors make everything so much easier for someone wanting to put together a retreat." Director of Customer Success at Skill Struck
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