5 Things I’ve Learned From Our Customers

Guest Team Letter | Kaitlynn Kool | December 10, 2024

Our friends at Saginaw ISD welcomed us for a visit the first week of December.

December 10, 2024

Hello Alpaca!

While I’m out this week recovering from the marathon, our own Kaitlynn Kool volunteered to share with us a little of the world from her perspective. It’s our first Team Letter guest post! I hope you enjoy. See you back at it on Monday! — KB

5 Things I’ve Learned From Our Customers

Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten a chance to talk to more active Alpaca customers than I normally do. In my day-to-day, I typically find myself talking to folks who could be potential customers with us, who are interested in what we do and how it could make their lives easier as a school leader. It’s not as often that I get to meet with our current customers and see where our awesome packs land every month!

Of course I love showing potential new customers all about what we’re building, especially when I see something ‘click’ for them during a sales demo call or conference booth conversation. But, it makes me even more excited to see and hear active customers absolutely loving Alpaca.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned from my recent customer visits:

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1. Our customers are incredibly generous with their time.

Principals love seeing us show up with their packs, and I’m always surprised at how often they take the time to chat with us, tell us about their experience with Alpaca so far, and share what their day to day is like as of late.

Cynthia Bailey, a Westside principal who Alissa and I delivered to last month, even chatted with us all throughout her lunch break. She told us how excited she is about their new building that’s going to be ready to move into soon. She told us about the new community health clinic that will be part of that new building, an amazing new resource that will be available for the students and their families to receive care. She even recommended a book to us, “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt, because we got on the topic of kids and screen time.

I’m sure she would’ve shared more of her time with us, had she not gotten called on her walky-talky (ummm, can we get office walkie-talkies!) to go take care of a student issue.

2. The Little Wins really do matter.

Almost every. single. principal. I meet mentions how much they LOVE the resources. Almost every single potential customer I talk to for the very first time on a sales call mentions that they either regularly use the resources, or that it’s how they found out about Alpaca.

We all know this, but I’ll say it again: RESOURCES ARE WORKING!

These beautifully made resources that Alissa and Morgan create every week are doing exactly what good lead-gen content is supposed to do: deliver value and build trust.

Also, educators just love the term Little Wins, even before they know what it is. They see the sticker at our booth at conferences, or the daily desk calendar, and are hooked right away!

3. Our customers feel reassured knowing they aren’t alone.

When we delivered packs to one of our local Omaha schools, we asked our client how she’s been liking the survey and what she thinks of the results. Again, this was last month, so after October Pulse results had been sent out. It was also the middle of November, with Thanksgiving break still being two weeks away, and you could tell all the principals were feelingggg it.

She told us she didn’t feel great when she saw her October results, that there was noticeably more negative sentiment reported, and she felt like she was doing the best she could, but felt discouraged. After we told her that that was the case with most schools in October, she looked visibly more relieved and happy, right away.

THAT is why our new benchmarking feature will be awesome for these principals, (oh, and it’s already live, heyyy!) because it will make them feel less alone if they have a tough month.

4. Actionability is important.

And it will become more and more important as we grow, especially during the “slump months” of the school year.

For example, one of our newer customers came up to our booth at MEMSPA last week, and while she had great things to say about Alpaca and what we do, she had concerns about how to address the results with her team (since they were a bit more negative), and particularly how to share them. I told her the same thing we told that Omaha school, that it was a challenging month for lots of schools, and that she isn’t alone in feeling that way! Alissa will be meeting with her next week to share some ideas so she can get the most out of Pulse. Now THAT is what I call care for the customer!

5. They’re telling their friends!

“Thank you Brandy Welch, light of our lives” we all say in unison! No, but really… Brandy is the gold star ideal customer because she truly gets the product, is vocal about how it helps her in her day-to-day work life, and sings our praises to other principals in her district!

We’ve now gained three additional customers in Waterloo Public Schools (four down, four to go!) because Brandy told them how much she loves us. The best part of it? Those three demos were the easiest I’ve done so far because they already get it, they see someone they know already seeing results, and they’re ready and eager to get started as soon as possible. More of that, pretty please!

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My biggest lesson: always take the opportunity to talk to customers if you have it. Whether it be a pack delivery, at a conference booth, or just asking to pop in and say hi if you randomly find yourself driving through the state of Michigan in a truck with your boss! (#truckthoughts) They just might — they absolutely will — teach you something new!