The Faces of ThankView: Katie Wiseman

It’s no secret we at ThankView like to have fun. If you follow us on Instagram — which you totally should — you may think that’s all we do around here. Punctuating all those parties, blind taste-offs and annual award shows is some actual work performed by real humans. In this new blog series, we’re interviewing the hard-working folks that make this company tick!

Today I had the pleasure of sitting down and chatting with Katie Wiseman, one of ThankView’s remote employees based in Springfield, Ohio. As a member of the Customer Success team, Katie is quite literally one of the faces of ThankView, and she helpfully agreed to be the first in this series of interviews. Huddled in a conference room, video chat fired up, I asked her a series of hard-hitting questions about herself and the work she does here at ThankView.

Without further ado, Katie Wiseman.

The below interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Josh: What is your title, and what does a typical day look for you?

Katie: I am a Customer Success Manager, and a typical day basically doesn’t exist. A lot of responding to emails, checking in with clients, working on any projects I’ve been assigned. Also meetings or calls I’ve scheduled ahead of time. A given day can really vary depending on what clients are asking for or saying.

You mentioned projects you might be assigned. I know Customer Success does a lot of different things — what sort of projects typically go to you?

I’ve been working on updating what we call the “CS 101”, so it’s the big instructions and kinda “how-to guide” or the manual for anybody that joins our team. It gives them a breakdown of how to be a ThankView CSM. So that’s something I’ve been working on.

We’ve also been trying to develop more material for clients, like a “Your Year of ThankView” calendar that can help them be able to schedule out their campaigns and get a glance at their year and how ThankView can not just be an add-on tool but an integral part of their strategy. We’re still developing that and figuring out how that will work. But those kinds of things come to me, very client-centered projects.

As a remote employee, this next question is a little bit interesting for you but, where’s your desk located? What do you spend most of your day looking at?

I didn’t really have designated desk space for the first 5 months of being employed here because I was sharing an apartment with three other people and it was tricky. But now that I’ve moved into my apartment with my husband, I have a dedicated desk space; you can kinda see we have all of our books here in this little cubby area here. I use this space mainly for calls and meetings when I need absolute quiet or privacy. But I’ll do a lot of my work at the kitchen table where it’s warmer and there’s natural light.

I also spend a lot of time out in coffee shops and the library, things like that just because I like that natural buzz of people and I’m way more productive in those kinds of settings than just being home by myself. So, I change it up. It depends on the day and what I’m doing.

When you’re ready to do your work in the morning, what’s the first thing you open on your computer?

Definitely my email and my client list. I stole Lina’s idea and created my own spreadsheet that has all my clients listed out and some basic information on where they’re at in their onboarding process or any special notes I want to remember about them, their locations, their contact info, things like that. It helps me stay organized and I truly can’t do anything without that particular document, or at least it would take a lot more time to get things done.

So moving on to some more getting-to-know-you questions, what did you study in college?

I have a BA in Linguistics with an emphasis on global engagement and minors in Psychology and Bible.

What about Linguistics appealed to you?

I originally wanted to be a Bible translator. Linguistics really capitalized on my natural capacity for understanding how language works and that love of human communication, how it shapes our identity and things like that. So that was my original goal. By the time I was shifting directions, all I had left was my senior capstone project so it wasn’t worth it for me to even try changing my major. And it’s a really flexible degree, I can really do anything with it so it was pointless to change at that point.

That’s really fascinating, I had no idea! What were you doing before working at ThankView?

I worked at my alma mater Cedarville University as the annual giving coordinator. There were two of us in the department, the director and myself. The director was basically a one-man show before they hired me, so it was a great opportunity to learn from her and help her accomplish some of the goals she had planned.

So I assume that means you found out about ThankView at Cedarville… What made you want to work here?

Yup! So we signed on with the platform and I was the main user. Once the director had played with it and had talked to JD, she handed it to me to use for a lot of our stewardship efforts. And I never really quit job searching either, because I didn’t want to be in advancement for my career, it was more of a stepping stone kind of job. I think I just liked JD and Lina’s personalities — Lina was our Customer Success Manager at Cedarville — I just thought they were really fun, really chill and I thought I’d just see if ThankView was hiring and you were so… the rest is history.

I think it’s pretty awesome we’ve now recruited a few former users of ThankView to the team. It’s totally wild.

Yeah, definitely!

So when you started at Cedarville, were they already using ThankView or did you join the platform later on after you had already started?

They had already decided to sign up for ThankView just before I started, so about the same time.

Got it, okay. And what was your first thought as to what ThankView did?

As part of my training, I was learning all the different programs we had and ThankView was one of them. I was new to advancement anyway so everything was like, “okay, this is a tool that helps us do this.” ThankView was by far the easiest to use in all the things I was learning and so I think I grabbed onto it more as a favorite just because it was intuitive, it wasn’t clunky and outdated. It was something I could learn really fast.

What’s something no one in the office knows about you?

I don’t find myself to be a really interesting person so, let’s see… I don’t know if I mentioned this or not, but my grandfather was Amish. I don’t know if that’s been shared or not but that’s my go-to party fact.

Wow, okay. I did not know that, at least! Did you know your grandfather well?

I did! He was Amish until he was 17, so it wasn’t a life long thing but we’re still pretty close with his nephews and nieces. One of my Amish cousins came to my wedding, so there were like 14 Amish folks at my very American, very English wedding. It was very funny, they had never done a cross-country road trip together as a family before. They hired a driver, rented an RV and made the 460-mile trip so, it was awesome. They took up a whole row in the church and took up like two tables at the reception. It was awesome!

As a remote employee, I know this next question is a little difficult for you, but what’s been your favorite ThankView outing or huzzah event?

I loved the holiday party and the Thankie Games. I’m sure everyone will say something to that effect, but it was one of the few I’ve been able to come to, obviously. But it’s really cool being able to interact with everyone in a non-work capacity. We all talk all day, but being remote I don’t get the casual office banter as much. We don’t grab drinks after work and that kind of thing. Being able to just be there for a week during the holidays and spend a lot of non-work time together was really fun. It was nice to see everyone get to just be themselves in a more relaxed kind of way so, it was a really cool experience.

Yeah, the holiday party is always great for that. It’s awesome you were able to join us! Do you have a favorite moment — or event, perhaps — from the holiday party you’d like to share?

I think axe throwing was probably the best event. I mean, whoever had the idea to have an open bar while we’re throwing axes was uh, brilliant and so stupid. But, I think that was probably the best moment of the day for sure.

I imagine you told plenty of people about your travels to New York and the holiday party. So, how do people react when you tell them about what it’s like to work at ThankView?

I definitely have incited a lot of envy among the middle-aged mothers of the world who are jealous of my ability to work from home and sorta set my own schedule in a lot of ways. I think jealousy is probably the most frequent reaction. It’s also, I think, that the concept of tech startups is not as notorious in Springfield, Ohio. There’s a lot of entrepreneurship and a lot of small businesses in this area, but they’re not really tech-related. When people hear about what we do and why we do it, more people are fascinated and intrigued. It’s not normal out here in the midwest so it’s just super different.

So my last question for you: What is your favorite part of your job?

Aside from the obvious like, I didn’t have to move and I have a ton of flexibility that’s awesome, especially in this season of life and not knowing what’s next. I do love working with clients, even when I’m struggling to solve a problem. I enjoy the problem-solving aspect. Being able to find a solution that restores the relationship and represents ThankView and our mission and what we’re about is probably the most rewarding aspect of the job. Getting to the end of an issue or the end of onboarding and seeing clients be successful is huge. Having worked on that side of it, and seeing what ThankView can do for higher ed, or a non-profit, or healthcare, or hopefully anyone who uses it, I think that’s huge. It’s rewarding to be able to actually help promote success and see the fruit of that.