March 23, 2020
What were the top 3 highlights of your first 12 months at JRNI?
As an incoming CEO, I think the first 12 months at any company should be about one big thing: figuring out what you don’t know. Like any new employee, I joined JRNI as a newbie, and I’ve spent the last 12 months learning from all the people around me - so it makes sense that my top three highlights are all centered around this theme.
- Getting to know our team. At JRNI, we’re about helping organizations provide personalized experiences for their customers. But what I’ve found in the last 12 months, and one of the greatest things about working at JRNI, is that the value we put on building human-to-human relationships isn’t just part of our product - it’s also part of our culture. This is a team that works together and plays together, and those two things are also what help us succeed together.
- Getting to know our customers. One of the fun things about working at JRNI is that, actually, I already knew our customers - and you do too. It’s inspiring to work with true household names like LEGO and Levi’s - and to know that, here at JRNI, we play a part in making them household names. That said, it’s one thing to know a brand...and it’s a completely different thing to know a brand. In the last 12 months, I’ve had the opportunity to go behind the scenes and understand exactly what keeps our customers ticking - as well as their visions for what comes next. It’s been a truly enlightening process, and it’s only getting more exciting.
- Getting to know our product. The undercurrent to both the team and our customers is, of course, the JRNI platform. I joined JRNI knowing that our product was exceptional, but it wasn’t until I spent some time here that I understood its true potential. What we’re doing now is exciting - but what we’ve got on the roadmap is even more so.
What was the most surprising thing you learned in your first 12 months at JRNI?
We’ve all heard “The customer is king” and we’ve all heard “The customer is always right.” Those are just two examples of trumpeting the age-old principle of keeping your customers happy. But the most surprising thing I’ve learned in my first 12 months at JRNI is that this principle is way more than a couple of catchy expressions, or a thing people say because it sounds good. Our customers live and die by this idea - and they shape their own companies based on it. When it comes to their focus, it’s razor-sharp: They want to innovate based on their customers’ wish lists. Their passion about this goal is inspiring, and I feel lucky that JRNI is a part of these plans.
If there was one thing you think not enough people know about JRNI, what is it?
This sounds like it should be a hard question, but it’s actually a really easy one: I want people to know that JRNI is ready to forge a new path. We started as appointment scheduling software, and we’re proud to be a best-in-class solution for enterprises all over the world. But we know that appointments are just one aspect of providing consumers with personalized services that keep them coming back for more. We’re poised and ready to start using this core scheduling foundation as a way to help our customers not just schedule appointments, but launch truly experiential business strategies.
If you could go back and tell First Day at JRNI John one thing, what would it be?
Hey, First Day at JRNI John, go get a coffee or three: Because appointment scheduling for enterprises is more complex than you think.
It’s true. As part of my 12 months of getting to know JRNI, I definitely got to know the challenges faced by our enterprise customers, and all the ways something that sounds deceptively simple - like appointment scheduling - is affected by that. An enterprise’s scheduling strategy influences everything from brand loyalty programs to workforce optimization - and figuring out the best way to make sure all these moving parts are working together is no easy feat. Still, First Day at JRNI John wasn’t fazed, and neither is 365th Day at JRNI John. The mechanics of integrating scheduling into an enterprise’s larger business strategies is a great opportunity, and we’re ready to seize it.
What do you most look forward to in your next 12 months?
The future of JRNI is about executing on a vision, and the next 12 months are going to be all about that. Our customers are evolving from booking appointments to providing personalized experiences at scale - and JRNI is evolving to be the platform that helps them get that done. We’re expanding our offerings, we’re extending our partner network, and we’re reaching across verticals. For the last 12 months, we’ve been in a drumroll - and in the next 12 months, we’re going to be hitting the big notes. The experience economy is here, and JRNI is ready to power it. Let’s go!
