RouteThis has been a long-time cast.app customer and Andrew Glendon, a power user. We ask him questions to learn how he's using cast.app. His top-of-funnel delivery rates and bottom-of-funnel Engagement are phenomenal at 64.4% and 94.6%, respectively. 🤯 And over 17.1% of recommendations and feedback actions (expansion, expansion conversations, recommendations, feedback, or advice).
His advice on how to get high Engagement on the cast presentations can be summed up as Quality over Quantity, Minimalism, Do not overwhelm your users or show the right thing to the right persona.
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Dickey: I'm Dickey Singh, Founder and CEO of cast.app an automation platform to drive growth and revenue from existing customers without expanding teams.
We automate things that matter to most Customer Success and Revenue leaders: growth, revenue, and referrals.
Growth encapsulates driving usage, usefulness, and adoption of products customers are paying for, leading to no-brainer renewals, upsells, and cross-sells, and referrals.
Today we have the pleasure of talking to Andrew Glendon. He has been a long-time cast.app customer and power user. We wanted to ask him some questions, learn how he's using cast.app, and get some advice on how he is able to get such high engagement on the cast presentations.
Andrew, welcome, and please introduce yourself.
Andrew: Sure thanks Dickey, My name is Andrew Glendon. I've been working in SaaS and technology companies for just over five years on both the sales and marketing side as well as customer success.
I'm located in Kitchener, so one of the tech hubs of um North America, in Canada in particular, so it's a pretty exciting space to be in right now.
Dickey: It's actually good to see you in your office...
Andrew: yeah going back and forth from home and the honestly that is nice we have this uh this big office we don't get to spend time in so it's good yeah.
Dickey: it's A for Andrew — I can see that
Andrew: yeah yeah [laughs]
Dickey: So Tell us about RouteThis — your company, the CS and the CX departments
Andrew: Sure. RouteThis. So our goal is to solve connectivity problems around the world so um we work with both smart home and ISP customers who are looking to help their customers with uh solving Wi-Fi connectivity issues so um we have an array of of agent focused tools as well as self-service tools that all work to both diagnose and resolve common home networking issues where uh you know your ISP or your your smart home manufacturer may currently be blind to uh to what those issues are.
From uh CS and CX side um uh you know we uh each customer has a CSM um we work with them with our customers quite uh closely very much a white glove service for for most of them um and uh one you know also interesting thing is we don't have a uh dedicated support team so a lot of people who are in CS are doing a little bit of technical support there as well so um yeah that's kind of the the short version it's a it's a relatively new company been around for seven or eight years but um you know I've seen a lot of growth recently in the last years gone from you know 20 employees to up for over 100 or so so it's been uh so it's not fun right so far
Dickey: Very nice. Thank you yeah so um we were talking about it like offline earlier about how you are segmenting your customers right uh and you already mentioned that every customer does get a get a CSM what's the thought process around the segmentation.
Andrew: Yeah so we when we started out it was uh very much just you know what you would consider a mid-market uh group that that we were targeting so um you know that was kind of our starting point uh you know we would have a full launch Resource as well as um a CS resource that would be regularly um throughout the year uh we've since grown and now have um you know a thriving Enterprise segments as well um as well as you know what I'm kind of leading which is our low touch um uh segments as well so um you know from where we've started we kind of went right after that the middle group um you know of what our our Market is and now I've kind of expanded both directions so um you know that's led to uh interesting changes and challenges on both sides but that's where we're at now
Dickey: okay so so basically uh there's a what's the top Enterprise segment?
Andrew: yeah and yeah yeah and yeah you know there's a few different ways we segment it but um uh you know that's probably uh when you look at a customer base you know probably about 10% um you know of total customers that that would fit in there um you know the bulk for us is in that mid uh that mid-market group and then again a smaller number on the uh what we consider the low touch side is
Dickey: that's interesting yes and then um and I'll come to ask you more about the mid-market part which is like the major segment uh for you uh so and you've been using cast.app for a while I guess automate CS Outreach do customer marketing and make automations uh tell us how you're using cast.app
Andrew: yeah we were there were so we were kind of looking for for two two things um you know as as we were building out this process for low touch we wanted a way to um give meaningful Communications to customers one thing I know you know anything that looks like a math email it's just not read or looked at or um you know even kind of thought about so it was important for us to have something that could you know how are we going to do communication that at scale that are meaningful and then um we had some manual uh reports that we were doing as well um for you know even mid market and Enterprise customers that you know we thought if there was a an interesting way we could automate some of these uh and deliver them in an interesting way that might be just outside of you know a dashboard or something like that that still requires effort from the customer to go and view um you know those are kind of the two conversations we were having in um with cast we were kind of able to to you know do both of those things effectively so um that was kind of the thought process behind what we were looking for um with a tool like cast
Dickey: yeah and we will talk more about that but that's pretty interesting that you got like some you know very high open rates and all we will get to that in a second but here's an interesting thought like you know several other customers actually start with the no touch or the lower touch or lower touch and then you know very quickly they see the benefit and they expand into other segments you on the other hand started with the mid-market segment it kind of makes sense to me because that's like maybe 80% or whatever 70% of your thing and now are expanding to uh lower touch so I'm interested in finding like why you chose that way versus as like lower touch even though you said you manage both the lower touch and the mid-market.
Andrew: uh yeah yeah on both sides so I mean and this is a it's a decision that that was made before my time but um one of the reasons we we kind of focused on that mid-market side too is uh with the the tool that we have um adoption is I'm sure for a lot of people is is kind of the single most important thing and we work with the segment in um you know uh call center agencies or that where change management is a big uh it's it's it's a huge challenge where you know you're needing to interrupt people's regular routines something they're doing regularly and have them do something new so um from that side we we needed a higher touch uh onboarding experience and that naturally kind of transitioned into customers kind of expecting that um going forward so uh that was kind of where the start was um and then what we found was you know once especially some customers that have been with us for a long time once we were up and running and kind of hit those uh milestones we needed to that um we could actually take a step back um you know they became very uh self-sufficient in some cases and that's kind of where we thought okay now um some think that's more of a tech touch a lower touch you might work for a portion of that group
Dickey: Let's go a little bit deeper into uh your program like you know so we talked about cast but let's talk about your program a little bit
Andrew: sure um yeah so when we when we first uh started this we uh you know we thought about a few different ways of delivering it um and uh you know one of the concerns I had was was making sure that when we were sending these out um you know as an email that uh you know we were able to to personalize it make it obvious that it was something that was not just uh um a mass communication in a sense where there's no um uniqueness to that communication um and uh yeah we had really good results I mean uh our emails had uh the first email went out at 65% open rate a click-through rate of like 40% um you know when I look at our last cast appointment uh we had over over half of the individual uh casts we created so think multiple per account um over 50% of those were viewed so um a really high level of Engagement for something that you know can be sent out to a bunch of people at once so um you know and that's not even counting you know we've clicked on recommendations and viewed follow-up material after that so um yeah as far as um getting customers to engage with Cast it hasn't really been a challenge we've heard nothing but positive feedback
Dickey: so and and why is that like why don't you have like do you send a lot of emails or like why are you...
Andrew: no that's the thing and that was part of my concern was we we really don't um or at least hadn't up until this time since uh a lot of regular um kind of marketing communication to our to our customers it was all from a CS person usually you know a one-off communication we weren't um sending a ton of uh you know other marketing stuff as well um and so you know that was one of the concerns I had was you know am I are they going to be used to uh or ignore something that's that's a mass communication thinking it's you know not going to add value like um you know uh interaction with their CSM like uh and that wasn't really what I've seen so far nor what I've heard from from customers both from those where you know we're using this as uh more of a primary means of contact where you know this is the main thing they're going to see from us or those where we're using it as a supplement you know for our higher customers where this is just another another way we can remind them of of you know what we're looking to get them to to achieve essentially so
Dickey: so three things you said like you know: Quality over quantity some sort of something way too many for sure quality emails show them like very interesting stuff and not make it like one too many like same subject line or you know but like uh make it like very personal both the email and the content and cast.app to send those conversations which we use a transactional mail system versus as a marketing Mail system and the third you haven't even sent reminders right you don't send reminders and you still or do you uh
Andrew: yeah so just one though that was one thing that I had to that I wanted to be careful of is um exactly which eventually quality over over quantity so you know if I'm sending any a message out and then you know a week later sending a bump um to that uh if it gets viewed that's awesome if not uh you know there are some other things that I can look at to understand if it's a problem or not um people are busy and the last thing you want as a a vendor is to be an annoyance you want to be out of value when you're talking to customers and so you know flooding someone's email with please watch the thing is not exactly you know what I had in mind but um uh so that's something we're always trying to kind of tweak and improve is how do we make those uh messages compelling to to read um to get them into viewing the cast and you know how do we get them open in the first place
Dickey: nice yeah so a lot of good points over there I'm gonna actually write them down and share with other customers who use marketing platforms to send information and then what you're saying is like you know marketing is very different from like customer success Outreach
Andrew: for sure and it's okay to do both but it's it's nice to have them as separate as you know this is you know where I'm communicating from and this is a CS related thing compared to you know here might be our uh our newsletter or something about a new product like it's nice to be able to have those conversations together and make it meaningful but um you know keeping them separate in this scenario made sense to us
Dickey: sounds good sounds good so um tell us about one thing that you were kind of pleasantly surprised by using the cast.app automation
Andrew: sure um you know one of the things that we uh that we have challenges with I'm sure it's same for a lot of people is you know they're always via a subset of your customer base that doesn't really want to talk to you they're just going to ignore you um but doesn't necessarily mean they're unhappy but uh it's just you know the way they do things are uh you know you're let's say you're honest the priority is going to be their customers is never the vendor so um it's up to you to kind of uh try and you know make conversations happen that uh you know they may not want to have so uh you know for us there was a few customers who um are in that group and um through cast uh you know I was able to see this because I eventually got looped into the thread of emails but um Cass was able to start a conversation internally with another customer um you know that I had been struggling for months to get them to have you know we had buy-in at the executive level and just um you know below the gears weren't turning to to get everything to work the way it was supposed to um and by sharing something like that that's contextual um has their data right there is easily shareable I can see through the email thread that he passed that down to below him um and a whole conversation started about how they could use our platform better uh you know just from having that that be be sent out and I couldn't get them to do that for the life of me so uh that was one thing that was that was a nice thing to see and um you know the that that actually ended up quite improving the the relationship there where they've now um done some other stuff for us on the marketing side that you know I never would have been able to get them to do uh otherwise so
Dickey: that's so true because like no one has time for QBRs MBRs right...
Andrew: yeah with them it's what you don't want uh the the meetings need to it's the hardest thing I think is getting people excited to come to uh or any VR and so when you can run them when you know you're going to add value it makes it so much more valuable than just okay three months will come up I need to do my qbr again um you know and that's one thing we're looking at with some of our customer bases which ones need that quarterly meeting or even in some cases a monthly meeting and which of those can we transition to you know a semi-annual or an annual meeting you know I don't think we have intention right now of going to uh complete Tech touch but what this allows us to do is is pair the meanings down and still add value and then you know have cast that's out there to give you know contextual recommendations when it may just be a little five minute refresher that they need rather than a 35 minute sit down with me yeah um and that you know is something that we're able to offer now you know both sides of that so
Dickey: yeah and then we are adding the ability like in your cast to do drill down if they want to see some specific areas they they can but one of one thing is like it's very well designed like what you you but you went pretty deep into like figuring out what you want to share with the customers and not overwhelm them right so
Andrew: for sure and that's something that we you know are are still balancing as we're you know continuing to iterate and you know I know we've just worked on a new um scene (slide) that we've added in is how do we balance it to you know be complete in what we're telling people while still being something they can look at in you know five or ten minutes and move on
Dickey: are you talking about the deflection rate scene
Andrew: yeah in our self-help yeah self-help getting there so um yeah so we're wanting to make sure that you know we're we're making sure that they get insight into you know all the different products they have from us while still making sure it's meaningful and not just a list of stats right that you know they can see that from going to a dashboard so thank you and there's like.
Dickey: one last question I always ask like you know we are always trying to improve customer right so and then we always ask like you know give us your feedback constantly have given us a lot of feedback but I'm going to ask you one more time well how can we improve customer life what what are you looking for vision
Andrew: yeah I know we've talked this before but I would probably say something different but a lot of the feedback I've you know I've given you guys have been awesome to work on and even Implement in some cases so um you know for me we sell you know all around the world um and uh and there's a I think you said 12 languages there's a bunch of languages that are in there by default that would be my only request would be a few more languages would allow me to use it in uh in some other places uh for some other customers but that's kind of the only uh uh the one thing that comes to mind yeah
Dickey: we that's funny we had like 18 languages and we showed it to a customer and that's that's uh and they said oh this is this is not written to me this is Chinese right so like even Google was like messing up without any translations and all that stuff so yeah yeah where that's you know that's
Andrew: ... in some cases is it is a Google translate and um you're always a little nervous trusting you know you've uh you've translated that way that you know is it gonna come across with the right tone and all that stuff um you know having those narrations are awesome uh you know and having them you know in a native language would you know be another way to add value uh you know to a group that we struggle to communicate with now so
Dickey: yeah yeah and we have data is that when you communicate in the language of the person that is the receiver you know they click through rate so much higher the recommendations... we will look into other languages I mean we have both the languages as a as well as a translation and the speech and all sorts of like complexities that we had to take care of but thank you for that feedback
Anything else you want to add uh you know feel free to anything else you wanna talk about route this talk about yourself anything
Andrew: no the the one thing I will say um you know that that cast has done for us as well is it helped us um you know identify a few other internal weaknesses that we maybe had as far as um you know content that we have readily available for customers to to use um you know part of the thing we talked about in and you know making full use of those recommendations um that you can tie you know to contextually to usage data is that it made us realize like we got to start producing some you know some more customer-facing content um and making sure that that's meaningful and uh and useful as well um so that's something else they're kind of highlighted in the business of ways that that we can improve as well so um yeah that's what comes to mind there.
Dickey: Thank you so much, Andrew. Just text me your address I'm gonna send you something. And thank you for doing this, and I really appreciate it.
Andrew: No problem
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