The Exhilarating Mission of Customer Success

When I joined Evolv a few months ago, I was immediately struck by how absolutely customer-centric the company is. Evolv has served its customers obsessively, which, in my experience, is what successful companies do, especially when they’re in start-up mode since every new customer becomes a potential reference to help land the next one. Now, as the company scales, we must focus on retaining that same level of intimacy and service that has become a very important differentiator for us.  

How will we do it?  Well, for starters, we’re building a new team of customer success managers who will work proactively and in partnership with our customers to ensure their success. It starts when we install the Evolv Express®, getting them onboarded, trained, leveraging all product capabilities, and guiding them through new releases or adjacent features as we continue to set a new standard in weapons detection screening. Our team is responsible for making sure customers are aware of what our systems can do and how they can best take advantage of them at their own venues.  

Another key priority for the Customer Success team is to formalize our “Voice of Customer” program. We’ll be regularly interviewing customers to solicit deep qualitative feedback on a number of topic/relationship areas to drive continuous improvement across Evolv. Customer feedback will inform product innovation, new solutions, relationship management and more. 

Now that I’ve settled into the job, I can tell you without hesitation that Evolv’s mission is my mission too—to transform security to enhance everyone's life. There is something energizing in knowing that when I get up and go to work every day I, my team, and everyone at Evolv are truly helping to keep people safe. I’ve been fortunate to visit several customer sites already and have been inspired seeing Evolv Express “in action": 

• Going to a theme park or amusement park and seeing the smiles on kids’ faces and families going in and being confident that they are going to have a safer experience because of our product. 
• Hearing firsthand from security guards about how Evolv Express makes their jobs easier, eliminating the need to physically handle bag after bag while delaying patrons from getting into their facility. 
• Walking into a museum or venue with a high level of aesthetic beauty and realizing that our unobtrusive system at the entrance does not detract from that visitor’s first impression. 
• Meeting the individual sponsors and champions across the Evolv customer base who chose Evolv because they have devoted their lives to safety and being awed by the passion and commitment they bring to their work. 
• Feeling really proud seeing our system at NASDAQ, keeping employees and visitors like Evolv safe when we officially listed as “EVLV” on July 19th 2021. 

Throughout my career, I’ve always taken pride in customer engagement. I love being with customers, seeing and hearing directly how we are, and can, deliver value. I also love the behind-the-scenes work in building a strong operational framework of people, process, and technology to support our customers and their security and visitor experience objectives. Evolv has, and will, take an “outside-in” approach to fulfilling our mission.  

A sense of shared purpose is palpable throughout the company. Before I was hired, I was fortunate to spend time with our CEO Peter George and our founders, Anil Chitkara and Mike Ellenbogen. They are inspirational in their authenticity and long-term, baked-in desire to get this right. It makes you want to get up and go to work every day. It’s particularly exhilarating to realize that we are still near the beginning of fulfilling our mission of making the world safer, one customer at a time.