“I’m Luke Harris, Gearset’s VP of Customer Success, responsible for our global customer teams across Success, Support and Enablement. I’ve spent my career in SaaS businesses across a number of industries: Finance & ERP, Communications and MarTech with a primary focus on high-growth and scaling companies.
In a weird coincidence, three quarters of my previous companies are Gearset customers, so maybe I was always destined to end up here!”
What made you join Gearset?
“I knew that I wanted to join a company to build something new to develop an innovative, modern, and thriving customer success team in an exciting and emerging industry. I also knew I wanted to join a business that reflected my values of compassion, inclusivity, and ambition.
From my very first conversation with Kevin (our CEO), it was clear that Gearset was a very special place. That expectation was set at a new, higher level with everyone that I met, every layer deeper that I got to dig, every question I had answered. I was so excited to join and be part of the journey of building the next phase of Gearset. With so many of the foundations already here, I knew that I had a great responsibility to do justice to what had come before.
It’s the single best professional decision I’ve ever made.”
How would you describe the culture in the Customer Success team?
“There’s a great spirit in the team, it’s the most proactive, positive, and resourceful I’ve ever worked in. I’m really proud that we’ve managed to maintain that spirit as we’ve evolved into a hybrid team spread across two continents.
We’re working with customers who are delivering meaningful change in their businesses, and this means there are inevitably some high pressure moments. So we’re really trying to build resilience in our approach, and in ourselves — knowing when we need support, when we need to step back, and when we need to improve a process is really important. The fact that we have a team that works so well together, helps each other out, and consistently delivers is born out of that resilience and is a real strength, I think.”
How do your teams like to work?
“On the whole, we’re pretty collaborative and like to give folks the flexibility to work in a way that allows them to bring their best selves to work. We’re really connected to other teams across the business — in fact, every team at Gearset is — and we know that by collaborating with our colleagues in all departments we’re able to deliver what’s best for our customers.
We really try to keep internal meetings to a minimum, to give folks the time and space to do great work. When we do have them, we keep them short, prioritise key initiatives, and review regular sessions to make sure they’re still relevant.
Feedback is big for us, because we know how fast our space is moving and we know that we need to consistently progress, learn, and develop. So, we try to facilitate opportunities for that to happen: both organically and formally.
Our motto is: To build the best team, to empower the most successful customers in our industry. We aim to keep that thought at the forefront of everything we’re doing.”
What are you most excited about for your team?
“I’m most excited about how we’re continuing to develop innovative ways of making customers successful — things like a self-service portal, virtual events, community outreach, and partnerships.
The change in our industry is constant, and offers opportunities to deliver really important updates for customers; so the speed we’re developing the product always inspires me. We’re really plugged into the wider Salesforce community, which is dynamic and ever-evolving, and so I’m excited to see what comes from that in the next little while.”
Why should someone join Gearset?
“If you lean towards wanting to build things, want to be a part of a company that’s transforming a really interesting market, and if you’ve got a desire to work in a place where no two months are the same, and where your colleagues are collectively the kindest, smartest, most hard-working you’ve ever know, then I’d really encourage you to apply.
From my team’s perspective, our customers are a technical crowd, and we seek to really stand alongside them in building solutions — which means we need to delve into those technical spaces with them. That doesn’t mean you have to have an engineering or development background though, just that you’re interested in those deep conversations and technical strategy.”
Tell us something we probably don’t know about you.
“I’m a pretty open book but I guess one thing is that back in 2013 I got down to the final 25 for a TV show, The Island with Bear Grylls. It would have seen me spend a month with 11 other people on a remote Pacific island filmed for everyone’s viewing pleasure. I didn’t make the cut, and instead joined my first start-up, and I guess the rest is history.”
Which Gearset Slack channel do you hang out in most?
“I helped set up #pride and more recently have been lurking in #parenting, #gardening and #gigs.”