Tracey Thaler never imagined she would forge a career in customer onboarding. Yet that’s exactly what she’s done at Resy.
Prior to joining the restaurant reservations platform as a hospitality coordinator four years ago, Thaler had been working as a medical social worker and lacked a strong technical background. But with the support and guidance from some of the company’s higher-ups over the years, she has been able to develop her skills and take on new responsibilities.
“I’ve had multiple leaders who have recognized my potential, paid attention to what types of work motivated me or aligned with my skills, and worked with me to create opportunities to facilitate career growth,” Thaler said.
After spending several months as a junior account manager, Thaler was offered the chance to lead and develop Resy’s implementation team in 2018 before finally landing her current role as a director of strategic initiatives and global implementation. She said her experience on the implementation team so far has given her the chance to sharpen her management skills and leave her mark on the company.
“This position has offered me the opportunity to become a leader and create impactful change for our customers, which is what I always wanted to do,” Thaler said.
While Thaler’s role is a multifaceted one filled with many different responsibilities, having a strong team makes each day not only manageable, but exciting. “Curveballs are constantly thrown our way, but tackling problems alongside smart, creative and solution-oriented colleagues makes each day interesting and fun,” Thaler said.
Built In NYC caught up with Thaler to get a glimpse inside her team and learn how Resy helped her grow in her career.
Since joining the Resy team, how has the company supported your career development?
The company’s support is reflected in the opportunity I was given to lead and develop the implementation team. In Resy’s earlier days, our account managers handled all post-sales activities, which restricted our ability to become experts in certain functions. My leader agreed it was time to develop a specialized team for new customer onboarding and offered me the role. My ability to step into this role was made possible by the support and sponsorship of my leader.
Resources and mentorship opportunities have evolved as we’ve grown as a company. The most impactful resource for my development has been BetterUp coaching. The program matched me with a certified business coach so I could hone my skills as a leader and navigate the complexities of the workplace. I continued with my coach independently after the Resy-sponsored program ended because it’s been such a valuable resource.
How has the implementation team improved the customer experience, and what impact does this team have on the organization as a whole?
We’re all about improving the customer experience. Since starting the team, we’ve made huge strides in reducing customer effort, improving onboarding resources and leaning into a consultative approach. Our most recent evolution to improve customer experience has been developing a creative solution to enable the sales team to provide customers with immediate access to Resy. Now, as soon as customers become a part of the Resy network, they can begin setting up the platform to meet their specific needs.
Implementation is a key stage of the customer journey that transforms expectations set in the sales cycle into reality. We match customer needs with product solutions and drive home the value of partnering with Resy and American Express. When done right, our restaurants feel confident in our partnership, fully adopt our technology and become advocates for Resy.
Customer feedback is critical to our growth and meeting the needs of our restaurants.”
Does your team have any big projects in the pipeline that you’re especially excited about?
We have a few big projects and initiatives in progress, but one to highlight is our customer survey program. We’ve played around with various ways to collect customer feedback and recently implemented a new tool with more flexibility and capabilities to drive response rates. Customer feedback is critical to our growth and meeting the needs of our restaurants. I’m excited to see how the team continues to transform customer feedback into action.
