The CollPoll team is committed to promoting a positive work culture, which cultivates robust learning and growth within the organisation. We sat with one of our amazing peers Rohit Khanna, who joined CollPoll as a Senior Manager of Customer Success and has gone on to become the Business Leader of North India recently. The conversation walks us down his remarkable journey, the ups and downs, the opportunities for success, and the lessons he has learned so far!
Let’s dig in to know more about him!
About Rohit!
Rohit joined CollPoll in 2021 as a Senior Manager of Customer Success and has worked for more than a year. He has always been excellent support for the company, from being involved in some major product releases to implementation on the campus and ensuring strong partnerships. He has always led the teams to success through dedication, hard work, and commitment.
What & How Was Your First Role at CollPoll?
I joined CollPoll back in 2021 amidst the second pandemic wave, as the Senior Manager of the Customer Success team. Even prior to joining the company, I started communicating with a few partner institutions to understand the process better. Moreover, the support I received from my “to-be” CollPoll team during the pandemic made me realize that my decision of joining the organization was right and that it would be an interesting opportunity to learn and grow!
CollPoll’s Customer Success team at offsite trip in Coorg!
The learning experience has been immensely valuable since while working with different partner institutions, I got the chance to understand the product and processes better. And since it was a startup, I had the opportunity to be a part of almost all the teams, including the product development team, where I had the privilege to share my input with the team members and test a few features. So, I was not stuck to a particular role but learnt a lot about testing, product development, different use case scenarios and implementation of products.
“Working in a startup like CollPoll, opens up a wide array of verticals to learn and grow!” – says Rohit Khanna
What’s Your Story Behind Joining CollPoll?
The reason I planned on joining CollPoll was that I wanted to come out of the monotonous work environment to a more flexible one. And surprisingly here I learned to build my own processes and had the freedom to learn from those methods.
The organizations can either be process-oriented or people-oriented and CollPoll values people as much as the processes. A great emphasis has always been laid on team opinions and this has helped me grow even through the tough times.
What Challenges Did You Face During This Journey & How Did You Overcome Them?
There weren’t any such challenges during my journey at CollPoll. However, coping virtually was a bit difficult. The reason is – all the processes and interactions were taking place virtually after the pandemic and there was too much anxiety in the world. So, learning about the product on the virtual front was a little challenging. But with the combined team efforts and understanding, it became easier to fight this challenge and walk through a smooth road.
Overall, it’s been a great journey!
How Has the Customer Success Team Evolved in The Past Few Years?
If we define the structure of the customer success team, earlier only one person was handling all the modules single-handedly. But now, we have five sections in the Customer Success team including Relationship Management, Implementation, Data Configuration, Data Analytics, and Support.
As a startup, our focus was on serving the institutions better as we moved from 30+ partners to 100+ today. For the team, it was important to have a proper structure so that there was no delay in implementation and processes were carried out well both front end and back end.
In the past few years, we have aimed at forming better teams by hiring Relationship Managers to handle the partner institutions efficiently, Product Specialists of different modules who understand the product better, and a support team to immediately deal with the issues, among others. This way we have not only gained the trust of our partner institutions but have also streamlined the operations to serve them better.
CollPoll’s Business team at offsite trip in Coorg!
A Brief Overview of Your Journey Towards Becoming a Business Leader
I try to emulate the moral values of certain people, including the way they communicate with everyone around them, and how they handle their tasks in day-to-day life and deal with problems. So, the journey has been all about inculcating those values which I admire from my leaders and team members. Although I am in the initial stages of this journey, I am trying to listen to people more, understand what they say, and resolve their questions in a similar manner (both in my personal and professional life).
The path is all about trying and testing the things I’ve learnt so far in the organization and teaching others the same. So, eventually, when we’ll grow and move ahead in the coming years, everyone will follow the same culture, i.e., the work culture that our leaders have brought to CollPoll.
What Changes Do You See CollPoll Will Bring in the Edtech Space in the Coming Years?
Hopefully, in the coming years, our greatest contribution to the EdTech space will be to make higher education institutions paperless, as well as to improve the stakeholders’ experience. No campus is entirely paperless yet, and we aim at bringing that transformation to the education sector.
Any Funny Incidents While Travelling with The Team?
I travel quite often with Hemant (Founder & CEO) and Rajendra Singh (Senior Business Leader) to different partner locations. And we’ve had the best road trips together. My fondest memory of travelling with them is – they usually never use maps to reach a particular destination rather they trust their instincts and decide the paths to reach the place. The journeys are full of amusing conversations, teasing each other, and good times!
I’ve spent a really great time with Hemant and the team!
Who Has Been Your Role Model?
One of my uncles had always been an inspiring and true role model to me. Throughout my life, he has always encouraged me to listen to and understand people, not just hear them for their sake. He taught me to value people and their opinions. The way he used to listen to people and tried to help them with their problems even if he had to go beyond his ways to serve them was something we can always learn from!
Your Go-to Productivity Mantra
The only productivity trick I trust is – making short-term goals and achieving them one by one. To make sure all my goals are met, I try to break my long-term vision into smaller plans and work to achieve them one at a time.
What Are Your Career Goals for the Future?
I believe in making short-term plans and considering that, for me, as the Business Leader of North Region, the next year has to be all about making sure that all the existing partner institutions of CollPoll adopt most of our modules and we are able to do the implementation successfully. Additionally, increasing the number of institutions we serve while bringing a great impact to the education sector will be my goal for the coming years.
I am in the learning phase at the moment, and in the next five years, I intend to expand my knowledge of processes and solutions to resolve issues that the world might be facing at that particular time. Furthermore, I will do my best to ensure that the new people who join CollPoll follow the same work culture as we do today whilst the team grows.
“Learn new things, unlearn old ways of doing things, and re-learn techniques to do better.” – says Rohit
Positive attitudes and team contributions are crucial for a company’s success. And with Rohit’s unwavering commitment and strong dedication, CollPoll has always attained remarkable results. We appreciate his efforts and wish him more growth and success!
Want to join the CollPoll team? Explore our open positions or write to us at hr@collpoll.com. Stay tuned for more stories in the coming weeks!
