KnowledgeOwl Staff Spotlight: Erica Beyea

I'm thrilled to shine a light on Erica Beyea*, one of the newest members of the KnowledgeOwl parliament. Erica is our Lead Customer Success Owl & Mixer of Colors (see fun fact number 3!).

*Bonus points if you can pronounce her last name properly on the first try. It’s not “BEH-YAY!” or “BE-J-YA”. It’s “BEE-AY”, like a “B.A.” (Bachelor of Arts degree).

Some fun facts about Erica:

• She’s our first Canadian owl. She currently resides in The Maritimes region in Eastern Canada. 🇨🇦

• She’s our first customer success hire. 🥇

• She’s a visual artist, and she has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 🎓

A behind-the-scenes photo taken by Erica while she was setting up for one of her art shows.

• She founded an independent art school in Toronto that has held art classes for adults and youth, some of which she taught herself! 🎨

• She is the founding director of the nonprofit Girls' Art League (GAL) in Toronto, whose mission is to empower women and girls through visual arts. 👩‍🎨

• She spent 5 years living in Spain where she learned (among other things) that they don’t typically say, “It's a small world”, but instead say, "The world is a handkerchief" ("¡El mundo es un pañuelo¡"). 🇪🇸

• She loves dogs, did an entire art show about dogs in Spain, and recently adopted a new pup named Ruf! 🐾

Erica's sweet pup Ruf!

• She also LOVES penguins! 🐧

• When she was a child, she and her two older brothers traveled around the Maritime region competing in speed skating meets. ⛸️

• She has added many amazing new emojis to the KnowledgeOwl Slack! Thanks to Erica, new emojis are constantly appearing and bringing joy! 🤩

How Erica ended up an owl

I’m a fan of origin stories, so I love asking prospective owls how they found out about KnowledgeOwl and the job. When we decided to hire a Lead Customer Success Owl near the end of 2022, I posted the job in the Support Driven #job-board channel.

Support Driven is a lovely Slack community of support professionals, and we’ve had excellent luck hiring from them. Our current parliament is made up of 10 team members, and 2 of them found their way to KnowledgeOwl via this community (Anne and Erica!).

The short version: I posted about the job in Support Driven, Erica reacted with a heart emoji, and here we are today! ❤️

Why Erica wanted to lead customer success at KnowledgeOwl

At the start of our application survey, we ask prospective owls if it sounds like a job they would love. Erica’s explanation of her “Yes!”—especially her first sentence—delighted me:

"Reading through the “About You” part of the job description had me saying "Yes!" at incrementally louder and more enthusiastic levels.

I've had to invent / create my current role - managing the entire Customer Experience team for Format - pretty much from scratch and it has been a really fun and exciting experience.

I absolutely love collaborating with folks, finding ways to make customers, reports, teammates and management happy. I'm resourceful and a creative problem solver. I work independently well, and thoroughly enjoy investigating and creating new processes to have a positive impact for the business, the staff and the customers.

Reading about your company, I'm also thrilled about the customer-first approach I see. I can be a good sales person, but only because I am searching out actual solutions that work for people. I'm honest, and want to have a positive impact, and I deeply wish to work for a company that holds these same values. If you're offering something of substance, and can communicate that well, then you're laughing - no need for high pressure sales."

At the end of the application survey, we always ask what might be the most important question in the survey: “Why would you like to work at KnowledgeOwl?”. Here’s Erica’s heartfelt answer:

"My goodness, it feels like there are too many reasons to list

Top points go to: how in this role I could have a seriously positive impact on customers, and the company as a whole.

Your company and the product itself couldn't be more up my alley - sharing knowledge and helping people, I'm sincerely excited about it.

I'm naturally a helpful and collaborative person, but I also find creative ways to do things, and work very well independently. My experience founding a successful non-profit organization and re-shaping the Customer Experience team at Format have put a lot of tools in my toolbox that I think could be really beneficial in developing a thriving Customer Success department with KnowledgeOwl.

I'm keen to learn all I can from everyone there, from helping with the Support team - and seeing how high we can fly together! (too much? lol)"

Some 15Five feedback from Erica

The KnowledgeOwl parliament uses a performance management platform called 15Five to give everyone a weekly opportunity to share feedback on what’s going well and what can be improved.

Here are some of Erica’s responses to “What aspects of your work are the most energizing and inspiring?:

“The team, the customers, the ability to creatively problem solve and do exciting things, learning and growing and helping all at the same time - c'mon, it's perfect!”

“I’m happy as a clam in general! I gushed to Kate about this today already, but it's amazing how connected I feel to this company and the whole team so quickly. I've never had an experience like this. If I think too hard about it, I might get weepy hehe.”

“Honestly, if I could have given this week a “6” I would have. The sessions with Marybeth & Veronica were incredibly, deeply helpful. The billing stuff was super informative too, and I am so impressed with Anne's amazing documentation and explanations. Chatting with Veronica has been wonderful too. On Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday I was dancing around the house because I was so happy after each work day. The only reason I didn’t dance on Thursday was because my poor pooch wasn’t feeling well, which dampened my mood. I imagine I'll be having a very happy Friday night + weekend. Also, on Sunday I was excited to get back to work on Monday! That hasn't happened since the best days of Girls' Art League - so THANK YOU! <3 I am so happy here!”

“Almost everything! Wonderful convos with Kate, super enjoyed the Braintrust meeting and learning all the wonders of how this organization works - I am so happy to be here. <3 Also, my dreams have been really vivid and fun this week, which signals to me that I'm engaged and using my brain but also not anxious - perfect balance! The only reason I say 'almost everything' is because I felt really bad when I accidentally made extra work for Anne when I tried to add her to the Success Nest test KB! She was very kind and gracious though. <3”

We appreciate you, Erica!

Everyone on the team is grateful to be able to work alongside you, Erica. You’re a special and important member of the parliament, and it is a privilege to know you. ❤️