Who is the Emesent?
Emesent is a global leader in drone autonomy, lidar mapping, and data analytics. After a decade of cutting-edge research at the Robotics and Autonomous Systems arm of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Emesent was founded in 2018 and has since built a reputation for delivering high quality data capture, working side-by-side with customers to provide revolutionary efficiency, safety, and operational insights.
Their expertise spans from Robotics, Autonomy and AI to Machine Learning, and Data Analytics. They are constantly undergoing research and development initiatives, exploring new possibilities and developing innovative technologies with the aim of advancing the autonomous digitisation of the physical world.
What was the business challenge?
In the last quarter of 2021, Emesent were experiencing significant and rapid business growth which came with its challenges, particularly that of customer service. The company wanted to have a clear understanding on where they were at with their customer service practices and how they could better this area of the business. To achieve this, they wanted to undertake a survey that would involve phone and in person interviews with clientele.
What did the client need to recruit?
- Market & Customer Service Research Manager
Emesent were seeking a short-term Market & Customer Service Research Manager. The role would ensure their CRM success by deeply understanding both market dynamics and customer interactions. The position would involve overseeing research initiatives to gather valuable insights into consumer preferences, needs, and satisfaction levels. By analysing customer service interactions and feedback, the manager could identify trends, pain points, and areas for improvement, contributing to enhanced customer experiences with the Emesent brand.
Emesent were struggling to fill the role and decided to get in touch with us to see whether we could recruit for them.
Cemoh Actions Taken
The person that Emesent were recruiting for wasn’t a typical marketer which Cemoh usually specialises in. Instead, the role would require someone with a data mindset and one that could compile findings into an actionable report yet still have a ‘marketing mindset’ when conducting interviews with clients. We relished the challenge and opportunity of filling this role. Thanks to our flexible ethos of finding talent, plus having a pool of over 250+ Cemoh marketers, we managed to present the perfect individual for the position in Sara Honegger.
Sara, originally from Switzerland, started her career as a customer service specialist in 2005 with none other than Ikea in Zurich. From here she climbed the marketing and media ladder with roles as a marketing executive, media planner/buyer and account manager.
Emesent interviewed Sara and were quickly impressed by her resume and understanding of what they were looking for during this short-term contract. Sara was onboarded shortly after and given the responsibility of running the research project for 4 months.
The Outcome
Sara conducted phone interviews with Emesent clients and interviewed them with various questions to identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses within their customer journey. From purchase, product receival, training, warranty claim, product usage and ongoing customer service. From here, she was able to gather an in-depth report on ways Emesent could improve their offering and the customer journey.
Sara’s findings were implemented and saw great success over the course of 9 months that Emesent decided to conduct a secondary research project. Unfortunately, Sara retired from her fractional CMO duties as she had been snapped up in a full-time role with another client, so we were again tasked with finding someone who could absorb the work that Sara did whilst managing this new project. We were happy to assist and presented Claire Cunliffe as a candidate for the role who impressed the Emesent team with her ideas and strategy for the project that she was onboarded shortly after.
Learnings
This was a great learning curve for us as a business as it showed that we could cater to clients in the following way:
- Finding and vetting talent outside of traditional marketing roles that could seamlessly fit into a complex position such as a Market & Customer Service Research Manager
- Flexible hiring with no long-term lock in contracts
- Ability to easily replace talent with talent