224: Empowering Customer Connections: Insights and Innovations in Customer Experience with...

Serena Chan is a Research Advocate at Dovetail with a background in exploratory and UX research. She plays a pivotal role in crafting memorable experiences for customers, advocating for them within the company and partnering with people who do research to build a community and best practices at Dovetail.
Before joining Dovetail, Serena held UX design research and product roles across various industries, including health tech, entertainment and social enterprises. Passionate about democratizing research, she champions the importance of prioritizing insights from customer-facing teams to drive the development of truly customer-centric products.
Serena holds an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts, though her academic journey started with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health. Her early career spanned roles in public health, during with which she was inspired by the intersection of design thinking and global health at a transformative conference.
A poet and community gatherer, Serena leverages storytelling at work and leisure to facilitate a more deeply connected, equitable, and regenerative future for all.

Questions
· Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity for them to share in their own words, a little bit about their journey.
· Could you tell us a little bit about Dovetail and what your company does?
· Now, as a subject matter expert in the area of customer experience, could you give us maybe two or three, I would say areas that you believe organisations need to focus on as we continue to traverse through 2024 and beyond?
· If you were to pick one organisation, what would be, let's say two or three characteristics that they have that makes you loyal to them and keep going back over and over again?
· Now, could you also share with our audience, what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
· Could you also share with our listeners, maybe one or two books that you have read that have had a big impact on you, it could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently, but it's had a great impact on you.
· Could you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people.
· Where can listeners find you online?
· Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you get derailed or you get off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track. Do you have one of those?

Highlights
Serena’s Journey
Me: Now, we always like to give our guests an opportunity for them to share in their own words, a little bit about their journey. I know I read your bio, and it kind of gives us a quick summary of the journey that you did have to get to where you are today, but we'd love to hear from you, in your own words, how is it that you got to where you are today?

Serena shared that one of the earliest jobs she’s ever had was in customer service, customer experience. So, she thinks that's been quite the through line in her career and why she’s also sort of excited to be here today.
Starting from her first job in private tutoring when she was just in high school, to volunteer work and working in customer service jobs, there's some element of being of service and working with people that she was always drawn to. And after graduating college, it led her into the world of health tech start-up and joining a customer success team for the very first time.
And for her, that was the first opportunity to really be that bridge between hearing their customer needs, and sharing that back with their product team, helping you have that informer product roadmap and innovation and business strategy. And working in that intersection, that hub really got her quite excited. So, that's kind of led her to continue to pursue her career from grad school to consulting and freelance work to now her work at Dovetail.

About Serena’s Company - Dovetail
Me: So, could you tell us a little bit about Dovetail and what your company does?

Serena shared that Dovetail is a leading customer insights hub, they work with lots of teams of folks, whether they're in user research, or product management, design, innovation, whether you're a software company, or they have some people also building physical products, some people building really large things in the world, like construction, machinery and things that are like tractors that farmers use to all kinds of software that we use in our day to day as well.
So, they are a platform where these teams are able...