Technology training can help anyone achieve their goals in the smartest way—and with modern hospitality technology on the rise, it’s become an essential part of a successful technology rollout at hotels! At Quore, providing product education is a cornerstone of our Hotel Success program. Our Success Team works to ensure that our customers know how to best use our solutions to meet their goals and use our solutions to the fullest.
As Director of Training for Quore, Drew Smith works to make sure that all Quore customers have access to top-notch educational materials and trainings. But he not only leads the charge for external learning, he also guides our internal team with Product Deep Dives, Lunch & Learns and more. Plus he’s the driving force behind our new hire onboarding process! He’s been with Quore pretty much since the very beginning, and he’s all about enabling our team to train our customers and helping Quore customers and employees alike succeed.
But to get a full picture of how Drew approaches training and education at Quore, you have to understand how he got here.
Going the Write Way
Drew was always interested in sports journalism. He grew up watching ESPN, and the idea of writing and reporting on the games he watched on a regular basis appealed to him. But he didn’t formally decide that it was really what he wanted to pursue until he attended school at East Tennessee State University and took a summer internship working for the sports department at the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He went on to work for the school paper covering baseball and soccer, and after graduating, he found a full-time job in Cleveland, TN at a local paper.
“It was such a great learning experience for me, because not only was it a paper, it was a printing press with a small staff, so I got to learn a lot beyond the writing process, like page layout and printing as well,” he says.
As much as he loved his job in Cleveland, though, Drew was really interested in moving closer to Nashville. He and his college friends often met in Nashville for get togethers because it was a good halfway point, and he quickly fell in love with the area. He decided that he would start trying to find a job there, and he made a deal: “I said to myself, ‘even if I don’t have a job by the end of the year, I’m still gonna move.’”
So, even though he didn’t find a job when he wanted to, Drew moved to Nashville to find his next adventure.
The Path to Customer Success
Soon after moving to Nashville, Drew started working in customer service for a health insurance company. It wasn’t journalism, but Drew enjoyed the opportunity to learn something new and to help people navigate their insurance.
“I learned a lot of patience and problem solving there,” he says, “And I think that’s something I’ve carried over to my work with Quore’s Success Team now.”
He worked with that company for about five years before a new opportunity came along. Drew had recently become acquainted with Scott Schaedle, who was looking for someone with some writing expertise at his new company. That little company was Quore. And, when Drew first decided to sign on with Scott to help write some Quore training manuals, he had no idea how far he’d go with the hospitality startup.
When Drew first started, he was only the third employee, and he was tasked with writing physical training manuals on the product. At the time, Quore had no website—the product primarily spread via word of mouth! So Drew had a lot of work to do to get materials out there in front of Quore customers. And, eventually, in order to better serve our customers, he transitioned into a customer service role that included not only writing the training documentation, but also delivering live product demos to customers.
“I practiced one of my early demos with Kalie Wilcox over and over again, and then when it was time to deliver it to the customer, they didn’t show up!” he laughs.
He went on to do lots of demo calls and even delivered some of the first in-person Quore trainings. As the company expanded, Quore only needed more support, and as he continued to work with and grow with the team, Drew soon realized he was exactly where he wanted to be.
He’s been with us ever since, and we couldn’t be more grateful to have him on the team.
“Training is in my Blood”
Drew’s role in customer service eventually evolved into a formal support role and then a training role before he was officially made Director of Training at our company!
“I think training is kind of in my blood. My mom was a teacher and my dad was a physical therapist, so I’m just really passionate about it. I want to be a servant leader. I love helping people and empowering them to do their best work and reach their goals,” he explains.
And that’s exactly what he does.
Drew is not only the mind behind Quore Learn, our awesome knowledge base of product learning materials and a free resource for Quore customers, he also oversees everything from customer trainings to internal Product Deep Dives. During a Product Deep Dive, a Quore subject matter expert takes the time to deliver in-depth product education to the rest of our team. He’s also responsible for our Lunch & Learns, which gives Quore team members the opportunity to offer the rest of the team insights on various topics while we enjoy lunch together.
On top of all of that, Drew put together Quore’s official onboarding process for new hires: Quorientation, which celebrated its one year anniversary in 2019!
Smarter Training, Happier Customer
Drew is constantly looking for new ways to improve Quore’s training opportunities and increase customer adoption. Just recently, he helped organize our team’s first in-office training with a Quore customer in our new office space, and he’s excited about the potential of our team conducting more trainings like it.
He’s also exploring more e-learning options and video education for our customers. He never stops educating himself so he can further educate our team and our customers—but that’s just another reason why he’s such a valuable part of Team Quore.
To take full advantage of what Drew Smith does to maximize your Quore experience, log in to your Quore account and dig deeper into Quore Learn! To learn more about our team, check out the Team Quore section of our Blog.
If you’d like to find out more about our overall services, visit our website to see how Quore can optimize your
