Hitchhiker Spotlight: Susie Xu

How long have you been on the Hitchhikers team?

Since March 30th, 2020.

What projects have you worked on since joining the Hitchhikers team?

Some really fun ones - my favorites are:

Central England Co-Op (they've somehow got funeral care and groceries in one co-operative! They also adore Answers.)
Mellow Mushroom (They've got a really fun website and of course we had to make sure Answers matched. I'm also a huge fan of their pizza.)
Goodwill NYNJ (They were my fastest to go live and also takes my recommendations seriously.)
I also help with the Hitchhikers enablement process for new onboarding classes.

Mellow Mushroom's Cool Site!

What is your proudest accomplishment since joining the Hitchhikers team?

The 17 different ways (and counting) of asking a client what the status of the integration is on their site.

I also think watching my clients go live is a huge accomplishment for me — especially for those that are running on a thinner crew. If Answers can help alleviate some of their support burdens + provide them data to help make business decisions, and I can help them reach those goals — that's an accomplishment for me.

How has becoming an administrator/Hitchhiker affected your career?

Being a Yext Admin helped me learn things like CSS, HTML, and JS. These new skills have helped me see the creativity behind websites — but have also helped me re-create them. I think having hard skills is important and the Yext Admin role is helping me learn them along the way. It's also made me very good at juggling different client expectations and always making sure to set them properly and deliver on our end.

What is one thing people might not know about being an administrator?

How a lot of the work we're doing is uncharted waters. The possibilities for Answers may be endless, but oftentimes a lot of the questions posed by the account team or the client require us to actually dig into if the request is possible. To that extent, we really are Hitchhiking our way to an answer!

What is the toughest challenge you have had to overcome on a project?

I think aside from being constantly ghosted or baited for a launch date, for me, the toughest challenge is trying to create a really great Answers experience for everyone, but also realizing there are only 24 hours in a day. However, we always make it work! This role comes with a lot of challenges, but having a great Hitchhikers team to help answer tough questions + account team that is always aware of what's happening is key to a smooth launch.