The North Pole Delivers Big with Pathlight

The North Pole transforms performance management and delivers better customer experiences with Pathlight.

Pathlight Impact:

Pathlight helps customer-facing CX and Sales teams throughout the world perform their personal best, so it was natural that The North Pole turned to Pathlight to help their elves and reindeer gear up to deliver toys to 2+ billion children and triage 842M+ tickets in the weeks leading up to Christmas! They are preparing to do this while improving customer joy and reducing the number of coal bags delivered.

If you’d like to help The North Pole make a foster child happy, please consider donating to https://www.onesimplewish.org/.

Manage Elves, Not Spreadsheets

“Before Pathlight, information lived in so many different places, and we have thousands of elves. We were exporting all of the data from different platforms and using a lot of Google Sheets. Many of us were doing the same work to get base-level answers to the question— “How are the elves doing?” Papa Elf, Head Elf at The North Pole

The North Pole uses many systems to track support calls and incoming emails, chats, and letters, with kids changing wish lists and making last-minute requests. They also receive updates from parents, teachers, snowmen, snowwomen, and Elves on the Shelves reporting children for the naughty or nice list and scheduling calls with Santa.

Pathlight gives all elves and reindeer realtime access to a single performance health score at the organization, team, and individual level and a dashboard with stats like CSAT, FCR, and QA. If an elf is doing great, they get applause, and if they are following behind, they get AI-driven coaching tips. Goal setting, contests, and 1:1s have been instrumental in improving performance.

Every elf has a toy quota and needs to stay on pace to hit the Christmas deadline. Before Pathlight, elves had to wait for senior elves to write the weekly leaderboards (in cursive). It was Santa’s dream for every elf to be able to wake up each morning and know exactly how they were doing!  

With Pathlight, 95% of The North Pole managers report they can now identify performance issues faster— and that’s super important with their demanding customer base and the time-sensitive nature of their business.

“Now our managers are coaches. They are freed from hours of data analysis, and everyone instantly knows how they are doing. And our elves love the mobile app. We’re especially proud of Buddy’s  performance improvement!” Papa Elf

Every year, some new trend comes along that requires the elves to change course and quickly produce a new fad toy in a matter of days. Because everyone is now on Pathlight, leaders can make this happen faster than ever before by updating Pathlight dashboards and sending out messages to the entire org chart.

The North Pole also uses Pathlight communication alerts with acknowledgments to keep everyone informed on urgent issues and potential delays on the big night. This year they are preparing for major snowstorms, supply chain issues, and porch thefts reports on Ring and NextDoor. And every year, the jolly ole man inevitably gets delayed by ridiculously good cookies, chimneys that are a bit too tight, children that are still awake, toys falling off the sled, and special eggnog nightcaps with the parents. Luckily, Santa and the team use Clear’s Digital Vaccination Card, so he’ll cross borders with no problems. The team is checking their list and preparing for an epic Christmas 2021!

A New Manager Creates a Winning Culture in a Hybrid World

“2020 was particularly difficult as we were all remote, and the elves and reindeer moved to places like Narnia, Land of Oz, and even Austin, Tx. In 2021, everyone was burnt out, disconnected, and switching jobs. Blitzen really stepped up and found Pathlight to help us with performance management and improving our culture. I’m happy to announce his promotion to Senior Director of Reindeer Services for The North Pole!” Kris Kringle, Founder and CEO of The North Pole

Blitzen said that at first, it was tough to manage his peers. His two tips for building a great culture are to use data to build transparency and set expectations, and focus on employees’ strengths. For example, Dancer, Vixen, Cupid, and Donner harnessed their reindeer games and are now managing The North Pole’s TikTok account. It started with Fancy Like That, and then it was the Love Shake Shimmy. Amplifying their talents built a stronger team culture and helped build better customer experiences.  

Goal Setting Prepares the Team for the Big Night

“Pathlight allowed our reindeer to have more initiative in terms of hitting their goals.”  Blitzen, Senior Director of Reindeer Services at The North Pole.

Blitzen and Papa Elf’s departments use Pathlight’s auto goal setting. The Reindeer team creates auto-goals based on past performance, and the Elves optimize goals based on peer performance and have automatic adjustments to account for new elf ramp times. Knowing where you’re on track or need to improve has increased productivity and made the team more agile— all very important in the 2021 holiday season.

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe holiday season. We are incredibly grateful for all our CX and Sales customers!
— The Pathlight Team