For our thirteenth interview series, we feature Shalin Jain, CEO of HappyFox. HappyFox is a cloud-based Help Desk ticketing system that supports multiple customer support channels like email, voice and live chat.

In this interview, you can read more about his work at HappyFox, favorite marketing tools, productivity tips as well as his advice for budding marketers.

Your location: Irvine, California.

Your favorite gadget: Nikon D90 w/ 85mm prime lens.

You start you day with: Spend time with my daughter, fun first, work later.

Your favorite time-saving trick: Delegating work to the right person in the team.

“Double up your time listening to your customers and see how they are seeing your product. “

Describe an average day at HappyFox?

My average day at HappyFox is all about communicating with people. I start my work day connecting with customers: new, existing and prospects on the phone, via email or sometimes face to face. I spend some time responding to top support requests every single day.

I invest the later part of my day interacting with various teams at HappyFox. I also work in isolation for a couple of hours everyday with social media, emails and communication turned off. This helps me reflect on the progress we are making and adjust our execution strategy constantly.

As a marketer, what are some of your favorite productivity hacks?

Don’t read news, don’t read about your competitors. Double up your time listening to your customers and see how they are seeing your product. Ask yourself what makes them ask a particular question and how you could have communicated your value better.

Read between the lines. Marketers should engage in customer service — this would not only help customers, but also get real stories, keyword ideas. Gain insight into the customer’s mind — why they prefer you over your competitors, what it is about your product/company that is attractive to them. Help your existing customers and you’ll soon see them turn into your best advocates.

As a person who is well-versed with online marketing, I’m sure you rely on a few marketing tools to automate your efforts. What are the top 5 tools you use?

We use multiple tools: HappyFox for un-planned and on-demand requests and tasks, Asana for planned activities, Google Analytics for visitor analytics, Moz & Semrush for Search Engine Marketing and Draftin for writing and collaboration. We are eyeing Brightpod for workflow based recurring marketing tasks.

Happyfox and your company recently moved to the US. Did this impact the way you’ll be marketing your services?

We took HappyFox to the US as most of our customers are based here. We are much closer to our customers, we meet them more often and have learnt a lot from our interactions. We continue to market predominantly on the internet but with every customer interaction our marketing decisions get better.

Your company has been around for quite some time now and has a growing community of users. How do you use this treasure trove of customer insight to power your marketing efforts?

Our learning from the large community of our existing users and customers has a significant impact on what we build. A good product should market itself. One of our most successful customer acquisition channel remains word-of-mouth. Our customer service is our biggest marketing tool.

Is there any advice you’d like to give to budding marketers to help them work smart and stay productive?

Pick the right tool for the right task. Most marketing tools pay back almost immediately. For personal productivity, I use Zone app on mac (http://rinik.net/zone/), there is no better way to keep track of how you spend your time.

A big thanks to Shalin for taking the time out to answer these questions! If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you check out HappyFox.

The ‘How Marketers Stay Productive’ series asks marketers their tips & strategies for staying productive. Every month we’ll feature a new guest and the tricks that keep them working smart. Know someone you’d love to see featured? Email Us.