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Ep. 78 - Shannon Vander Muelen: Students Don’t Hate Waiting They Hate Uncertainty
00:25:14
Jeff Dillon sits down with Shannon Vander Meulen, Co-Founder and CMO of WaitWell, a tech platform transforming how students access campus services—from advising to financial aid. A former public service office manager turned tech founder, Shannon brings a rare blend of frontline operational experience and educator empathy to the problem of waiting. She shares how her decade running a busy registry office revealed that what people truly want isn’t popcorn or music—it’s competence, clarity, and their time back. Shannon unpacks how WaitWell eliminates physical lines, empowers staff with AI-driven insights, and gives students the digital-first experience they now expect. From onboarding without tech fatigue to launching their new AI agent “Waillo,” this conversation is a useful guide to building solutions that solve real problems—not just deploying tech for tech’s sake. Whether you’re in student affairs, IT, or service operations, you’ll walk away with actionable ideas for making servi...
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- [00:00]
A
What I learned is that it's 90% of customer service is really about training. You know, people talk a lot about customer service and they talk about fitness. You know, like, let's have popcorn for people, let's have music, let's make sure everybody's really friendly. And that's really important when it comes to customer service. But what people really want is competence. They want to be matched with the person who has the right training to solve their problem, and they want to be in and out as quickly as possible.
- [00:30]
B
Welcome to another episode of the EdTech Connect podcast. Today's guest is someone who knows a thing or two about transforming everyday systems into streamlined, customer focused experiences. Shannon Vandermeulen is the co founder and CMO of Waitwell, a tech company that's revolutionizing the way visitors connect to services, whether that be a government office, a medical clinic, or a student service center. Before launching white whale in 2020, Shannon managed a busy government service office for over nine years where she developed a deep understanding of the operational challenges service organizations face. With a background in education and a passion for process design, Shannon brings a rare mix of people centered leadership and digital innovation. She's also been an instructor and held leadership roles at Bow Valley College. Under her marketing leadership, Waitwell has helped over 100 million citizens access services more efficiently and equitably. Shannon, it is great to have you today. Thanks for being here.
- [01:37]
A
Thanks for the invite. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Jeff.
- [01:40]
B
So let's start off and tell us one thing that people might not know about you that they wouldn't find on your LinkedIn profile.
- [01:50]
A
I guess they wouldn't know that I am a hockey mom first and foremost and a tech founder second.
- [01:56]
B
Yeah, I love that you're opening up in Canada, right? You've had a unique journey from education, nonprofit boards leading a high growth tech company. What inspired the leap into founding Weightwell?
- [02:10]
A
The idea for Weightwell actually came because I was running a really busy public service office. So where we live, public services that would normally be delivered by the provincial government or the state government, where you are, are delivered through a network of private registry agents. And I was one of those for about 10 years. And I just spent a lot of time sitting in my office looking at people waiting their turn and watching the behavior and how that affected staff when people got to the counter, you know, maybe not prepared for the service, maybe in the wrong lineup. And I just had a lot of ideas for how that could be made better. I looked at some of the software that was out there and I just felt like I could build something a little bit better. And that's where Waitwell came from.
- [02:51]
B
You've spent nearly a decade leading the East Calgary registry, which put you right in the front, front lines of high volume public service. Aren't those environments like where operational efficiency is really directly impact people who are waiting stressed? I would say, like, how did that experience shape your views on operational efficiency and customer service?
- [03:16]
A
You know, the 10 years that I spent at East Calgary registry were really incredible learning years for me. I had a lot of chance to sort of observe how people felt in that environment and it was a really high stress environment. It was a high stress environment before the pandemic, but after the pandemic hit, it just became, you know, know so much more. So, you know, what I, what I learned is that it's 90% of customer service is really about training. You know, people talk a lot about customer service and they talk about fitness. You know, like, let's have popcorn for people, let's have music, let's make sure everybody's really friendly. And that's really important when it comes to customer service. But what people really want is competence. They want to be matched with the person who has the right training to solve their problem and they want to be in and out as quickly as possible. Nobody walks into a public service office. You know, if you're going to the DMV or permit office, if you're doing a renovation or whatever, you don't expect to be served the moment that you walked in, but you do want to have an idea of what to expect next. If it's going to be 15 minutes, you want to know it's going to be 15 minutes. If you're going to be there for two hours, you want to know it's going to be there, you're going to be there for two hours. So what I learned is that most of it is about training and that what people are really craving is to be served by someone who's competent and also to know what to expect.
- [04:31]
B
Right. You started your career in education, which is such an interesting foundation for someone now leading a tech company. Teaching, which requires clarity, empathy, the ability to translate complex ideas into something people actually can understand. So those skills often show up in leadership and product communication in ways I think people don't recognize. What lessons from your time as an educator still influence how you lead or communicate in tech today?
- [05:03]
A
I think my time as an educator probably impacts how I do everything in my life as an educator. I think one thing that you're always thinking about is sort of the scaffolding of skills. You know, if we need people to be able to do this working backwards, what are all of the skills that they have to learn in order to be able to achieve this? And that's not a lot different than, you know, product requirement document. So like, really being able to break down complex concepts into smaller steps is really important. I think in technology, it's important in education, it's definitely important in leadership. You know, one of the key learnings that I really got from my time I worked at a school called Bow Valley College in Calgary and I worked at the ESL department and I spent a lot of time with the learners who are kind of at the upper levels that were ready to transition into academic upgrading or go into their professional programs, worked with a lot of professionals that were ready to transition into their careers and needed to get certified or pass a certain level to prove proficiency in English language. And they were balancing so much, you know, balancing part time jobs, balancing full time jobs, parenting, caregiving with being a student. And so a lot of, when I think about weightwell and the problem that we're solving, a lot of it is really about those people and respecting their time and helping them to connect to the services that, that they need faster. And that's a lot of what I hear when I talk to student service professionals as well, is really about meeting the needs of those really complex students who have so much that they're juggling and maybe are on campus, maybe are off campus and really helping them to connect those student services they need to be successful.
- [06:37]
B
Right. Many organizations, especially universities, are still managing wait times and service demand with tools and processes that we're, we were never designed for today's expectations.
- [06:50]
A
Right.
- [06:51]
B
So for listeners that are unfamiliar with weight. Well, how would you describe what it does in the core problem you're solving?
- [06:58]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, the core problem that we sought out to solve was, was waiting, getting rid of lineups. People don't like waiting in lineups. Students, just like everybody else on this planet, you know, they expect, you know, they, if they're hungry, they order a meal on doordash. If they want to go somewhere, they order an Uber. They're used to sort of that instant response, that instant communication being, you know, ordering things on demand. And so they carry those expectations into higher education. And when they go to a student service office, you know, they're really expecting that kind of digital experience that they would get anywhere else in their life. So what we do, you know, we started off getting rid of lineups, so we allow people to scan a QR code, join a line and get instant updates on their phone about what their wait time is going to be. And that's what we do kind of for the end user. What we're doing for staff is we also do booking and check in. And so what we're really doing is helping to facilitate the way that services move through the service center. So for example, you might have student workers who have only been trained on how to do a couple of more simple services. And so you can route those simpler inquiries to student workers and then save those more complex inquiries that you have for staff who might have more training. And so that really creates a lot of operational efficiency for the staff, which can really help to bring down those staff stress levels. Student service centers are typically very sort of cyclical, very seasonal, right. They have, they have times where they're crazy busy, inundated. Everybody has a question, everybody wants to drop a course, add a course, you know, have questions about their financial aid, and then they have quieter periods. And so waitwill really helps to sort of even out those sort of troughs and valleys.
- [08:38]
B
They are the busiest complex environments on campus.
- [08:42]
A
I think, I think student services, you know, we work with governments, we work with higher education, we even work in retail and medical. But student service offices, they are very complex, especially when you're looking at the one stops who are really delivering services on behalf or in collaboration with a lot of different home offices. And so those staff have to have. There's a lot of cross training that's, that's needed and it is very complex.
- [09:06]
B
When organizations implement new service tech, there's often a moment where they shift from just managing lines to actually understanding, improving the entire service experience. What's the aha moment you've seen clients experience once they implement Waywell?
- [09:26]
A
Yeah, well, I mean there's a lot. The biggest feedback that we get that makes us really happy is that the transition was smooth. We can talk about our training and our onboarding and we really do pride ourselves on that. So that's a big aha moment that we get. But we also hear a lot about the value that we provide for these teams in how they talk to leadership. So leadership is always looking for metrics and reporting on how service operations are going. And that's something that Waitwell delivers in Spades. We have 40 plus reports. And so if the student service manager is being asked on a weekly or monthly basis to provide data around, you know, how long are students waiting or what does appointment utilization look like? Or what does student satisfaction look like? We're giving that to them and that's something that really makes their job a lot easier. They're not having to dig through 40 plus reports because they can actually just use our. The AI that's built within Waitwell, we call it Whelo, in order to ask those questions with real language.
- [10:23]
B
What's it called again?
- [10:24]
A
It's called Whelo. Whaler is actually a character, so you can check it out on our website.
- [10:28]
B
All right.
- [10:28]
A
We just launched Whelo last week and it's really interesting. You know, some of our customers are, you know, really, really large colleges with very large staff and student bases and they're able to ask questions like, hey, we need to close the one stop for half a day next month in order to do some training. What would be the best day to do it that would have the least impact on students? Student wait times, and Whelo can analyze the data and give a recommendation like that.
- [10:54]
B
I think rolling out a public facing technology gets tricky because success depends on both staff adoption and how comfortable your students or customers are using the tools. Especially when the digital literacy widely varies. How does your team approach adoption, especially with public facing technologies where that digital literacy is kind of on the spectrum?
- [11:20]
A
I would say when it comes to universities, that is probably the least challenging environment for us. When it comes to end users, I don't know that we've ever had any feedback that students had any difficulty figuring out how to scan a QR code or join the line. We see more challenge, honestly, with other customers that we deal with. But having said that, we do think that the secret sauce is all in the setup. And so we spend a lot of time with customers. You know, we have a kickoff call where we learn more about what their use cases are. We map out what the proposed flow is. There's often multiple meetings where we'll lay out, okay, here's how we think it's going to look. We'll get feedback, we'll change it. We create a sandbox environment. It's really, I think whatever technology you're rolling out, it's really important to spend the bulk of your time at the beginning because otherwise you're going to spend so much more time fixing it at the end. We really believe in a one to one service model so, you know, a dedicated account manager so that you're not having to sort of explain, okay, here's the context, here's what you don't know about why we chose to do it this way. We think that that's really, really important.
- [12:21]
B
You brought up a good point. I haven't really thought about the generational difference where students are probably expecting to have an app to manage their queue at some point, much more than I was at my healthcare provider the other day. And the line to get your prescription is crazy, but I look at the line and, like, I'll bet a lot of these people would rather wait in this line than get an app. Like, it's just a completely different mindset. The public service organizations often have a unique mix of legacy systems, established processes, institutional cultures, which can make this transformation both, I think, technically and organizationally complex. What have been the biggest team technical or cultural barriers to digital transformation in the. In the public service sector?
- [13:07]
A
I think a lot of it is what I think of as kind of tech fatigue. Right. Like you say, okay, we're going to introduce a new tool, and, you know, the response is another tool. So, you know, I already used 20 tools every week, and now I'm going to have 21 tools. So I definitely think that there's some fatigue. And I think the. The solution for that is really to help to make sure that everybody is on board and understands how this piece of technology is going to work with all of the other pieces that they're using. And then if at all possible, you know, can this replace something that they're using? Because I think a lot of times if they're using 20 tools and you can remove even two of them and add one, and then that's one fewer, and that can really help a lot. But I don't, you know, the student service professionals in particular, you know, I know how many tools that they're using, and it really is a lot of. So I think it's important to approach that as well with good understanding.
- [14:02]
B
Yeah. Building and scaling a company comes with, I think, a lot of milestones. The most meaningful ones are often tied to real impact on customers or teams, communities. What's been your proudest moment since launching Weightwell?
- [14:18]
A
The one that stands out for me, honestly, is the day that we got the contract for University of Manitoba. It was our very first large customer back in 2020. I remember getting the call one afternoon and almost fell off my chair. I was so thrilled. I couldn't believe that they'd selected us. We'd only been around for probably even less than a year at that point. That was a real moment that I'll never forget in our company. But then just last weekend, I went to visit my son. He Goes to the University of Alberta, and I met his roommate. And his roommate, the first thing he said to me is, oh, I used Waitwell on campus last week. You have to go talk to financial aid advisors. And. And that I love. I love getting feedback. You know, I used it last week and I didn't have to wait in line, and I could, you know, I could sit in my car and listen to Jeff's podcast or whatever instead of wasting time standing in line. That really thrills me. I love when I hear that we're actually able to make people's lives just a little bit better, a little bit more enjoyable, give people back their time. Time's precious.
- [15:15]
B
Have you heard any stories where we will change an experience for a student or someone that really surprised you?
- [15:22]
A
Well, actually, something kind of funny happened last week. So Whelo, in addition to providing service analytics, service insights can also be customer facing. So end user facing, so visitors can actually ask it. So visitors can arrive and instead of being presented with a menu of five options for lines that they can join, can interact with it using real language. And so we actually saw an interaction on a beta site where there's a. The student arrived and was really frustrated and was expressing this to the AI agent, to Whelo, and Whelo actually was able to give it the background information that it. That it needed. The end result was actually quite sweet. The end result was, you know, oh, okay, now I understand it better. Thanks. Yes, please do add me to the line. So, you know, those are things that we don't often get to see because we're not in the student service office or the government office, but because it was happening with the agent and in a beta environment that we were looking at, we were able to see that interaction. So that was really, really pleasant. But a lot of times, you know, what we hear from staff is that, you know, it used to be harder to do this job because people would be frustrated when they got to the front of the line. So by the time I'm, you know, and I have nothing to do with any of that, I can't make any of that better. But they get to my counter and they're already in a bad mood. And so what we hear is once we started using weight, well, we noticed that people were less frustrated and. And so that service interaction started off on the better foot.
- [16:47]
B
Yeah, I think organizations operate with assumptions about demand and staffing and customer behavior until they finally start measuring service interactions and wait times in a meaningful way. Once they start tracking wait times and service Interactions. What insights typically surprise the leadership the most?
- [17:05]
A
Well, sometimes they will pick up on, you know, we talked about the sort of the peaks and valleys of service demand and I think a lot of times they're approaching it kind of anecdotally like oh, we know the first week of school is really busy, but once they start using Weightwell, sometimes they'll identify other peaks and valleys that they weren't aware of. And then also once they have it in black and white, they've got the data, they've got the graphs, they're able to make some better decisions about how to allocate staff. And so we do hear about being able to make a business case for hiring more student workers to offset some of the high demand periods, for example.
- [17:40]
B
I think we all hope that we invest in new tools to improve service speed and efficiency, but it often doesn't always translate into better experiences. I've seen what's the biggest mistake organizations make when they try to modernize student experiences or reduce wait times.
- [17:58]
A
I think sometimes moving too quickly and not taking the time to have those conversations, particularly I think with staff, but also with students as well and surveying them to find out what they really want. I was at ISSP in November and one of the things that the ISSP conference does that I really love is the student panel where they bring in the students and they ask for their viewpoint about about student service operations. And some of the insights that they have were just the simplest things, like if you're going to send me a text, use my name or if it's really important, put it in all caps. They're very simple things but if you don't ask what matters to them, then you don't know. So I think taking the time to really do genuine discovery into all of the stakeholders perspectives is really important.
- [18:47]
B
I really believe that strong customer experiences don't really happen by accident. They usually reflect values, the habits and the expectations that leaders are building into their teams every day. How do you build a team culture that reflects your passion for customer experience excellence?
- [19:10]
A
That's a really interesting question because it is what Waitwell does. Waitwell was built to deliver a better customer experience, but that really does carry through how we've organized our team as well. So as I mentioned before, we believe in that single point of contact for service. And so when a new school comes on, they're assigned an account manager and that person builds out their workflow, tests it with them, implements, does is responsible for the training and is their central point of contact whenever they want to you know, make a major change. We give people the keys of the castle. They, they don't have to go through us if they want to change the text in a text template or whatever. But we're also really there to support them. But one thing that we've done that I think has been a real source of success for us is that our support team and our development team are very closely meshed. They meet weekly and that gives our development team a chance to hear firsthand when we've rolled out new features. How are people actually using it? What are they saying about it? What do they like? What do they not like? A lot of the innovation within our platform has really been driven by our customers. So like even Whelo, for example, what I was talking about with being able to, to query the database with real language and ask it questions like, hey, when should we close for half a day? Or how do I improve staff efficiency? Or whatever, that came from our customers who said, like, yeah, your reports are great, but it takes a really long time for me to go pull all of these reports and then put it into a format that my leadership wants. And so that's where we realized, oh, okay, this is a place where AI could really help. Real language would make a big difference here. We, we're not a solution that's looking for a problem. We always try to be, you know, to be focused on that problem and making sure that we're developing a solution that solves a real problem.
- [20:56]
B
You started touching on this with AI a little bit, but I think we're all shifting more towards digital. There's no one debating that we're data informed. We expect data driven decisions and experiences. With AI and automation starting to play a larger role in how colleges manage demand and personalize supply support, how is the student service delivery evolving on higher ed campuses? How does, how do waywell address those trends around AI automation and where is it critical to keep a human in the loop?
- [21:25]
A
You know, I think that's a really interesting question. I see a huge range. I think it really depends on the school. You know, like, for example, I think a lot of schools are really looking for, we want students to find the answer on the website first. If they can't find the answer on the website, then we want them to use the chatbot. If the chatbot doesn't help, then let them chat with a real person. And if that doesn't work, then have them come in. We hear that a lot. That's sort of the efficiency model that they're looking for. Where they really want to only have students talking to a real human when they're not able to find their own answer. So they're really sort of trying to build that self sufficiency. But then on the other hand, we hear other schools that are like, no, we want to get back that connectedness. We want people to come in, you know, our leadership is saying, make popcorn, have bowls of candy on the counter, like encourage people to come in. Incent students to come into the school student service center because we want them there in person. We want to have that human interaction. So I think it really depends on in the school where they're at, what their approach to student retention is, what the leadership really values. I really see both sides. And the great news for Waitwell is that we can really do a job, a great job of both things. WH can really help with the help students to be self sufficient and find those answers online as much as they can and not take up a real person's time. But we also do a really great job of connecting students to a real person.
- [22:42]
B
Well, I love that perspective. And tell us now, Shanna, what's next for Waitwell and what keeps you personally excited about the future?
- [22:52]
A
Well, I think what's next for Waitwell? Like I said, you know, we have always, from day one, really tried to be a solution that's focused on solving a real problem. We don't develop technology just because it's fun or it's cool, or we think this is how people should use technology. We really try to be very close to the people who are using our solution and understand what kind of problems they have and how they're using our solution and get insights from them on how it could be a little bit better. So, you know, as much as we're rooted in that, we are really excited about the potential for AI where it makes sense to actually make service better. What we're very committed to is really staying true to that core value, which is, you know, we exist really to make services better for everybody, whether it's a student or a citizen. What was the second half of your question?
- [23:38]
B
I'm just, what are you personally excited for?
- [23:40]
A
Yeah, I get so excited to see the list. We have flags on our, in our, one of our meeting rooms from schools that are using weight well, and I think it's around 50 now. We don't have 50 flags yet, but I think it's around 50 schools. And you know, there's so many more, you know, small schools, large schools. So I get really excited about thinking about all the students that are getting getting a chance to use waitwall to make their waiting experience better on campus and all the things that they might be doing with that time. Hopefully they're reading the classics.
- [24:10]
B
Great Shannon. Well, it was really great to have you on the show. We will put links to Shannon's LinkedIn profile as well as you find way well on EdTech Connect and I want to thank you for being on. That was a really fun conversation. Shannon.
- [24:25]
A
Thanks Jeff. I enjoyed it.
- [24:27]
B
As we wrap up this episode, remember EdTech Connect EdTech is your trusted companion on your journey to enhance education through technology. Whether you're looking to spark student engagement, refine edtech implementation strategies, or stay ahead of the curve in emerging technologies, EdTech Connect brings you the insights you need. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an inspiring and informative episode. And while you're there, please leave us a review. You're your feedback fuels us to keep bringing you valuable content. For even more resources and connections, head over to edtechconnect.com your hub for edtech reviews, trends and solutions. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.