Skip to content

User interviews

Email meeting notes with Gmail

Mutual action plan

Milestone tracker

Discussion tracker

Setup Instructions

Claudio user interview

Brett user interview

Pekka Rundit user interview

More

Share

Explore

Brett user interview

Ankur Dahama

Last edited 92 days ago by Ankur Dahama

Product Feedback and Use Cases: Hai Ta is interested in understanding how Brett Wagner uses Woodpecker in his workflow, specifically what happens with the notes after meetings. Brett explains that the notes serve more for data storage and reference for follow-ups. There are two main types of meetings mentioned: client catch-up calls and sales. The notes seem to be less about immediate action and more about record-keeping.

Feedback on Recent Updates: Brett mentions that a recent update to Woodpecker has made the meeting summaries too detailed, with next steps and action items being less accurate than before. He indicates that the tool was more useful to him when it was simpler.

Feature Request for Note Approval: Brett suggests a feature to approve what is shared from the meeting notes, highlighting that sometimes personal or irrelevant conversations are included in the notes, which can be awkward if shared with clients.

Pausing and Filtering Notes: Hai Ta discusses potential solutions to Brett's concerns, including the ability to pause note-taking and filtering out non-business related discussions.

Internal Communication Practices: Brett shares that their team, consisting of 7 people, mainly uses Slack for internal communications and does not have many internal calls. Therefore, the use of Woodpecker for internal meeting notes is limited.

Action Item Management: Brett talks about how action items from client calls are typically handled through email follow-ups and Slack. However, there is no robust system in place for tracking these action items, and he takes physical notes to keep track.

Potential Weekly Summary Feature: Brett expresses interest in a feature that provides a weekly summary of action items from meetings, which would be valuable for ensuring that tasks are addressed promptly.

Origin of the Name “Woodpecker": Towards the end of the conversation, there is a light-hearted discussion about the origin of the name "Woodpecker," with Hai Ta admitting it was a name they settled on without much of a story behind it, despite it being initially confusing or amusing to some clients. Brett suggests that the unique name has helped with the company's visibility.

⁠

Hai Ta

00:27

Hello. Hey. Hey. How's it going? It's going good. It's I'm based in Finland, so it's about 6 PM right now.

Brett Wagner

00:37

So it's,

Hai Ta

00:39

they they How are you? It's been it's

Brett Wagner

00:42

been dark for about 5 hours.

Hai Ta

00:45

Exactly. I'm heavily proficient in my vitamin c, vitamin d.

Brett Wagner

00:52

How are you? I remember those times well. It was at smartly for about 7 years. So into Helsinki about 8 times. So

Hai Ta

01:01

Oh, nice. Nice.

Brett Wagner

01:03

I'll get on this

Hai Ta

01:07

Sorry. Say that 1 more time?

Brett Wagner

01:08

I said all good on this end, no, no complaints.

Hai Ta

01:12

Yeah. Great. That's good to hear. Awesome. But, yeah, really thanks. Appreciate for taking the call. I think really the purpose of of this, session is I wanna understand how Woodpecker's fitting into your workflow, sure it's generating notes, but what do you do with the notes afterwards? And probably you have a few different types of meetings that happens in a week. So with each of those type of meetings, you know, what what do you do with the information that Woodpecker generates? And I really wanna understand more about that.

Brett Wagner

01:58

Yeah. So, I mean, I I'm the main user right now. At the company, tested it out. I will I will say as far as, like, what we're using the notes for. So there's basically 2 meetings. There's kind of like, in, like, client catch up calls or just kinda, like, biweekly, etcetera. And then the other is sales. I would say what we're doing with the information is probably not much, to be honest, right now. I think it's more just so our clients have the data we have the data, should we need to go back and check before our next call or, you know, are there any follow ups or, you know, what what should be in the email? After the follow-up. So I think it just depends. Most of the stuff were, like, pretty on top of. I will say, like, I don't know if you guys did an update in the last, like, month. But it's I think it's too much information now than it was before. When I first started using the tool, like, the kind of, like, next steps action items, I forget what it's called at the end. We're, like, pretty spot on, but it seems like in the last month. They've been less spot on, and it seems like the categories are being broken out more. Than they were before. So I I do feel like I'm potentially using it less, to be honest than I was when I first started using it, which was only a couple months ago.

Hai Ta

03:30

Got it. Yeah. I think, we just made that push last week to kind of break things down. Because we hypothesized that every meeting had different topics, more clear cut, but it seems like that hasn't been the case in all cases. So, yeah, so that's something where, kind of reverting, rolling back. Yeah.

Brett Wagner

03:59

Yeah. And I would I would say, like, you know, from you know, again, and I I know you were asking more about the meetings, but these are just kinda like 2 2 product or, you know, feedback pieces that I would give you guys as The second 1 is I would really love the ability to, like, approve what is sent to everyone on the call. Right? So you know, sometimes we'll have a client join late. And, you know, we have, like, I almost posted on LinkedIn, not not to, like, bash you guys, but just because it was hilarious, but, like, the first 5 minutes of the call was, like, us just talking about random shit, like, you know, taking our dog to the vet, and, you know, travel delays and this kind of stuff. And, you know, our client wasn't even on the call, you know, when those conversations happened, but she was sent that those notes after the fact. And, you know, it made for, like, a funny funny moment, but I could see how, you know, sometimes we have to be a little bit more sensitive around what we're talking about before a client gets on a call if they are running late. We either have to, like, sit in silence because we know these things taking notes or, you know, speak about only specific things. So it it'd be great if I could say like, hey, you don't need to send this part because it's Yeah. It's not valuable. But, yeah, I think those are the 2 biggest things is, like, potentially rolling back to what it was and then, you know, approvals for some of the stuff.

Hai Ta

05:22

Yep. I think there are, 3 ways we're we're we're kind of try There are 3 ways for planning to tackle this. 1 is enabling the ability to pause the note taker. Second 1 is letting you filter out, like, with a prompt that, hey, don't take, like, when it's kind of chit chat or non business topic, then don't include it in the note. And then third 1 is we're exploring if we can make it so that we'll give a buffer of about 10 minutes or up to an hour of we're not sending this forward, but you have the chance first to edit stuff. And then an email gets sent to to use to participants. Yeah. Good.

Brett Wagner

06:11

Nice. I assume you've heard that feedback then.

Hai Ta

06:14

Couple times. Yeah. Maybe here and there. For sure. Yeah. So you mentioned so there are was it, yeah, sales call and client, catch up call So those, you mentioned that maybe more so on data storaging purposes and just making sure of that yet. Both parties have data and the information in case you want to check back. What about internal calls. Do you oh, I'm curious to hear you're you're the cofounder of the team. How big is the team and how do you kind of keep track then of task, things that you guys agreed on, priorities, all that.

Brett Wagner

07:03

I mean, we try to keep most of our internal comms on Slack. So we don't tend to have a lot of internal calls. The team's Like, it's it's only 7 people right now. But, you know, most of those conversations, we've we have, like, 1, basically, internal call where we talk about, you know, what what's what's the week hold and, you know, what do we need to get done? So we we probably, to be honest, wouldn't use it for internal notes. I know it, you know, smartly, we had a pretty, like, robust bank of, like, internal documents that basically people spent 12 months working on it and no 1 ever looked at them again. So I wanna avoid doing that. So, yeah, I think for, like, internal purposes, it's it's you know, from my perspective, the most valuable pieces are, you know, a, just having the documentation of a call. But the it's, like, those action items. Like, that is the biggest piece for me, you know, when when working with clients is, like, being able to say, hey, this these 3 bullet points, these 4 bullet points, whatever, this this is what we need to work on between now and, like, potentially our next call. You know, if there's ability to, like, check those off or turn those into an email or something like that, like, that would be pretty interesting. But you know, it's it's mostly external, not internal.

Hai Ta

08:28

Mhmm. Mhmm. So those those the current way you're managing those external action items. How are you doing it now?

Brett Wagner

08:38

Oh, usually it's like an email follow-up. We'll, like, use those and then you know, we'll post those in a a slack. Right? Like, we have individual channels for, you know, each of our clients, both external and internal. And, basically, we'll say, you know, 3 bullet points. I'll take these. You take those. Or, you know, a lot of times, they're just follow ups to to questions. Right? Like, you know, we need to request something for the client or they need something from us. So it's usually either, like, a follow-up email or, like, an action item that we just need to take.

Hai Ta

09:15

Okay. And Do you have any problems when it comes to kind of following up on those action items? For example, if I if you have 3, 5 action items of this week's catch up and then next week, then do you have, like, a system where you're making sure that all these things are, like, managed or or, like, mentioned in a meeting, for example.

Brett Wagner

09:45

Yeah. No. Not really. I mean, I do the analytics. Think it would be good to get, like, a weekly download though, to be honest. Like, if we could get a week where, like, at the end of every week or the beginning of every week, it says, hey, here's, like, all your action items from last week's calls. Like, you know, just a reminder, that would be something I would definitely use. But most of the time, I'm I'm usually just trying to take action, like, immediately on these things. So even if it's, like, a request or something that we need to do. We try to do them ASAP. Mhmm.

Hai Ta

10:22

Got it. So when you mentioned that you wanted to or it would be nice to have this feature where there's a weekly download to kind of have the overall view of action items that, you know, are are kind of kind of showing up for this week. Currently, how are you what are you are you using any tool to see that? Or are you even, like, are you even checking, you know, end of the week or beginning of the week? What what action items needs to be.

Brett Wagner

10:59

I mean, I I'll I'll usually take, like I said, I'll take notes, like, on my own. So I'll just handwrite a note. And sometimes I pull it out of that summary after the call and say, okay. Like, I, you know, maybe I didn't catch that or I didn't remember that from the call, but that was said or that was needed, and I'll usually just take a note here. So but other than that, I mean, it's it's a little bit cumbersome to go back through, like, every single call. Look at, like, next steps action items.

Hai Ta

11:30

Yeah. So, basically, I understand that the way you're doing it now is you actually have physical notes of, like, action item, and then it's there on your desk.

Brett Wagner

11:39

Yep.

Hai Ta

11:40

Mhmm. Good. Yeah. Great. Okay. I think then we quite covered basically, all the all the use case you're using Wudpecker for, and then what you do with the notes or what you do with the those afterwards. So I think that's pretty clear on my side. I don't think I have any other questions. This was good.

Brett Wagner

12:06

Okay. I do. What is where did the day come from?

Hai Ta

12:13

I wanna tell a good story of why the name comes up, but honestly, we just couldn't come up with any better name. Like, now it's growing on me. But it just because people from the states hate it, because it's like a euphemism of some sort. Obviously, I'm not aware of, that in the beginning, but now it's like

Brett Wagner

12:34

Yeah. I I, I mean, to be honest, like, it it definitely helped get your name out there because when I first tested it and used it on a couple of clients, they were like, what the fuck is this? Like, what is Wudpecker?

Hai Ta

12:49

Rez, what's going on?

Brett Wagner

12:51

It's it's it's working in that sense. But, yeah, I was just curious. I, like, looked it up. I was, like, does would mean, like, word in German or Finnish or something. Like, what is what is this word from? But

Hai Ta

13:03

Yeah. It's in a way, it's almost, terrible to begin with in SEO because there's also another company with the right pronunciation that's in the baltics, and they do kind of sales emailing. So bit close in terms of industry. It's okay. It doesn't matter. Yes.

Brett Wagner

13:28

Nice. Cool, man. Well, thanks for the time. Let me know if you need any more feedback. You know, I'm I'm excited. If you guys are intending to roll it back, I was gonna shoot you a note and say, Hey, what happened? But it sounds like most people are on the same page. So, yeah, feel free to reach out if you have any, other questions or interest.

Hai Ta

13:52

Thank you. Thanks, Brad. Really appreciate your time. Have a good day.

Brett Wagner

13:56

You too. Bye.

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.