How I Helped Rebuild and Scale a Remote Organization
The Shutdown
When the COVID-19 pandemic brought the meetings and events industry to a halt, I suddenly found myself as the only remaining member of a Customer Success team that had once been over 25 people — and one of only 8 employees left in the entire organization.
Executives had made the tough but necessary call to reduce the workforce after all live events were canceled. Like many other companies in 2020, the office closed, and operations shifted fully remote overnight.
Those of us who remained faced serious challenges in maintaining business continuity, client satisfaction, and revenue stability.
Thankfully, the meetings and events industry is incredibly resilient. Many clients transitioned to virtual meetings almost immediately. The organization was well positioned to support them but needed to prepare for recovery by rebuilding the entire operation from scratch in a remote environment that demanded both speed and scalable structure.
What We Did
What began as a scramble to stay afloat evolved into a structured, people-centered approach. This is the same framework I now bring to clients through Streamline Strategies: aligning people, processes, and platforms. My goal was not only to restore operations (so the other remaining operations leader and I could finally get some help) but also to create a foundation that would support sustainable, organized growth for years to come.
Scrappy Beginnings
Initially, we didn’t have the time or cash flow to tackle big initiatives or rehire employees. We had to make the best use of the resources we had. That meant throwing out old processes built for big teams, redefining priorities based on the day, and staying laser-focused on client relationships.
We didn’t work together in an office, but we worked really, really hard from our own little bubbles at home. Our small team — made up of two executives, me, another operations leader, two sales directors, an IT professional, and a finance manager — all jumped in wherever and whenever needed. It was truly all hands on deck.
For a few months, that meant 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. workdays and round-the-clock childcare coverage from our families so we could keep the business afloat. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was effective.
We didn’t lose a single client. We reduced request turnaround time from pre-pandemic levels. We kept incidents under one percent and maintained a 99% customer satisfaction rating.
Those early months proved that scrappy, hard work is always a game changer, even in the face of a worldwide pandemic or political chaos. Once the industry stabilized, we began introducing more structure, automation, and strategic hiring to scale back sustainably.
Strategic Alignment
Once we could finally come up for air, the first priority was to bring order to the chaos. We wanted to grow again, not just maintain the status quo.
I partnered with executives and department heads to identify the most critical priorities using weighted scoring matrices and SWOT analyses. Together, we clarified business objectives, delegated ownership, and identified gaps in coverage so every department was focusing on the work that mattered most. That meant going back to our departmental lanes and focusing on the areas of the business we each knew best.
We reestablished rhythm in leadership communication. I led cross-functional meetings, implemented department updates, launched client satisfaction reviews, and ensured daily actions tied directly to both our own broader business goals and those of our customers.
That alignment turned uncertainty into progress. It’s a discipline I still help clients master today — using structured decision-making to create clarity in complex, fast-moving environments.
People Come First
Once priorities were set, I turned my focus to the people behind the scenes delivering the business. Or, in this case, the lack thereof.
To prepare for growth, we analyzed revenue patterns and client demand, building a model to pace hiring and expenses directly with business performance. We tracked revenue forecasts, changes in service mix as clients transitioned back to live events, and the real time required to deliver each project efficiently.
Using this data, I built a recruitment strategy that supported hiring more than 20 remote customer service professionals in a little over a year. Each role was redefined to clearly outline the specific skills needed for success. We rehired top performers who had historically supported our highest revenue clients and then searched for new people who had the qualifications to grow within our newly defined roles.
Alongside the hiring effort, I developed complex onboarding plans to allow for overlapping trainings with a diverse mix of employees. This built the existing employees’ training skills, allowed for simultaneous onboarding of multiple roles, and ensured new hires were contributing within weeks.
I also built mentorship programs and planned culture initiatives to connect new hires with legacy team members, preserving some of the camaraderie we’d built in-office before the pandemic.
To strengthen engagement and consistency as we grew, I introduced mid-level leadership roles into the organization’s structure, refreshed performance review programs, and outlined clear pathways for growth to new roles. These changes gave employees a vision for how they could grow within the company while also giving our clients dependable, high-level points of contact as the team expanded.
I can’t lie — there were a lot of really challenging moments. The Customer Success team experienced burnout from constantly putting out fires we couldn’t expect and navigating ever-changing client requests. We addressed these issues directly through collaboration, transparency, and humor.
Thankfully, I kept the team connected with the essentials of remote culture: group chats, inside jokes, gifs, and memes. Because when you’re not sitting next to your people in the office every day, humor becomes a highly effective management tool.
Optimized Platforms and Processes
With a plan for getting the right people in the right roles, I turned my attention to how the work got done. Our goal was simple: make operations faster, easier, and more impactful for both employees and clients.
I documented and streamlined workflows, eliminated bottlenecks, and built standardized process documents. Having already created a team structure with defined roles, deliverables, and reporting lines helped us balance collaboration with autonomy.
We rolled out customer service and incident management training to reinforce a culture of empathy, responsiveness, and white-glove client support.
Efficiency and work product improved further when we automated manual tasks like data entry within our proprietary event management system. We enhanced the client portal with smarter intake questions, encouraged clients to self-serve through the portal rather than email in order forms, and built real-time dashboards to replace constant manual snapshot reports. We were able to give our clients access to a real person when they called, while automating the manual admin work on the back-end.
Detailed, color-coded project plans and communication frameworks increased transparency across departments, helping leadership see the workload and impact of automation initiatives on both employees and clients.
The results were immediate — faster turnaround times, less admin fatigue, and better visibility into client activity.
Transitioned from Survival to Success
What began as pure survival quickly evolved into a structured, scalable operation that could support both recovery and future growth.
The hard work we put in during those early months created the systems, structure, and culture that allowed the business to not just bounce back, but perform better than we ever had before the pandemic.
This period of painful growth and problem-solving truly set the stage for how I help clients at Streamline Strategies today.
The Results
Here’s what happened when scrappiness met structure and strategy, and people stayed at the center of every decision.
Key Takeaways for Leaders
Leading through crisis — and scaling beyond it — taught me lessons that now anchor my work with clients:
Structure creates freedom - When your business starts growing faster than your systems, chaos follows. Building clear, repeatable processes gives your team the confidence and consistency they need to deliver without relying on you for every task or decision.
Clarity multiplies results - When people understand priorities, expectations, and how their work connects to revenue and customer experience, they take ownership. Alignment turns effort into efficiency, and efficiency turns into growth.
Culture drives performance - A strong culture isn’t about perks (though those are fun). It’s about connection, trust, and communication. When your team feels seen and supported, they adapt faster, collaborate better, and deliver their best work even when things get tough.
The truth is, growth rarely makes things easier. It exposes what’s missing. But building stronger, people-centered operations gives you the stability, energy, and clarity to scale sustainably without burning yourself or your team out.
What This Means for My Clients
This experience completely shaped how I lead and advise today.
Through Streamline Strategies, I help B2B service companies and founders scale with clarity by building operational frameworks that connect strategy to execution. My approach blends empathetic leadership, practical problem-solving, and hands-on implementation to help teams move from friction to flow.
Whether you need to improve performance, grow your team, optimize processes, or enhance systems to support growth, I can help you design operations that work for your specific business.
When your people, processes, and platforms are aligned, growth stops feeling so hard and starts to feel exciting again.
Ready to Scale?
From my experience, clarity doesn’t come from doing more. It comes from stepping back, getting perspective, and fixing the root causes before they halt your growth.
If your business has outgrown its systems or your operations feel harder than they should, let’s fix that.
Together, we can design a structure that supports growth and restores momentum without burning you out or making you lose control of what you’ve built.
About the Author
Tiffany Dougherty is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Streamline Strategies, LLC. She draws on more than 13 years of leadership experience in strategic operations and customer success to help B2B service companies scale sustainably by aligning people, processes, and platforms.