Matt Cromwell
@webdevmattcrom
Matt is co-Founder of GiveWP and Senior Director of Customer Experience at StellarWP. He’s passionate about helping WordPress product owners level up their customer experience, marketing, and freemium strategies.
He’s the founder and co-host of WP Product Talk and Glam that Plugin. Matt was born and raised in California, but lives now with his wife and four children in Germany.
Get to know Matt 🎙️
Can you start by painting a picture of what a typical day looks like for you? What fuels your passion for the work you do, and how does it tie into your involvement with WCEU?
I’m Senior Director of Customer Experience at StellarWP, so my typical day starts by reviewing how our CX department is doing in terms of fulfilling our SLA’s, improving our refund rates, improving our renewal rates, fighting disputes, and generating positive reviews. I’m passionate about ensuring every customer that interacts with any of our StellarWP brands has a stellar customer experience. I believe customer experience is key to a growing and thriving WordPress product business, it’s something that comes up regularly in our interviews with WP product owners in WP Product Talk and will for sure be a key aspect of Katie and I’s presentation.
What sparked your interest in becoming a speaker at WCEU? Was there a particular moment or experience that motivated you to share your insights with this community?
I’ve been an attendee, sponsor, and volunteer at WCEU, but not yet a speaker, so I’m thrilled to present this year (and attend and sponsor again!). WCEU always has great talks and the community is very engaged in the talks. Presenting gives me an opportunity to share my thoughts on the subject of product business which always triggers others to come and want to talk with me about their business – and that’s what I love, making new connections with product owners that I might never had otherwise met before.
For those awaiting your talk, could you give us a preview of what we can expect to learn from your talk? Any sneak peeks?
Our talk is about takeaways we’ve learned through our (now over 65) interview with product owners through WP Product Talk. On the show, we highlight product business, product marketing, customer experience, monetization, and accessibility and more. I’m hoping that attendees will get exposed to a wealth of insights in an engaging way that enables them to head home and make positive change for their own product business.
Is it your first time at a WCEU or WordPress event? Any standout memories or lessons learned that you’d like to share?
This will be my fourth WCEU, my first was in Berlin, Germany, and most recently I was at Athens. What stands out is how consistently high-quality WCEU is every year despite being in vastly different venues and locations. Between Berlin, Porto, Athens, and now Torino, I’ve gotten to see so much more of Europe and exposed to different European cultures all just because I was attending WCEU. It’s such an amazing opportunity every year.
Looking beyond the scheduled sessions, what do you hope attendees will take away from their overall experience at WCEU? How can they leverage the event to enhance their professional development or personal growth?
The WordPress community is very large and very diverse. While we all come from so many different cultures and backgrounds, we all want to succeed online with WordPress. Every person you meet has new insight and new perspectives to share. Respect and value everyone you meet, and look for the “stranger” and make them your friend. That’s a huge benefit of this conference, you’ll make so many “stranger-friends” over the years and you’ll be enriched because of it.
