Jason Xiong
Manager of Technical Services
Tell us about the role you play at Wholesail. What’s your day-to-day look like?
I'm the manager of the technical services team. Right now, we have a total of five people – six, including me.
We're like the connective tissue of Wholesail. Basically, we execute the things that actually need to get done. Day-to-day, we handle general customer support work. Tickets come in, and we work to resolve them. We also help with planning as needed.
My team keeps a constant eye on the platform. We’re the first responders: We make sure the data between ERPs and Wholesail flows so the platform feels seamless at all times.
We also obsess over the entire user experience. Not just for the vendors who plug into Wholesail, but for their customers, too, so every click feels obvious and effortless. If a user needs step-by-step help, we’ll hop on a call. We’re also the crew that helps vendors unlock Wholesail’s full toolkit, such as automated reconciliation and real-time payment tracking so they can scale without breaking a sweat.
We also have a foot in QA. We help engineers test features and file bug tickets. We support onboarding, too. The customer success team handles the customer-facing side – coordinating, managing timelines, all that – but someone has to make their plans actually happen. That’s us. One or two of our team members work on onboarding, building things out in the system, and pulling reports.
We also build some of our own support tools. Sometimes we need specific tools to automate our work or simplify processes, like building reports. Sometimes engineers help us with that, but sometimes we do it ourselves.
We’re a pretty self-sufficient team!
Sounds like you wear a lot of hats.
Yes. I think a good way to put it – one I’ve always used – is "jack of all trades." You might not be the master of any one thing, but you know a lot about a lot.
And generally, tech services folks are also knowledge holders of the product and the information. We tend to have a pretty solid understanding of how the product works overall, especially from a technical perspective.
How long have you worked at Wholesail?
I’ve worked at Wholesail since 2021. I think I was either the eighth or ninth employee overall.
What did you do before you came to Wholesail?
I started out as a tech services analyst at Epic. It’s a healthcare IT company that does EHR software. I was in Epic technical support for around four years, and that’s where I got a taste for the tech support world. It really felt like my bread and butter – something I was good at. I liked leading a team, but the larger company environment didn’t feel like the right fit for me.
So, I left and moved to my first startup – an education tech software company. I worked there for about a year as a Customer Success Lead. That’s when I realized: okay, startups plus tech work—that’s the right combo for me.
I started looking and eventually found Wholesail, and I’ve been in love with the company ever since.
What really attracts me to the company and makes me feel like it’s the right place is that we’ve got an amazing product and an amazing team. For me, the most important thing is enjoying the people you work with. That’s probably the rarest thing I’ve found compared to other places I’ve worked.
The work is fulfilling, you meet a lot of interesting people, and you also get to work alongside folks who’ve spent their lives doing this kind of work. They know the space, they know their roles, and they know how to be efficient and effective.
So yeah, I love the product – because you really can’t go anywhere without a great product – but what makes this place feel like the right fit for me is the people and the culture, hands down.
How do you approach your work, and how does your work reflect Wholesail’s values and culture?
I always approach my work from a customer-centric perspective. My goal is really to support the customer experience. Making sure we're always empathetic to their needs and truly understanding what they actually mean.
At the end of the day, there are cases where people ask for something, but it’s not really what they need. And depending on how you interpret it, there can be different ways to approach the problem.
For me, that’s one of the most reflective parts of our culture – how we treat our customers.
"White glove service" is a term we use a lot, but I think a better way to put it is: we put the customer first. We never set expectations higher than what we can actually deliver. We’re always honest and transparent about what we can and can’t do. We want our customers to succeed.
At the end of the day, happy, successful customers are what help create a successful company.
Can you share any moments or stories that make you feel proud of the impact Wholesail has on its customers?
The thing that makes me happy again and again is Farm to Table. Especially after we released the new customer form and got it launched. My team worked closely with Jody. She's always so happy and supportive, and it’s been great working with her.
What makes me proud is that we've kind of helped turn her into a champion for the product!
And that’s largely because of the work my team has done: providing strong support, helping her understand the product, answering her questions, and making sure everything works smoothly on her end.
It’s moments like that, where someone really embraces the product because of the support we’ve given, that stand out as some of my proudest.
I wasn’t in charge of her onboarding at the time; one of my other team members was but I do remember some of the conversations. She just seemed really stressed. And now, when I look at her today, she’s great. She feels good. She’s gotten time back, she’s able to focus on other things, the system is working, and she’s collecting all the information she needs.
For me, having a happy customer – turning someone into a champion of the product and actually seeing the impact of that – is the most rewarding part of the work.
What’s the lore around Wholesail about Jason? What might a new hire expect to hear about you from your coworkers?
Well, it’s not necessarily positive in a traditional sense, but maybe that I’m on 24/7? Yeah, that’s kind of a joke. I work a lot. But I do think people would say they laugh around me. I’m probably one of the more sarcastic folks on the team.
And not to toot my own horn, but I really care about my team. I care about the work they do, and I care about making sure they have balance. I'm always thinking: Are they getting overwhelmed? Are they struggling? Do they need more help or mentoring in certain areas?
My time is limited, but I always put a premium on spending time with team members, because it’s important to me that they feel successful – that this job is fulfilling and aligned with what they were looking for.
I’ve always seen this role as one where people often start in more entry-level positions, but if they succeed, we invest in them. We help them grow, level up, and keep moving forward.
What does it take for a person to succeed in a role like yours at Wholesail?
I think the most important thing for me is having the right aptitude. You’re empathetic, you understand the customer, and you know how to take something apart—break it down into pieces—and really dig in to figure it out.
What characteristics does someone you enjoy working with tend to exhibit?
What stands out most to me is when people take ownership. When they are quick on their feet, and capable of learning and figuring things out on their own, but also know when to ask for help.
And because we're the connective tissue, that kind of person is exactly what we look for – someone who understands the customer, can communicate with them clearly, and can also execute on all the little details that make something truly successful.
We handle the details so that other people don’t have to.
We're hiring a technical services role!