Customer relationship management platform Tern held its first Tern Users Conference aboard Virgin Voyages' Brilliant Lady, inviting travel advisors to provide feedback on how Tern can improve its product.
Tern quickly turned that around, with the company's engineering team holding a "hackathon" back home, developing and releasing some of the most-requested features while the conference was ongoing.
"We turned our users into active product collaborators," said Tern chief technology officer and co-founder Brian Reath. "While advisors were learning and networking on deck, our engineers were back home building the exact features they asked for. It's unprecedented in this industry."
Molly Johnson, Tern's head of product, said the new features surprised attendees during the conference's closing keynote session.
Tern will hold a webinar on Sept. 17 to officially announce the new features.
The conference, held Sept. 10-15, welcomed 180-plus travel professionals for 20-plus hours of education, covering topics like groups and AI automation. It also featured workshops and support sessions.