Imagine you’ve travelled a long way and then reached a roadblock. Your gas tank is nearly empty. Service isn’t great so you can’t make any calls. You know more or less where you are, but the GPS signal is long gone so you can’t look for alternative routes by tapping your smartphone. What do you do?
This is a metaphor we heard more than once from our Customer Care Experts when they describe their role. In other words, they are the people who see that roadblock and look for creative ways to get to their destination. They see it as a fun challenge. They know that something super worthwhile lies behind it - the reward of helping someone do exactly what they dreamed of, and sometimes even helping them dream bigger.
So what does it actually mean to be in Customer Care at Wix? We sat down for a remote interview with a few of our experts.
How would you describe your role to someone outside of Wix?
Niko Botino is a Product support Lead based in our Tel Aviv office, and he’s been with Wix for the past 6 years. He tells us that he sees himself as someone who’s in charge of the experience of our users in every interaction with Wix. From the moment they start interacting with our product and something’s not clear to them - it’s our job to try to figure it out and present it to all stakeholders so that they have all the info and can make a business decision.”
Joseph Kovalovm is a writer on our Knowledge Base team, also based in Israel. “The most essential part of my job is to localize our knowledge base into Russian. We create an adaptation to provide people from different cultures the feeling that the content was written in their own language and to make that available for them as fast as possible so that they can find the relevant and up to date information when they create their website.”
Cheandra Watson is a mentor and a Care Expert in SF. “We’re identifying where the user is within their journey, what the relevant steps for them are and when is it best for them to take them.” In addition, she adds: “We’re sharing the value of all the tools we have to offer, since not all users are aware of them, and show users what they can accomplish.”
What is care vs. support, and what makes it different from other companies?
One of the main things we heard from our Customer Care team is a sense of personal relationships being built with our users, as compared to the way people view traditional call center or support roles. There’s no time limitation for a call, there’s no SLA, no script. They bring themselves, their skills and personalities into the role.
Tadhg Murray, a Team Lead in our Dublin office, finds that the difference is in the mindset. “Customer Care is all about wanting to help, while Customer Support is about giving an answer. It’s a prolonged effort to help users over time along their journey, to know what’s been covered already, and to really get to know them and their business. It’s having a genuine conversation with them and not just solving their issue.”
Making a difference, or an impact, is also resonated by Suanay Hernandez, one of our mentors from Miami: “When you’re providing Customer Care the Wix way, it means that there’s no quota, you can take the time to know your users, and you’re really making an impact on their life. You’re making this sort of human to human connection.”
Carolin Achenbach-Bitton, leading our German team in Tel Aviv, looks at it as a partnership. “We want to be real partners with our users. We’re not there to sell them random things that they don’t need, but focusing on being active partners and having the same goals as them - to help them grow their business.”
For Janaina Stachi from our Portoguese team in SF, “the feeling that I have is that we are friends with our users. It’s not only about helping the user fix a bug or giving advice. It's also about showing them that we are here for them and that we really care about their business and how they are going to improve it.”
If you ask the team, all these connections made with our users don’t stop there. They are then voiced within the company. For Ciro Trombetta, our site manager in San Francisco, this makes all the difference in how Wix sees Customer Care.
“For some reason I found that a lot of companies don’t put an emphasis on the users’ voice as much, and in a logical sense you think, well - they are the people using your products, why not ask them what they want or what they need?"
"I’ve never felt that way with Wix, I think there’s always been a massive push to make the customer care department's voice heard”, he shares.
What’s the thing you enjoy most about your role?
Speaking with dozens of our Customer Care experts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it was evident that the sense of vocation and meaning was stronger than ever. Our teams were taking calls from home (and still are at the time this post is published), in a situation where millions of people and businesses were affected by the pandemic and found themselves needing to quickly adjust. For many of them, the solution was to move their business online, or adjust it.
Carolin notes that it’s a very rewarding feeling to be a part of someone’s business growth. “Especially now in the time of Corona, when so many people are struggling financially, we help them, make their dreams come true on their site,” she shares.
Chun Zunh Nhuien from our Kyiv team agrees with that sense of reward. “In Customer Care, I become an analyst, a problem solver, a friend, a financial counselor. On the other side of the line there’s someone who needs help, someone who suffered from COVID-19. And with only one call I can give people hope, and connect that hope to make an actual improvement in their life.”
Niko adds: “For me, every day is not the same. Every day feels different, with a new challenge, a new perspective, a new direction, like a whole new world that is opening in front of you. It makes you push yourself and improve yourself. It’s very rewarding to feel that you’re not passively doing your job. You are actively doing it, and succeeding.”
Maryna But is one of our product support leads in Ukraine. The thing she likes most in her role is when seeing the impact of her work. “When you encounter some kind of problem, you learn, investigate and communicate it internally. And then it is solved, and you can actually see the real impact you had on people. It’s really satisfying to see the results of your work.”
What does growth look like for you?
So, what does a career at Customer Care look like? The answer we kept on hearing, is that it’s mostly up to you and where you want to develop yourself.
Ciro is an example of someone who thought he’d be around for only a few months. “Going from thinking I’m going to be here for 6 months to being here over 4 years and having lived in 3 different cities is amazing. My journey at the company has been really amazing. The company is constantly growing and with growth comes needs, there’s openings and there's places that you can find yourself.”
Yulaidi (Cookie) Sierra started at Wix as a student three years ago. After 6 months on the job she was trained in advanced tech and later on started at the first QA team in Miami. Today, she’s a tech lead in QA, being a bridge between our users and R&D. “Wix has a lot of opportunities and if there’s something you want and you’re willing to work for it, Wix will open that door for you,” she says. “It’s a place you can actually grow, no matter where you start from - you can always move around depending on what your interests are.”
Carolin’s journey began 5 years ago. “I started as a student, I went on to be a product support lead and now I’m a team lead - and all that with a background in history. So even if you don’t have the technological background, the growth is endless and depending on how motivated you are,” she adds.
If you could bring a friend to work with you, what would you say to them?
Victor Araujo, a Portoguese mentor also based in Miami, says: “If you’re looking to not just have a job but to make a difference in other people’s lives, this is the job for you. Because you’re doing more than helping people build their business and have an online presence like for a health clinic; you’re building health. You’re building spiritual sites where people share messages of hope.”
Carolin: “You can actually make a real impact on the product. It’s not a job where you just talk on the phone with people. If you collect the feedback from them and move it forward, you can see that changes are made, you have a voice that you can bring to the company and see it implemented.”
Janaina: “If you want to build your own career, and not just work, you should join Wix. It’s thinking about the long term, it’s experience and knowledge. You learn so much about yourself while working at Wix and that’s what motivates me the most. I know that I’m building a career and working for a company that keeps growing and opportunities are huge, there are always so many options.”
Chun: “Wix gives you the best of all worlds. There’s this magical combination of fun and flexibility of startups on one hand, and on the other - this clarity and understanding of how things work at larger companies.”
Our team is growing! For all open roles in customer care, click here.
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