A passion for helping, a capacity for listening and a willingness to go the extra mile are what enabled Devan Spence to become our Miami Site Manager

Devan Spence didn’t know much about Wix when two of his friends - former colleagues at a music store in Miami - told him that they started a new job with Wix.

“I was already working in the store for about 2 years and I have gotten to the point where I wanted to feel like I was doing something that I could be really good at and that it would matter somehow. Basically, doing something where I could be more of myself and bring the energy and the enthusiasm to helping someone with a product,” he says.

Devan wasn’t quite sure where to look for a new job, but when the friends who started working at Wix as Customer Care Experts described what they were doing, he was intrigued. “I’m pretty tech savvy and I had some experience with websites, but they were learning cool stuff all the time and that got me curious. I decided to apply. I didn’t even tell them,” he smiles.

Devan was hired as a Customer Care Expert and loved it. Our Experts are the ones who are in touch with our users over phone, chat and email and those who help them with our many products. Since they’re expected to know pretty much everything about our products - from how to walk a user through the process of setting up a billing system for their online business to changing the templates they’re using on it - they need to have a deep understanding in many of them. “Learning something new every day and working with people and helping them was lots of fun and I was willing to go the extra mile to learn stuff I didn’t know in order to answer every request. I told myself that I'm in a better position to find the information than they are, so I’ll do it for them,” he says.

Devan’s ability to learn and his passion to grow his capabilities didn’t go unnoticed and after about 5 months he was promoted to a Team Lead role. “When I first started, I was managing 3 people. I think the biggest challenge for me was to understand that you're very much responsible for the way people view their job. Like any of us, when we show up to work every day, we want to know that we're doing a good job. As a Team Lead you're constantly in that mode of helping people to either do their best work or to just celebrate it when they’re doing their best work so they know to repeat that behavior.”

“As a manager, I’m always listening to the employees speak, and through them, I'm hearing our users too”

After 2 years as a Team Lead, Devan was promoted again, this time to be Wix’s Miami Site Manager. “We had grown a lot as an organization and since many Experts were promoted to Team Leads I was asked to help bring some of our best practices to other teams and their new Leads. After that I was made Site Manager here.”

What do you do as Site Manager?

”I manage Miami's Customer Care delivery teams, about 140 Experts, Team Leads and Group Managers and we’re still growing. My responsibility is making sure that our part of the organization in Miami is doing everything we can to provide the best experience for our users. We do it through collaborations with other teams across Wix and through different initiatives that will enable us to train and coach our Experts so we can have the best conversations possible with our users."

What do you think enabled your rapid promotion at Wix?

“I think a strong capacity for listening is huge. As a manager, I’m always listening to the employees speak, and through them, I'm hearing our users too. When people tell me that they want to be managers, my first advice is to find out why they want it. It sounds simple, but I think that asking yourself what motivates you to be a manager, what's important about it to you and what will allow you to be your best self even on days where it's extremely difficult is extremely important. The imaginary version of it is always sweeter than what it actually is, so you just want to make sure that the reasons why you're doing it are accurate. If they have decided that they want the role, I tell them that it's good to convey desire - the level of work you're willing to put in to get there.”

Do people who are joining Wix these days have the same growth opportunities you had?

“I'd say they have more opportunities. Back then, there were only a few growth paths. Nowadays, since we have so many different teams here, I see lots of opportunities for folks who are willing to put in the work and follow their passion. It's an amazing time to be in the company.”

Explore all Customer Care roles at Wix.