Employee Spotlight: Olga, Our Customer Success Excellence Champion

Olga has been a cornerstone of Carly's Customer and Product Support (CPS) department. With a journey marked by growth, innovation, and leadership, she exemplifies the spirit and dedication that drives our team forward. Discover what makes Olga's story so special and how her contributions continue to drive our success forward.        

What initially attracted you to join the Customer and Product Support team, and what's kept you excited about your work here?

I joined Carly four years ago and at that time the Customer and Product Support (CPS) department and also the whole company team was very different to what it is today.

Interestingly, I joined at the beginning of Corona so my first months were mainly remote, so it was later that I got to really experience the great environment at our office and discover how it would exceed my expectations.

Initially I really liked the product, which is so customer oriented and the automotive industry sounded very promising, which was a very attractive combination to me. I then started as a Communication Manager for Customers at Carly and it sounded nice and enjoyable, but to be honest I didn’t know what exactly to expect.

Once I joined it was so much more than what I initially interpreted, in the best way possible. I thought it would be mainly about answering customers' emails, but I quickly got to own my own projects! For example, I developed and wrote FAQs, and integrated standardized templates for our customer support. This was so motivating because I saw that there would be a chance to really develop myself through interesting projects and take a hold of my career growth here.

Describe a day in your life at work. What's the most fun or rewarding part of your daily routine?

Today is certainly different, because I have a small Customer Success Excellence team with amazing people who support me in almost everything.

One of the most rewarding parts is how I always help develop many topics, or even handle their development from scratch. As a team, the CPS department has come so far in its development, we have much more complex processes and structures, which I think are very well built in, and great automations that keep us in the edge of the industry.

What’s even more fun is that although our team has advanced so much we still want to keep pushing the limits. For example with AI, these last quarters have been all about unlocking its advantages and seeing how we can leverage our processes and cater to our customers even better.

Another key aspect is to help my team of three people. I have many onboarding meetings, where I transfer responsibilities according to their new Role Expectations, so there is lots of knowledge sharing. I think I learn from and support them as much as they support me (and they support me a lot). Our Customer Success Excellence team members have taken over lots of responsibilities so far, and I am proud to see how each of them is growing into their Role Expectations.

In short, I never feel “stuck” in my role, because there are always more exciting projects to explore and a wonderful group of people to conquer them with.

You've had some amazing achievements here, the most recent one being joining the Leadership team, congratulations! Can you tell us more about that journey?

Thank you! I would say the journey really starts now that I have more people supporting me, which is mindblowing when you think that a year ago there was one person and working with him was both rewarding and special. But now it quickly grew to three, also very special, but definitely a different direction, more like a sub-department vibe.

When somebody new is joining I now have to walk them through the details of our sub-team in the larger department.

I’d say the journey right now is about the balance between my work and finding a way to keep the team motivated. I’m so eager to organize everything, set up solid structures that help everyone be aware of responsibilities and make it easy to support each other.

At the same, I care deeply about dedicating time to offer a very wide palette for everyone in my team so they never feel “stuck” with one topic, instead everyone has the chance to explore different areas in Customer Success Excellence.

And the training for leadership? They were immensely helpful, not even a question. The knowledge I got there was very unique, because it’s not just skills that you get for daily tasks, but also to raise your quality as a Lead for people and understand the strategic side of the company.

For example, on the one hand the workshops with our CEO were very helpful and extremely interesting because they gave me so much insight into the business side; also the workshops about product complexities. On the other hand, I also got very detailed training in people management skills like: listening skills, recruiting skills as a lead, communication skills, and cross-functional collaboration. It's impressive how they boost your self-awareness as a person and future Lead.

What I really liked about this preparation and training was that aside from the great emphasis on business understanding, was the equally deep focus on soft skills to Lead people.

It’s not that you are given a team and you somehow work with them, but you are strongly equipped to give them the best experience possible. I feel this human centricity makes Carly’s approach to leadership so unique.

We all hit challenges sometimes. What's the most creative solution you've come up with to tackle a tricky problem?

I wouldn’t maybe define it as a creative solution, and it’s true that we all face challenges, so I would say I always try to focus on my job and what keeps me motivated.

When things aren’t going the way I would want them to go I stick to an anchor, which to me is something that still brings a smile to your face no matter the times.

For instance when I was working in the Small Core Brands (SMC) team, I was going to work in the event management direction with the Japfest. It was something completely new with my Carly role, but I turned that around and took it as an opportunity to implement my previous experience in event management, and immersed myself in all the details of this new development dimension at Carly.

I think the creativity part of this solution comes in finding what else you can do, maybe a new approach to not to get stuck in negative vibes. There is so much space to be creative in finding your motivation in things you do. Just give the best you can and keep the spirit.

How do you think your contributions have made a difference in our team dynamics? What's your favorite thing about working with your teammates?

I really like cross-functional work and I think there was a chance to get to know better people from other departments and also explain and share much more about the special things that CPS does as well as our perspective.

Personally, I always try to be as helpful as possible and support everyone on any topic. Even when I’m super focused on tasks, you might see me in my “focus bubble”, but I’m always very keen on helping.

To my team, I feel I contributed to their continued growth by delegating projects and processes that I had the chance to set up from scratch and helping them understand how to manage and make the best of it.

They are people that I genuinely enjoy spending time with, to have chats casually, and if it weren’t for them honestly the work would be so much different. I’m really happy that we all are a great match for one another, with the ladies in CPS for example we have outings every quarter to talk about everything and anything ;) I think I constantly find my anchors in the people around me and it’s one of my favorite things about my working experience.

Tell us about a customer interaction that really made your day. How did you turn things around for them?

At the beginning I was doing more customer communication, so I would say not just one but many positive customer interactions made my day -either by solving a troubleshooting problem or providing the best product experience.

In fact we used to have a very active Slack channel in the beginning of my time at Carly, where we would post all the nice, funny and grateful comments from customers. The channel included developers and engineers so you could really get the most techy-funny feedback from very knowledgeable customers.

Of course these days our customer pool keeps growing and we do not always have time to continue sharing these messages as before. But I can honestly say that the simplest kind comment would make our day and we could always come back to it for a pick-me-up.

What upcoming projects or goals are you most excited about? Any tips or words of wisdom for newcomers who want to shine in our team?

The most exciting one is definitely the use of AI, first because it’s amazing how Carly is super flexible to incorporate trending modern solutions. With AI, we have quickly implemented smart solutions like digitalization and automation into our processes.

Personally, I’m so excited to understand where the limit of AI lies in customer support, or if there even is one, and how much it will help us personalize and automate it.

As for my tip for a newbie: try to get the best out of everything Carly has to offer, because there is truly so much in terms of insights and training.

Particularly for our team, don’t stick to this general interpretation of “customer support = talking to customers and done” but rather immerse yourself in all the CPS topics we have at Carly and let yourself be surprised with the deep analytics and the horizons we try to expand.

On a company level, attend the team weeklies, absorb the numbers info from the reportings, and the "how" & "why" insights about Carly's advances that the management team shares. Also learn from your wonderful team mates, from the processes we set up, and if you’re feeling inspired take the chance to create something new that is your own because you really have space for that here, no matter the department.

I’m personally so proud of the CPS team. There are really many many chances for people here to learn, explore and contribute. It’s nice to see Carly’s development and CPS development as well, and how Carly has that human approach reflected in every step we take.