Meet Team Kinsta: Client Relations Program Manager Teo

If you've ever received a handwritten 'thank you' note from our team, that elegant cursive is courtesy of Teo, our amazing Client Relations Program Manager! Keep reading to see the parallels between Client Relations and a really good Italian restaurant, learn about Teo's days crewing a sailboat in the South Pacific, and more!

Tell us about your Kinsta journey: how did you get started in tech, and what brought you here??

I joined Kinsta in the very early days of the company- I think I was employee number three or four after the founders. To be honest, they did not hire me for my technical background but for my personality and survival skills, I guess. ?? At that point, the company was a small startup so everyone was wearing many hats. I was doing HR-related tasks but also client relations. Simply put, I was the person who made sure everyone was feeling okay and knew what was going on inside and outside the company. By working in a client-facing and supportive role at the same time, I soon experienced and realized something important. The way a company treats its team members is reflected in the interactions from the team towards the clients. The atmosphere at Kinsta was always respectful, playful, and appreciative and I could see how that was reflected in client conversations.

After starting at Kinsta in 2016, you took time away to spend with your family, then rejoined the team. What was that transition like? How had the company changed in that time?

In Hungary, where I am from, and where I live at the moment, it is possible for mothers (or fathers) to take two-year maternity leave. So I spent two years with my son! The company changed immensely in the meantime.? I left when we were a team of less than a hundred. The pace of growth was slower than it is now, so we basically all knew each other's names and timezones. I came back to a company more than double in size, so that was shocking. There were many Slack channels and it became much more global, so instead of hanging out in the office, we relied heavily on online channels of communication. It took some time to adapt to the changing circumstances, but one thing I still really loved is that the communication on the team was still respectful and transparent. It's great to work alongside very smart and funny people who do not take themselves too seriously.?

What are the main responsibilities of your role?

To put it simply:? I double-check on our clients to see if they are happy.? ?? I initiate conversations with them asking for feedback and I thank them for being awesome. I reach out to our clients in surveys to ask their opinion about the product. I help arrange UX research projects and I work alongside the marketing team in review campaigns. I send out swag, handwritten postcards, and stickers.

I enjoy that by surveying and facilitating research, I am in touch with different departments and that gives me perspective on how our teams operate and communicate.?

What’s been the best part about working at Kinsta??

I have always been given a lot of freedom on how to make the best use of my time and my role. I feel there is a great amount of trust which of course makes the work more exciting and allows for creativity.?

You’re responsible for the lovely handwritten cards sent to Kinsta customers- why do you feel it’s important to connect in this way as an online company?

In the early days as I started out doing CR for Kinsta, I was looking for small and simple ideas and I found this one in a company blog. I instantly fell in love with it. I am a great fan of personal connection and in a tech company where you don’t meet your clients in person, it’s challenging to add a personal touch. Although reviewing some of the support conversations as part of my job, I can see our team also pulls it off brilliantly with GIFs and funny comments. I wanted this kind of personal touch and genuine care to be reflected in a physical gift that’s small and simple but is also a heartwarming surprise.

Mark, our CEO, said this once and stuck with me: he wanted to run a company that was like a really good boutique Italian restaurant where the food is great, the waiter knows your name and has a joke for you and recommends the best wine. This small gesture with the postcards reflects this attitude for me. It just happens to be a lucky coincidence that I have cursive handwriting that is quite pleasing to the eye ??

As a Client Relations Program Manager, how do you approach situations where a customer is upset? And conversely, is there a customer interaction that stands out to you as being really positive or impactful?

I try to approach difficult situations with empathy and understanding. Our users are important and they are trusting the team and the service with their business, so I do not take these interactions lightly. I am very lucky that the Support team works this way too, so by the time I get to handle such a situation, usually there are plenty of notes and documentation to give me a clear view of the issue. It took me some time but I learned not to take any of those interactions personally and make sure to keep calm and look for a solution, find the light at the end of the tunnel for both parties and keep aiming for it.

I am very spoiled to have the opportunity to monitor our third-party platforms and read all the feedback in our surveys. In other words: I am the one who gathers the harvest of the hard work of all our client-facing teams. We receive a lot of positive feedback and I think each one of these thank you notes from the clients is very important to pass on to the whole team. I make sure they can be heard and seen by everyone.

When you’re not at work, what are you doing for fun?

I love the outdoors. In another life, my husband and I were been backpackers, crewing on a sailboat in the South Pacific, living in a van in Tahiti, and volunteering in an aboriginal art community in the Australian outback. Now that we’ve become parents we try to find ways to instill this spirit of adventure into our son. I am also a founder of a Tahitian Dance and Drumming School in Hungary that counts around 100 members now. Dance is my passion, I choreograph, perform and teach.?

What’s something you accomplished recently that you’re proud of?

I have been going to therapy for a year now and I am very proud of the work I am doing there. From the outside, I might look like I am full of life, always happy, adventurous, and carefree. But I am very sensitive and there is a lot going on inside that I need to consolidate to be able to live a meaningful life and to perform at my best at work. After all, I can only be a reliable, organized, and positive person to work with if I am constantly working on myself.???