And here I am in Customer Success!

This post goes for Support Driven writing challenge.

“History: Our history shapes us — what path led you to Support? Was it a planned career? Or did you happen upon it?”

Usually everyone dreams about becoming a doctor or an engineer: when I was 10 years old I imagined joining the armed forces. This dream stayed with me, but was always rejected by everyone around me, likely because I was a girl. Nevertheless, when I was about to complete my education, I wanted to join an organization to start working and earning. It seems strange, looking back at my career dreams. But that’s true!

I was good in computers in my school, and interested in technology, so I joined an IT course for one year, straight after education. Here, I started my graduation in the IT field, and did some professional courses too. But I never wanted to become a developer or an engineer.

As a Teacher

After that, I enrolled myself for a post-graduate course, but also started working as an instructor at a computer institute, delivering classes on various IT topics. Until now, I had never thought about working in Support, but I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing.

As a VoIP Administrator

Two years later, after completing my post-graduate course, I joined a VoIP organization that was headquartered in Switzerland as a Network Administrator. It was fun — playing with Cisco Gateways and Routers, creating dial plans for big customers (Airtel, Reliance, VSNL, and many others), however we (the NOC guys) never communicated with them because we were handling the backend part only. However, whenever our support team used to email our customers or call them, I was always involved in the communication. They felt more comfortable having me in the call so that I can talk technically and answer all their queries there and then. I enjoyed every bit of learning and working there for four years.

Unfortunately, our company ran into some legal issues, and the office was closed. Suddenly, I was searching for a new opportunity. Exploring the options available in my hometown, I had the option between the two roles: either working in Technical Support, or a role as a Bank Executive. Considering my experience and the appreciation I always received from our clientele and team, I decided to focus on finding Technical Support role I knew I would enjoy..

And then as Customer Support

With this I joined Kayako. I started working as Technical Support executive , and it’s been an amazing journey. It’s been almost eight years and I have worked in different roles both as a People Wrangler as well as an Individual Contributor. Starting as a Technical Support executive, jumping to Team Lead Support, then to Support Manager, then as a Customer Success Manager, and now as ‘Technical Consultant’. Every role has taught me something new and every person sitting next to me has helped me learn how to improve. With each day, each interaction with every person, whether colleague or customer, is an opportunity to learn and grow.

Working in customer support gives me the opportunity to do great things for others. The joy I get after helping people is stupendous. It’s an amazing feeling when you fix things for your customers and they say ‘ You’re a savior!’. With every interaction, I have a chance to build relationships with them and prove they are in the right hands and have made the right decision to work with Kayako.

In customer support, I am not only helping our customers, but my colleagues as well. Although customer support wasn’t what I predicted for my future, it is the best place for my skill sets and passions. Though it is sometimes hard to explain to my family to help them understand what exactly I do!

This role involves working with so many different functions, and I love every bit of it. I’ve worked with engineering team to test bugs and patches; written technical documentation; blogged for the Kayako blog; arranged meetups; delivered webinars; given technical demos; reduced churn, managed important clients, and so much more. And yes, I got the chance to speak at Elevate Summit, London. This all happened because I like and believe in what I am doing.

I strongly believe that if you think you are in the right place, you will always find new ways to interest yourself in your work. You will never be a TGIF person (although sometimes you can’t wait for the weekend to come around!).

It is just the power of mind to feel “You’re awesome!”.