Q&A with Brenda, Customer Support Team Lead
I noticed quickly after joining that I could really build a career here. I’m really passionate about helping customers, but wanted to grow and tackle new challenges. So when I’d been doing Customer Support for about a year, I started thinking about the opportunity of becoming a lead. I saw it as a way to stay close to our customers, and take my impact to the next level. I started preparing for the change by doing lots of side-by-sides with my lead to learn about what the job is like and as I learned more I also started helping out and mentoring other agents in my team.
Why did you join Wise?
I wanted to move abroad and was looking to work for a company with great values and a positive mission. It was important for me to work for a company where I feel like I have a purpose – to do something that feels like more than just a job. I love helping others so I wanted a job where I can really have an impact on customers.
Why did you leave your previous job?
I used to work in Customer Support for a company in Mexico and was looking for a change. I liked the idea of moving abroad, but as that was a big step, I wanted to make sure I ended up at the right company.
I’d heard great things about the values, culture and growth of Wise. And how team leads are here rather to support you than telling you what to do. It made me feel like I’d be trusted and valued here as an employee.
In a nutshell, what do you do at Wise?
I moved from Mexico to Tallinn where I started as a Customer Support Agent helping our Spanish speaking customers. I was also helping out our Translations Team, translating everything from our website to FAQs and automated emails to our customers into Spanish.
After about a year there was an opening for a Team Lead position in our Budapest Customer Support team so I applied. Now I lead a team of ten awesome agents in our English speaking team. My team looks after customers in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region who have questions about anything from transfer issues to using their Wise card. My job is to make sure our team is in a good position – that we perform like we should, our customers are happy with our service, we’re aligned with other teams and that everyone’s happy and growing in their positions.
What’s the biggest challenge working here?
As an agent, I found my biggest challenge was being able to express myself in the right way. You’re constantly dealing with different types of customers from various backgrounds, who are facing a variety of issues. It was challenging to understand what the customer is looking for and how I can explain sometimes complex things to them in a clear manner.
Now as a team lead, my biggest challenge is prioritisation. There’s a lot to do and often everything feels important. So it can be difficult to know where to start and how to divide my time between different tasks. It’s very fast-paced, but it’s a great learning experience juggling everything.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
In Customer Support it’s amazing to see how everyone helps each other out. We face similar customer cases, so being in the same boat makes it easy to share knowledge and it’s great to learn from each other.
As a lead I love helping my agents develop and grow. Joining the Customer Support team can be a lot, it’s an information overload – there’s constantly new product updates and other things you need to keep up with. So it’s so rewarding to see people starting to solve problems on their own, get up to speed and work independently.
What does working with freedom mean to you?
It means being able to do your job autonomously, either in the office or remotely, and not having anyone checking over your shoulder. Here I feel trusted to achieve my goals without anyone telling me what to do or how to do it.
What’s your side hustle?
I’m in the process of creating my own clothing brand based around different types of t-shirts with unique stories behind them. I’m drawing the designs and planning the online shop. I’m also going to write up little stories about the designs. It’s moving slower than I’d like to because I’m so busy, but I’m excited about it!
What’s the craziest thing you’ve done at Wise?
Hosting our office’s Halloween party – it was so much fun! To celebrate my Mexican roots, I dressed up as La Calavera Catrina.
What’s your favourite slack group?
All the dog channels, because I love seeing photos of everyone’s dogs and posting some of my Pug, Leia.
