Customer Relations Coordinator Nora Varvemaa is responsible for the smooth running of media monitoring services for Retriever's customers as part of the First line team. She is also responsible for supporting Retriever's social media management tools. So if you're facing a challenging situation with Retriever's tools Engage, Publish, and Measure, Nora's here to help!
What does a typical day look like for you?
My working days are filled with various support requests, solving technical problems, launching and updating monitoring systems and, more recently, various migrations. I mostly work from home, but as the work requires a lot of communication between the team, we stay in touch through internal meetings and Teams, among other things. Sharing information (and other chit-chat) between colleagues is a key part of a comfortable working environment for me.
How and when did you end up working for Retriever?
I started working at Retriever in April 2022. I was in the final stages of my Bachelor of Business and IT studies and was looking for a job where I could utilize my education. Communications wasn't on my radar at first, but when I saw a job advertisement mentioning helping customers with digital services, I was immediately interested in the role.
What is the best thing about your job?
I enjoy helping customers and improving the user experience of our tools and services. I've been working in customer service since I was young and I get a lot of joy and a sense of achievement from it. I became interested in user experience during my studies, and I am very happy that in my current role I get to be involved in the development of services, both at the interface level and in communicating with customers. I also really enjoy problem solving. Whenever a colleague is having trouble getting a search string to work, I'm more than happy to help!
What is the most challenging part of your job?
Solving technical problems is often challenging. For example, the turbulence on Twitter has affected in my work lately. It's frustrating when problems are caused by third parties and issues that I personally can't do anything about. However, I act as an intermediary between customers and the technical team and try to do everything I can to be of the best possible support to our customers. This also usually involves a little detective work, getting the necessary information from the customer to report the problem and investigating the problem itself as far as possible.
What have you achived at your worked lately?
Local customer support for the social media management tools (Engage, Publish and Measure) was transferred from Sweden to our Finnish service team at the beginning of this year. The change has required a lot of time and effort in learning the tools itself and its accompanying features. The learning process continues and will probably never end, but I think the start has been excellent. Mastering the social media management tools has given us a lot of new knowledge and skills and, of course, nice encounters with customers. It's a pleasure to be able to help familiar customers closer to them and in Finnish.
What is the importance of well-managed social media?
Well-managed social media is consistent, timely and responsive. Customers are more likely to contact businesses via social media and expect a shorter response time than via email or contact forms. By managing the company's overall online presence and strategy, a company is better able to meet customer expectations and be better prepared for situations such as crisis communications. Good tools make it easier and clearer to manage your online presence.
How do you spend your free time?
My photography business is currently taking the largest chunk of my free time, and I have managed to fit it in well with my day job. Business is particularly busy from late spring to autumn. Otherwise I spend a lot of time with my children, gardening and catching up with friends.
