Carmen James: Navigating Excellence in Customer Support at Navarik

Welcome to the first of many Team Navarik features, where we showcase the brilliant personalities contributing to Navarik's culture and success. For this edition, we bring our Customer Support Manager (CSM), Carmen James, into the spotlight.

Carmen started with Navarik in 2015 as a customer success analyst and office manager (who was also responsible for planning many legendary company parties). Her cheerful and jovial nature shines through her interactions as clients lean on her expertise in their times of distress. As a powerhouse of the Navarik Support team, she manages constant new incoming and ongoing support requests, which requires a strong work ethic, organization, and timeliness. The culmination of her team's hard work is demonstrated when comparing 2022 Navarik Support metrics to the FreshDesk Global Benchmark (FDGB) Report:

With her commitment and dedication towards the Navarik experience, she was recently promoted to CSM. She continues to collaborate alongside other Navarik departments to ensure our client concerns are addressed with the VIP treatment they deserve. 

A typical day for Carmen consists of client calls, responding to emails, testing system features, and providing training to customers worldwide with Navarik's ongoing growth. While her schedule is relatively standard, she may facilitate meetings in the evening due to time zone differences. Catering to various time zones can be challenging, but Carmen feels "the varying hours help expand [her] range of customer connections as well as get feedback from a more diverse audience."  

Navarik Support agents require many technical and soft skills to deliver appropriate assistance to our users. They are heavily involved with understanding a wide scope of Navarik operations, possessing in-depth product knowledge, writing clear documentation, and even QA testing. Under the multiple hats Carmen wears, she emphasizes the connectedness to various business areas as both a professional and personal development challenge for growth. Carmen's customer-first, wholehearted approach helps her thrive in the front-facing environment, where she enjoys first-hand engagement with Navarik users. 

Whether it's a small or large task, I get my motivation from the trust a customer has in me. I always want to make sure they know that between my team and I, they are in good hands.

With any long-standing career, challenges, and accomplishments are many. While Carmen expresses she hasn't had to face many large-scale challenges in her seven years at Navarik, she recalls how steep the learning curve was entering the commodity trading industry. In addition to orienting herself with the industry, Carmen became well-versed with our product suites from not only an internal but also a user standpoint to offer proper client assistance. Her perseverance and dedication are rewarded with having recently been promoted to Customer Support Manager, where she is now responsible for training a new support agent and developing her mentorship skills. Likewise, in her approach with Navarik customers, she echoes the same sentiment internally to her team, where she strives for "our department to continue to be a safe space for others to come to for help, advice, and feedback". 

Upon reflecting on Navarik's successful 2022 performance in comparison to the FreshDesk Global Benchmark KPIs, Carmen suggests a few important items, which properly reflect her work ethic.

• Be prepared for meetings and take time to anticipate the questions that may be asked to truly understand a topic instead of reciting an answer back to a client.
• Be professional and represent company values, but leave room for personal flair.
• Treat other departments with appreciation, respect, and patience, as it goes a long way in promoting success from teamwork.
• Manage the tone of responses to ensure no room for misinterpretation (especially for remote workers). One of her best practices is to rely on her colleagues to review her emails, and in the event that a proper tone cannot be conveyed, to rely on a quick phone call instead. 

When Carmen isn't behind the screen answering emails and troubleshooting, she can be found outdoors soaking up the sun, or spending time with animals, and enjoys waitressing on the side. Throughout the year, she likes to travel and particularly appreciates time on airplanes and at airports (contrary to most individuals that prefer the destination instead of the journey). Halloween is her favorite time of year, where she can also be found watching a thriller. Lastly, a not-so-well-known fact about her is that she is bilingual and part of her childhood was spent in Germany. 

Thank you for your hard work, Carmen! Navarik appreciates your long-standing commitment and we are looking forward to all your contributions with your new leadership role.