Delivering Happiness – Community Management at Urban Company!

Customer Experience – two words that are the center of everything we try to accomplish at Urban Company. One of the driving forces behind us delivering an excellent customer experience is community management. Here’s Sahana Kakkar, the Community Manager at UrbanClap talking about her experience while building a happy community of Urban Company customers.

Almost two years into my luxury retailing job, I was keen on change. Little did I know that change would be into an entirely new field, which I must say is not even remotely close to being related to fashion. I came to hear about Urban Company through someone who was already well fitted in the system. Two interviews and a phone call later, I was appointed the Community Manager at one of India’s fastest growing start up’s.

Sure, I had dealt with all kinds of customers but to be put at the top of it and be the one to advocate the brand on social media platforms was a big task. My team in UC has been supportive right from the start and the great thing about being here is that everyone’s sole aim is the company’s growth. You don’t get to see that much right?

Customer experience is the most important thing at Urban Company and rightly so, what would any of us really be without customers? Starting with booking the service to timely delivery of the same, we wanted to ensure the entire experience was a trouble free and user-friendly one. Our team truly succeeded there. One just has to answer a few easy questions and voila! a verified and trained professional is assigned to complete your service. Well yes, 99% of the time this process works like magic but that 1% of time that it doesn’t… it’s on social media.

Let’s be honest, it is the easiest target these days and that’s where I step in. Unfortunately, the task of organising the unorganised service sector comes with a handful of trouble for us and while we have a great way of tracking and monitoring most services, sometimes there are misses. At Urban Company, we don’t let these go unattended. In fact, we go out of our way to get these resolved. Right from rescheduling to ensuring on time delivery to calling the customer post service delivery, it’s all done here. What comes in handy when thinking about Community Management is a calm approach. That really works well in my case. When dealing with customers, another important tip is to hear the customer. In most places, you are just trained to apologies several times. We pay attention to what our customer’s experience has been and the trouble faced. Honestly, it helps me take a call on the kind of solution to give right away.

Now moving on from angry customers and bad experiences comes the organising events, running contests, engaging with our audience, which is the more glamorous part of the role. This part actually lets me get involved in activities that spread joy. A few months ago we organised a fun ‘Friday Ready’ contest which we ran on Twitter. We coordinated with our talented makeup artists and got our winners dressed up for Christmas eve over high tea! The session was great because here we got to interact with our customers on a one-on-one session.

Another great collaboration was with Make Love Not Scars (MLNS), an NGO that is dedicated to provide acid attack victims an opportunity to regain their life on their own terms through recovery, rehabilitation, and reintegration. MLNS was setting up their first ever rehabilitation centre and I thought it would be great to get our carpenters, electricians, plumbers to help set up! We will also be organising yoga and dance classes for these survivors. The ability to share happiness with others has to be the best part of my job. And Urban Company gives you a lot of opportunities for this, the most recent being our ongoing LGBT campaign. I’m organising a photo shoot for some of the couples who have reached out to us and am absolutely stoked about this one! Do read more on the campaign here.

In conclusion, my role is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is the best job in the world to me.

As Sahana says, if you can keep calm in stressful situations and can resolve an issue to everyone’s satisfaction quickly, customer experience would definitely be a great fit for you.

Visit urbancompany.recruiterbox.com to stay up to date with career opportunities at Urban Company.