Meet Ivan Lopez – Customer Success Manager

It takes a team of incredible people to deliver exceptional technology and service at Yottaa. We will be periodically spotlighting some of the great people that make that happen. This month we start with Ivan Lopez from our Customer Success team!

What is your role at Yottaa?

As a customer success manager, my role is a combination of account management and technical support. At Yottaa, technical support is very challenging because we work with eCommerce websites and the stakes get pretty high, pretty quick. I’d say that’s the main difference between working with B2C businesses rather than B2B. Problems can go on forever in a B2C environment, and in fact, they may never get fixed. If one of Yottaa’s customers is facing a problem, it’s not only visible to them, it’s also visible to their customers, and it’s like dealing with wildfire – you have to solve the problem very quickly.

How do you help Yottaa customers?

I monitor our customers’ configuration and traffic to their website, and help them with any issues they may be facing. I look at different customers throughout the day, and every day is different and unpredictable. The reason our customers use Yottaa for their websites is the performance benefit that we provide and the efficiency we create – I help uphold that.

What is your favorite part about working with Yottaa customers?

My favorite part about working with Yottaa customers is the brands – they’re what keeps me motivated. If I’m solving an issue with a customer, I don’t think of it as just another customer ID number. I think of it as Callaway or Mattress Firm, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the brand or the relationship between Yottaa and the brand. The technology I work with is usually the same, but the brands and people change, and they dynamic between myself and the customer is always different.

What has been your favorite project at Yottaa?

Despite all of the exciting work that I’ve done with our customers, one of my favorite projects was deploying Salesforce internally for my team. This project shows how we are growing as a team, and how our mindset has evolved. Other ticketing systems, like Zendesk, keep track of problems as they occur. With Salesforce, we’re thinking five steps ahead instead of just one, which demonstrates how we’ve centralized everything, and that my team isn’t just a separate entity for support.

What did you do before Yottaa that has helped you most in your current role?

Previously, I worked for two other tech companies as part of their support organizations. At both companies, I worked with incredible technologies while leading very talented, bright support teams. Throughout managing a team, and working with different personalities, or figuring out technical issues, the most valuable experience I acquired was understanding the customer experience. Understanding what expectations the customer has of the product they purchased, the support interaction, or even the value of their ongoing use is crucial in building the working relationship.

What brief advice do you have for others wanting to enter this profession?

To work in support for a technology company, you have to be a self-starter. You have to be someone is self-motivated, independent, and not afraid to jump into things when you aren’t on the clock or in the office. You need to be ready to bring all of your experience to the job, because you never know what skills you’re going to be using from one day to the next. Also, don’t be afraid to speak up, although this goes for any profession you would choose.

What do you like to do when you’re not at the office?

Anything physical – whether it’s sports, lifting weights, or the occasional game of soccer with friends.

If you had to start your own eCommerce website, what would you sell and why?

I’d sell fitness apparel. Fitness has always been a huge part of my life – I’ve always run, lifted weights, and played soccer.