If customers have questions or problems with our purchase to pay softwarethey can they always can always contact Taco Slob and his colleagues. Taco is Teamlead Support at ICreative, a role he compares to that of foreman. He is happy to tell you more about his work and himself.
ICreative's support department, including Taco, has six employees. Support handles questions about all the products ICreative offers. Taco himself specializes in Basware SaaS, as a second-line support employee.
That requires some explanation: "In the past, each support employee had x number of customers under his or her care. That worked fine for a long time, but at some point it began to falter. The growing number of customers and the transition from on-premise to the cloud demanded a change."
Helping customers quickly and structurally
That's why Taco came up with the idea of working with first-line and second-line support. "First-line concerns the relatively easy questions and problems that can be solved quickly. This is where we can make pace. Second-line issues require more time and depth, for example, because a lot of research is needed or a fundamental adjustment needs to be made."
This way, the team can respond to the two main goals of the support department, Taco said. "We want to help customers as quickly as possible AND we want to offer them a structural solution so that the same problem does not keep occurring."
ICreative has been using this new way of working for a few years now and it seems to be paying off. "In 2023 we processed about 5250 tickets, which is about 800 less than the year before. That's interesting: we have more customers, but fewer tickets. I think that does show that we are now solving things structurally and that that has a positive effect."
"We want to provide customers with a structural solution so that the same problem does not keep occurring
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As Teamlead, Taco has other responsibilities as well. "I am the point of contact for my immediate colleagues, for the rest of our organization and for customers. I also maintain an overview. Are all tickets being handled adequately or is something lingering too long? Then it is up to me to draw my colleagues' attention to this or to call in additional help."
Working with technology and people
Taco has held his current position since 2019, but he has been part of ICreative since 2015. "I started here as an implementation consultant. I had worked as a software developer for over 14 years and was ready for a new challenge. I especially wanted to work more with people," he says.
The role of implementation consultant was exactly what he was looking for: a combination of working with technology and with people. "I really enjoyed being involved with the customer from start to finish. From discussing the wants and needs beforehand, to the technical implementation, to actually seeing the end result."
After four years, however, he wanted something else. "I suffered an emotional loss in my private life, which made me tired of visiting customers and traveling a lot. Meanwhile, the idea had already come to me to organize support differently, according to the first- and second-line principle. I worked out the plan and was allowed to make the switch."
He adds, "During the periods when I was struggling, ICreative helped me tremendously. I was given all the space I needed to get out of it at my own pace and in my own way. I really liked that and for me it is also typical of the family feeling that exists within our company."
Concluding, Taco says he lives in Velp with his girlfriend, their infant son, two cats and five chickens. He tries to attend boxing bag training twice a week and loves to have drinks with friends. "Or doesn't that count as a hobby?" he wonders.
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READING TIP Earlier in this column, colleague Christian Willemsen introduced himself. "You have to know very well what the problem is before you can come up with a solution." |
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