Customer success is a priority at ITC where our focus is to deliver the best possible outcomes for our customers. In this series of Q&As, we go behind the scenes and meet some of the people at ITC who are driving the customer experience forward and helping to make the world a safer place to do business every single day.
For this month’s edition, Account Manager Andy Hill explains why empathy and adaptability are critical in building trust and fostering customer success.
Q: Tell us a little bit about yourself…
As an Account Manager at ITC, my role focuses on nurturing customer relationships, developing a real understanding of our customers’ business goals and helping them to achieve it. I joined ITC in 2017 and currently look after a number of our existing customers with a predominant focus on the financial services sector.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your role?
By nature, delivering and managing cyber security services to customers means that they are entrusting us to secure their business and the reputation of their brand. I get to be part of a team that comes together, no matter what, to do that – a team that consists of people that really care about the outcome.
Because of this, I’m able to foster and build strong, long-term customer relationships which I love doing. And when we do good work for them, it’s something that is close to my heart and makes me feel very proud. Also, I feel fortunate that I get to call some of my customers friends, not just people we do business with.
Q: What does it take to succeed in your role?
The key to fostering strong relationships starts with building trust, which brings me to the importance of customer success. For me, that means not only understanding the wants of the customer, but more importantly being able to identify the challenges and anticipating their needs in order to provide better business outcomes for them now and in the future.
To do that, customer empathy is critical – “feeling withyour customer instead of feeling forthem”. This boils down to putting yourself in your customer’s shoes – empathising, instead of just sympathising with them…and putting their success first.
And in a world where change is the only constant, it’s impossible to anticipate everything your customers will want or need in the future, you have to stay flexible and be willing to adapt.
Q: ITC takes pride in its customer-first mindset. What does that mean to you?
To be customer-first, you need to understand their path to you. With our advisory-led approach to cyber security, we (at ITC) have been successful at doing just that.
You can see this translate through our strong NPS score and also by the fact that we have a track record of building strong, long-term relationships with our customers which are grounded in a high degree of trust.
Q: Is there a particular customer challenge that you will always remember?
When I think about all the customer challenges over the years, I’d like to think that we have managed to step up to the plate and helped our customers address them. No matter the challenge (big or small), we operate in a supportive culture and come together as a team. Not only in the way that leaders and teams across the business come together to solve problems, but also around how comfortable we feel in contributing ideas, asking questions, sharing, and receiving feedback, and just being ourselves.
For example, when the COVID pandemic hit in 2020, every business that we were working with was put at risk. In just a few days significant new challenges emerged as each business was forced to adapt to an operating model where working from home became the new normal, and cyber security became a concern more than ever before (and continues to be).
At the time, because our own business continuity plan kicked-in at speed, it meant that operationally, we were able to come together quickly and keep focus on supporting our customers through a completely unprecedented situation – including customers who provided mission-critical services such as healthcare.
Recently, as businesses are edging towards the next normal, we’re seeing different return-to-the-office and hybrid working models being adopted. Whilst these are gradual shifts over a lengthier period of time vs. the 2020 4-day period of significant change, the next normal comes with its own unique and new security challenges for businesses – challenges that we’re helping customers through currently.
Q: What makes ITC a great place to work?
Being surrounded by great people and working in a supportive and collaborative culture that empowers me to do my best work.
