Meet Ellie, Penfold’s Customer Operations Associate

(Originally published at www.getpenfold.com)

Welcome back to my favourite blog series, where we get to know different members of the Penfold team. Today we’re with Customer Operations Associate, Ellie, learning about her London life and how she’s navigating working from home.

Hi, Ellie! Welcome to a brand new financial year. What does it have in store for you?

Hi! I think we finally managed to sort our Zoom out. I know- it seems weird that it’s come around so quickly. Rui has been teaching us all about what the new financial year means for our customers. This year I’m looking forward to progressing with Penfold, it’s great that at a startup you get to work on a bit of everything.

I bet! What do you actually do?

I graduated recently, and while I was studying I’d done a marketing internship and managed a team of social workers. After university, I decided I wanted to get a role that was quite broad so I had a chance to get stuck in and figure out what I wanted to do. I wanted to get my teeth into something, and Penfold is perfect for that. My official title is Customer Operations Associate, but I do a real mixture of things.

What does a typical day look like?

I don’t think anything is typical right now..I’m isolating at home with my parents! It’s a massive cliche, but no day is the same. I spend a lot of time talking to customers, so if you use our chat function you’re probably talking to me! I also do administrative work on the pensions behind the scenes, helping people combine them, and running feedback sessions on our technology to hear from our customers. I also help with marketing, running our social media accounts, email campaigns- whatever needs to be done! I’m at that stage in my career where I don’t want to section anything off, so I take my steer from Pete week by week as the company grows.

Do you like working with the team?

I love it. There’s always someone I can ask something to and I learn something new every day. The developers help me out with coding the emails if I get stuck, and Rui has taught me so much about pensions. I’ve become my family’s go-to pension person! We have two Customer Operations Associates, Rachel and I, and I tend to find myself doing more of the commercial and marketing stuff, whereas Rachel is the data whiz.

You mentioned that you’re self-isolating with your parents- how’s THAT going?

It’s nice. (Is my mum reading this?). I obviously miss my house share in London. We spent a lot of time going out, having picnics on Hampstead Heath…just living the London life. I miss that. I miss weightlifting, tennis and going out for avocado toast- I’m a very standard Generation Z. I had lots of travel planned for this year, and that isn’t going to happen now, but hopefully I can do it next year, and I’m healthy and able to work from home, so consider myself very lucky.

Hey, as a Millennial, I think we got the avo toast first…

Ha, possibly!

So what are the biggest rewards of your job?

I love talking to people. I like helping our customers understand finance, as I think it’s such a personal thing and there’s so much confusing language out there. When I’m able to help someone with a question on the online chat or when they reach out that’s great. I also like working with the team, and seeing the company grow so fast. It keeps me on my toes!

And finally- any tips on coping with lockdown?

I downloaded TikTok. Don’t look at me like that. I built a little gym thing in the garage. And stay away from your parents as much as possible. I’m joking, Mum!

Thanks for chatting, Ellie, and stay safe!