I come from a background as a corporate recruiter and am also an actress. What I enjoy as a recruiter is giving people an opportunity to find a career they love. A career is more than just a job — it consumes such a large percentage of our lives. It only makes sense that this time be spent earning a living that doesn’t leave us feeling unfulfilled. What I enjoy as an actress is giving people an experience they’ll remember. Entertainment has a profound ability to make people’s lives better. No matter how big the struggles we may face in life, sometimes it can help to watch a film or television show just to know that we’re not alone.

It’s me!

I’m passionate about what I do and I love nothing more than connecting with other creatives. LinuxFest Northwest presented me with an opportunity to talk to so many motivated people who are working to change the world. We come from different industries but our goals are the same: we want to improve the lives of others.

On the last day of the conference, I sat with Daniel Foré and talked about the customer experience at elementary. Realizing that elementary has reached such a large customer base, I was curious about who was responsible for responding to customer emails. Specifically, who provides support with billing issues and order fulfillment? I learned that there isn’t a customer support team or a call center receiving inbound questions. It’s all taken care of by the founders of the company.

Having worked in large corporate environments where there are dedicated subject matter experts for each part of the business, I shared my feedback about how unsustainable this model is. The founders of the company should be spending more time doing what they do best — designing and developing an efficient operating system. From my perspective, customer support and engagement should primarily be managed by a person or team whose specialty lies in providing a quality customer experience.

I became excited and invested in making sure this company not only succeeds by creating a product users love, but also making sure users are taken care of as customers. This matters to me because we’re all customers who use products, and at some point as a consumer we’ll need assistance with resolving an issue or inquiry. As customers, we all want to be seen, heard, and appreciated. The quality of customer service I receive from a company directly impacts how much I support that company in return. If a product makes my life better, but resolving an issue with the product takes an eternity or is a negative experience, I’ll find a company with a similar product and better reputation with engagement.

Supporting customer engagement for elementary is an incredible mix of the stuff I’m passionate about, and I’m thrilled to announce I’ve joined the team to drive an improved customer experience. My goals are to provide quicker response times to customer inquiries and troubleshooting with download or payment issues, and getting merchandise orders out at a more rapid pace. I’m also working on putting together resource documents with helpful how-to’s and links to getting involved and how to find community support.

Teamwork makes the dream work, and it applies to us too. We’re committed to improving the customer experience, but we need your help. Supporting the indie creative community is what Patreon is all about, and you can help support the elementary team by becoming a Patron here! Monthly Patron support helps fund monthly updates, new features, and a higher quality customer experience. We’re excited to announce we’ve launched a new tier, and at just $5 a month, the Swag Pack tier is bringing stickers back and introducing elementary coasters.

The giant pile of swag on my desk

With your support, we’re excited to work on creating future product demo videos, furthering community outreach, and providing the best customer experience we can :)