Cat Burston

A day in the life

• Pre-Sales

  Imagine a potential customer emails you with the following question. We don’t yet offer this feature, but their current solution does. How would you respond?

  I’m considering switching to Product Customizer. Does your app allow live image previews?

  Hi there, thanks for getting in touch!

  We currently offer static but not live image previews in our app, although our development team are aware that there is demand for a feature like this. I'll let them know that you are looking for this functionality, and when it's released, we'll announce it on our blog, so keep an eye out!

  You can find more about the app on our product page - skyverge.com/shop - or if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

  Kind regards,
  Cat B

• Fire Alarm

  Imagine you’ve just started your workday. You login and see a large number of emails from distraught customers. Clearly, something is happening. What steps do you take?

  Seeing a large number of emails from frustrated customers, I would do a quick check of a sample of the messages to see if I can find a pattern or common issue among them.

  Next, I would check the team chat system to see if anyone else has reported the same phenomenon. If not, I'd post my own message asking if anyone else on the support team is seeing something similar. I'd include any common issues/products/features in my message.

  I would continue looking for any patterns while waiting for my colleagues to get back to me, and if I can identify something, then I'll check out that product or feature in order to verify the problem. If I can find where the frustration lies I'll check the satatus of the product/feature - maybe something is down or bugging.

  If I have identified the source, I'll try to get in touch with the team responsible; compiling all the troubleshooting and debugging information that I have available for them. I'll tell my support colleagues through chat as well, so that they are informed.

  I'll then thank all the customers for alerting us and letting them know that we are working on fixing things as fast as possible. I'll keep them informed of any changes that come through, and try to proactively update other customers through the relevant channels as well, such as: social media, blog posts, status.io pages.

• Step-by-Step

  We’d like to get an idea of how you explain concepts and processes. What was the last thing your purchased online? Tell us, step-by-step, how you went about searching, choosing, and completing your purchase.

  I was introduced to Apfelschorle in Germany, a drink made by combining one part apple juice with one part carbonated mineral water: it's both delicious and refreshing! In English we would call it a spritz, and the Schorle concept or adding carbonated water can equally be applied to almost any drink: Rhabarberschorle (rhubarb spritz); Weinschorle (white wine spritzer).

  Buying water or soda in New Zealand where the tap water is so soft and delicious feels like a wasteful decision - there's even a public spring water tap available if you want untreated water! I felt that the responsible thing to do was purchase a soda maker so that we could carbonate water at home, as we wanted - less waste, and cheaper over time.

  For household and kitchen products, I trust the reviews and recommendations at both The Sweethome and The Kitchn, so they were my first visits in order to find out what was available. The choice really came down to the popular SodaStream models and a soda-siphon device. The advantages that I saw to a siphon are that you can pick up a bottle cheaply from a second-hand store; they look cool and vintage; and you can carbonate any liquid at all which would be fun!

  However, fun is not necessarily practical and I was concerned about the amount of soda cartridges that you can go through, just with normal use. The alternative - a SodaStream - has easily-replaceable cartridges that get swapped at the supermarket, and each cartridge will last a reasonably long time. Additionally, a friend has one of the recommended Source models which I have tried before, and was impressed with the result.

  The final step was to find a store to make the purchase from. Amazon is effectively unavailable in New Zealand, and the Source model was out of stock at all the local electronics stores, but it was available on order at the local department store, Farmers. It was also on sale at Farmers - a nice bonus! - for security and the saving of a few dollars, I had my purchase delivered to the store in town instead of at home. I was then able to walk into town on my lunchbreak and collect it at a convenient time.

  Since then, we've been drinking lovely Schorle of all sorts every day. Stay hydrated, kids!

Contact details

• LinkedIn
• GitHub
• catburston.com
• resume
• cat1788@gmail.com