Meet Ari, Onboarding Lead and Internal Processes Pro

What do you do at ANNA? What team are you in? 🧑‍💻

I work as the lead with the onboarding team. I spend most of my time reviewing customer applications and when I’m not doing that I dedicate my time to improving our internal processes and implementing new ones if needed.

How have you made a difference for ANNA customers? Or ANNA staff?

‘Always approach things with curiosity’ – that’s my mantra. I use this mentality when I get feedback – good or bad – within the onboarding team. If they’re frustrated then I can approach it in a constructive manner, which helps us find a solution to the problem. I’m also not afraid to own up to my mistakes and I encourage them to do the same, so we can all learn from it. I think it promotes a healthier mindset in the team 

What’s the most exciting thing you’re currently working on?

Training! I’m streamlining the training for onboarding agents. There's always room for improvement 💪🏻

Have you recently launched any features or projects? 🚀

I introduced fortnightly case study sessions in our team, where we can share our experiences, and have an informal, safe space to discuss cases we’ve worked on. Collectively, it has allowed us to improve, and also identify training opportunities.

Together with other members of the team and a developer, I improved the integration between our CRM and Klaus (Quality Assurance Software). We wanted it to be more accurate at pulling out the correct data for assessing our onboarding agents; so we can help celebrate what they do well and identify areas where they need to improve. It was a team effort but our developer did most of the leg work! 🤩

What’s a typical day for you at ANNA? ☕️

Every day is different! Most of my time is spent reviewing customer applications, with some meetings in between. I also have projects in the background and work with the developers. I also sometimes facilitate meetings and update our knowledge base. 

What’s your favourite thing to do when you’re not at work?

I’ve been reading a lot lately. I’m currently reading Butter by Asako Yuzuki and The Crash Detectives by Christine Negroni. I love anything aeroplane-related ✈️

I also enjoy crocheting and cooking. It helps me to destress 🧖🏻‍♀️

What would your ideal alternative career be if you weren’t at ANNA?

Teaching English as a second language.

What song always gets you dancing? 🕺🏼

Anything by Taylor Swift and yes, even the sad ones.

Have you been up to anything memorable or exciting recently? ✈️ 🧑‍🍳  🎤 🪂 🏡

I’ve spent the last 6 months travelling 🌍 I lived in Japan for three months, and then I visited my family back in the Philippines. During my holiday in the Philippines, I swam with whale sharks, sardines and sea turtles. I spent some time snorkelling and island hopping too!

I recently moved out too! We’ve been busy making the flat our home 🏠

When is your alarm set for tomorrow morning?

7am, even if I’m working later. It makes me feel like I’ve achieved more, even if I don’t do much! 

At ANNA we love cats. Do you have one? 😽

I love cats! I did have cats but they sadly passed away last year. My partner’s family has two cats though, and I try to spoil them when I can.

You'll see four photos below, two of those were my cat: Haru – the black and white cat and Shin the half-tabby cat 💞

The other two are Suki the black cat and Cwtch the tabby cat.