Meet the Star: Interview with Iliyan Adamov, Head of Customer Support

For starters, tell us a little about yourself. What do you do as a Head of CS, and how did you become one?

As the Head, my main responsibilities include ensuring we are meeting our customers' requirements, the quality and the efficiency of the service being the most important ones. Apart from this, I am also in charge of hiring needs, as well as reviewing and assessing new candidates. Last but not least, I am accountable for addressing any feedback from the team, along with mentoring and supervising the work of the managers.
I started out as a Customer Support Agent climbing the ladder through all the levels of the department’s structure prior to receiving the opportunity to run it as the Head. This gave me a solid foundation of understanding the department to the smallest detail, which helps me run this part of the business in an efficient way.

After this wealth of experience, do you often pay attention to customer service outside your work?

After all these years, I can't help but always analyze how other companies handle customer service, even in my personal life. When I go to a restaurant, I often find myself checking how the manager works and what’s the set up of the waiters. It has become a professional distortion.

How would you describe working in Customer Support?

The environment in Customer Support is dynamic, and at times, challenging, which is what makes my job exciting. It's a large department, operating 24/7 and mostly staffed with young people who are just now starting out their careers. To grow and improve in such an environment, you need to be adaptive and comptetitive. In my experience, some of the strongest managers I’ve worked with come from Customer Support. Managing an operation running 24/7 that is reactive to any change implemented in the product, as it is the closest part of the business to the customer, gives one invaluable experience.
If we compare someone running a team of 10 ITs to someone being in charge of 10 Customer Support Agents, I bet we would notice a quite a bit more challenges with managing the latter one.

How many people work in Sofia Stars' customer support department?

As crazy as it sounds, our CS Department will soon count 100 Stars. In terms of running the show, there are several roles on board - Team Leads and Shift Managers who operate the resources on shift, as well as Quality Assurance Managers and Trainers who educated and keep the team up to the highest standards in terms of providing good service.

What do you value most about your team?

What I value most about my team is that we have managed to build a strong core consisting of leaders who embrace their responsibilities in a way that serves as an example in front of the rest, which drives everybody forward.

What professional and personal qualities are you looking for in your team members?

What I am looking for in somebody when it comes to assessing their qualities is how open-minded they are, how willing they are to learn, and to receive feedback. Last but not least, how down to earth a person is, is really important.