Alexandra Ilie
Walk us through your career path in ING
I can say that I was born and raised „orange”. My first real job started in ING 13 years ago, as a Call Center agent. I developed my career in the Customer Care Services department and, starting 2 years ago, I am Head of Advisory Contact Center, managing the team that spreads a Courage and Contagious Smile!
Tell us about your favorite project (especially from a learning experience point of view)
Each and every day is a learning experience, one can never get bored in CCS😊 we always deal with new cases, new processes or products, but the most important learning experience is learning from the people around me, both clients and collegues.Their life stories and characters are impressive. I learned to listen more and that proved to be a key quality when having kids!
Still, if I were to choose one project, it would probably be the implementation of Maria, our Interactive Voice Response robot. It was the first implementation of this kind in the Romanian market, therefore, a lot of challenges for everyone involved, including the external provider, as they needed to understand and implement special Romanian characters (like â, ă, che, ghe and so on). As it happens in most of the big projects, we made mistakes. We launched Maria with the automatic, robotic voice and clients did not like it very much! Things are better now and most of clients understand the process and are surprised when discussing with our collegues who already know everything that our robot collected in the IVR. And we also get surprised when listening to calls with clients proposing to Maria.😊
How would you explain your role in ING to a 7-year-old kid?
Hmmm, this question is getting me ready for next year, when my elder daughter will be 7😊 Remote working period was more than self-explanatory for my girls, they know that mummy is always in meetings and she talks a lot, trying to help people to fix their problems!
If you were to recommend ING to a friend, what would you say about the organization?
I am really proud of our organization and I think it promotes itself, as most of my friends are already fans! For the ones who don’t know ING, I would go into a huuuge story about innovation and our care for people (both clients and staff).
If you were to save the world with an app…
Pay it forward. As for sure, at one point in time someone taught us to become a better version of ourselves, in return, take time and effort to help others grow
Let’s say you wrote your first SF book. What would you call it?
Frozen Sisters working from the SUN😊 Having two girls who absolutely love Elsa and Anna (we have everything branded from clothes, backpacks, plates, etc), they would convince me on the first part of the name. „Work from”, as we heard quite a lot this sintagm lately and „Sun”, because of the color and the positive vibe!
How is work from home for you during this period?
Working from home is another learning experience.With an extra topping of having lunch with the girls, but I miss the energy and the vibes we feel in the office very much - my husband even searched for a background noise of a Call Center, as I was constantly saying I miss the Office😊