We’re excited to celebrate Amy Sandes, Customer Support Specialist, who marked her two year Adthena anniversary this February! Since joining us in 2023, Amy has been a key part of our Customer Experience team, providing exceptional support and helping our customers.

As part of our ongoing spotlight on the amazing people behind Adthena, Amy Sandes shares her journey from a decade in hospitality to thriving in Customer Experience. She opens up about what sparked her passion for CX, the variety of challenges she tackles daily, and her advice for anyone looking to break into the field.

What first sparked your interest in Customer Experience, and how did you find your way into this field?

I have quite a long background — about 10 years — working in hospitality, which of course requires excellent customer-facing skills that I developed over time. Eventually, I wanted to move into something more tech-focused, as it’s an area I’m really interested in. Customer Experience was the perfect next step because I could still work directly with customers while also developing a deeper understanding of more technical processes.

What does a typical day look like for you as a Customer Support Specialist?

Every day can be really different in CX. It can range from troubleshooting login issues to much more complex problems that require investigating changes in data. It also includes helping to provide feedback on new features or improvements. I really enjoy the variety of tasks that keeps the role interesting.

As a Customer Support Specialist, what advice would you give someone looking to break into a Customer Experience role?

Communication and listening skills are very important, but also being able to respond empathetically to a customer is really key to turning that around, especially if they haven’t had the experience they expected so far. Additionally, having an understanding from a more technical perspective helps. If you already have, or can start developing, skills like basic QA, some data analysis, and a grasp of common workflows, you’ll be off to a great start.

As an Adthenian, we live by four values. Which one resonates with you the most and why?

  • Get Shit Done
  • Freedom with Responsibility
  • Deliver Remarkable Quality
  • Smart & Always Improving. 

Definitely Deliver Remarkable Quality. From my perspective, it’s really important for every customer to consistently have an excellent experience, and even going just a little extra mile to provide additional service always goes a long way. Also, in CX we often work with other teams across the business, and I think it’s just as important to keep this value in mind there too, whether that’s helping to resolve issues or supporting new feature launches, high quality work as part of a team really matters.

What’s your go-to productivity hack?

It’s really simple, but I spend 10 minutes every morning organising a task list for the day and ordering it by priority — just writing down tasks and quickly jotting a priority number next to each one. In our role, different things can crop up needing attention more urgently, so it’s really helpful to have that list to fall back on and make sure everything runs smoothly on my side.

What’s one surprising skill or hobby you have that people might not expect?

I have quite an arts-focused background with a Fine Art degree, so painting and illustration are somewhat hidden skills of mine. After graduating, I also worked quite a bit in theatre wardrobe departments making costumes, which I still do occasionally for more community-based projects.

Imagine you could instantly master any new skill – what would you choose and why?

I’d love to learn to play the Omnichord instantly. It would be amazing to be able to master that! I think being able to play any musical instrument is really impressive, but Omnichords have a great, quite unique sound.

Join the team behind the tech

Amy’s journey is a brilliant example of how diverse experiences can lead to thriving careers in tech. Her passion for delivering quality support and her dedication to continuous improvement embody what it means to be an Adthenian.

Explore our open roles and start your own journey with Adthena.