Inside Companjon with Sonja Warner

As part of our blog series Inside Companjon, we're sitting down with some star employees who share all things on what it's like to work at Companjon, what's happening behind the scenes and honest experiences. This month we spoke with Customer Service Manager, Sonja Warner.

What do you find most rewarding in your role as Customer Service Manager?

For me, it’s the whole aspect of developing solutions to genuinely help our partners and customers, meeting their needs and expectations. Customer service is perceived as disappointing and burdensome to deal with, so we ensure that everything we do here helps make the customer experience as seamless and Lean as possible.

What does a typical day look like for you?

My day is split between participating in meetings, dealing with internal teams, external partners, reviewing and assessing customer journey flows and working to ensure our service portals are running smoothly. For the most part, customer service is a broad-reaching department and it’s one of the only teams that have direct front-facing access to customers. We have to look at things from a customer’s perspective so there is a lot of collaboration with other departments.

In an effort to work towards our strategic department goals, we have to ensure we’re compliant and ready to support our initiatives by gathering insights based on our products, solutions, interactions and claims experience. Our main goal is to offer customers a lean and seamless experience by leveraging automation in every aspect possible. Everything that we do daily is geared to achieving that.

In your view, what is your favourite part about working at Companjon?

It’s hard to just choose one! What stands out for me is the level of trust that’s placed in each Companjon. People that work here are some of the most intelligent people I’ve come across. They come up with such innovative solutions and you are part of that process and encouraged to give your perspective. You really feel valued. From my experience working at larger companies, you can make suggestions, but they’re not always turned into actionable outcomes. Here at Companjon , it’s really taken into consideration when you make a suggestion.

How does Companjon differ from previous employments?

The speed at which you can make changes is a big differentiator.
Insurance is typically an industry known for being cumbersome and where things take a long time to come through in terms of decisions and processing. The speed in which we’ve been able to operate to accomplish customer service initiatives is remarkable. We operate super-fast and it’s so different to anything that I’ve experienced in the past. There is dedication and passion to really make things successful. In my opinion, when you first join a big company there are processes that are already in place, making it difficult to amend but when I joined Companjon, I was trusted to develop or improve processes, fast-test them and take lead from start to finish.

Describe your team in 3 words

Creative, considerate, smart.

Any big plans for your department this year?

We have a lot happening in customer service for 2022. We are currently growing the team and recruiting for an Automation Leader to support our strategic goals. We will also have more upcoming roles throughout the year so watch this space. We are currently working on projects around utilising AI and machine learning to improve the customer experience. We’ll continue to lean out and simplify our processes to ensure that they are as accessible and transparent as can be.

If you could switch places with anyone for a day, who would it be?

I’d love to experience a day on the Distribution team. There is a level of creativity involved, charisma and strong communication that they bring to business partners. I think there’s a common thread between distribution, customer service and even marketing where we strive to accelerate our brand and image for business partners and end-customers.