Today, on International Women's Day, we speak to one of the magnificent women who are part of the Polaroo team: our partner Elena Gonzalez. Elena is Key Account Manager and explains how Polaroo works. His skills include communication, creative problem solving, analysis and empathy.

Hello Elena, tell us who you are.

I'm Elena. I studied psychology and curiosity led me to the world of alternative therapies. I have worked as a waitress and administrator. I have always known that my vocation is to work with people. The combination of my experience as an Administrative Officer and dealing with people led me to fill the profile of Key Account Manager at Polaroo, providing professional and correct customer service.

My hobbies include music, singing lessons, making scarves, skating, dancing, going out with my friends to live music events... I am an all-rounder.

What is your job at Polaroo?

I am a Key Account Manager, I manage customer accounts (restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, colivings, temporary rentals). The purpose is that customer supplies are as efficient as possible, with the best price and conditions, working with suppliers who are committed - as far as possible - to renewable energy, adjusting the power to their real needs,...

In addition, I make changes of ownership and, above all, I resolve all types of incidents, doubts or any other question that a customer may need.

How have your studies and experience at Polaroo helped you?

Without a doubt, psychology has been a very important tool for all the jobs I have done. Being able to understand myself well with customers, to have empathy, to “read” them in some way to connect and to make them feel heard and cared for has been the key.

I don't have a specific career that has to do with economics or data analysis, but the management work I did for 13 years has helped me a lot to use CRMs, and to be agile in knowing and using any other digital tool.

What is the best way to consolidate a relationship of trust with a customer?

On the one hand, I believe that it is essential to honesty and transparency. I connected very quickly with the Polaroo project because those are its main values. The maximum transparency and honesty, that the customer has the best options for their supplies and that whenever I talk to a customer I can tell them the truth, is something that made me fall in love with Polaroo. And best of all, we listen to business owners and they see it reflected in the platform. For example, many of the advances made on the platform are made at the request of a customer, so the businessman knows that I listen to him and generates a lot of trust.

It's very easy for me to do my job and make the customer feel that they can trust, because I have a team behind me that makes it possible. Every time we offer customers new tools such as the calculator, meter readings or other platform improvements, I see how the team goes out of its way to make it possible.

Then there is an important strategic factor. We manage a lot of accounts and a lot of clients of Horeca, Retail, Coliving or vacation rentals. You have to be organized and dedicate a certain amount of time to each customer. There are customers who have more needs than others. And for those customers who don't ask for as much help, we offer tools, send communications and show new features. In this part, the work of my colleagues in the Marketing and Product department is key.

What is the most common problem you encounter as an Account Manager?

There are a lot of problems with marketers. For example, there is a retailer with billing problems. Some customers haven't received bills for up to 1 year. My job is to claim those invoices, and if the customer wants to, change the marketer. Big marketers tend to be the ones that people trust the most, but they're not always the ones that provide the best customer service.

Another concern of customers with businesses that I serve is to always have the best prices in the market. They are asking for quite a few studies and power changes. Other concerns or problems for some customers who have frequent arrivals and departures of tenants, is the subject of real readings (in order to be able to charge them exactly for the consumption they have made).

I remember a serious case with the discharge of a supply in Valencia. Although registration with that company can be done online if the apartment has a lease agreement, registration is not possible when that apartment is for vacation rental or Coliving, since the current contract is for operation. After dedicating months to this topic, we have managed to carry out this procedure in person, providing valid documentation for both the marketing company and the city council.

What if we focus on specific sectors?

• In Coliving And in Vacation Rentals or VUTs (Housing for Tourist Use) it is very important to analyze data and to have the right contracted power in each case. In many cases, apartment owners have a lot of tenants, and if the power is not adequate, they pay much more than they should or have power cuts. This is especially serious if the locks are digital, for example, and go over the internet. Therefore, we need to assure them that they have a good telecommunications provider. Meter readings are also a common concern. For this purpose, we offer the calculator tool so that they can charge tenants for supplies.
• Businesses in the sector Horeca they tend to worry about the issue of telecommunications (internet, telephony). Many of the reservations they receive are online and if they don't have a good telephone line service they can lose reservations. And of course they must have the optimized supplies and the contracted power.
• In Retail they seek to optimize supplies, to pay what is necessary without going overboard.

And in general, a very common management for all sectors is the change of bank account or IBAN number. Sometimes businesses or owners change their bank account and the change must be done one by one on each supply, which is a task that takes hours depending on the assets of each customer. Nor are all platforms or all the Customer Service departments of marketers and distributors equally efficient.

How do you provide a solution to a customer who needs urgent help?

You have to manage your time so that you can serve all your customers equally, give them attention and some love, but leave room for emergencies, because there are always some. We have contact via email and WhatsApp. WhatsApp is very effective for these emergencies.

And you have to have good communication with the owner of a business such as restaurants or tourist rentals, making it clear that for common issues such as creating new assets or questions in general, email is better. We also try to limit the number of people who contact us. One contact person per customer is much better, otherwise we would receive an overwhelming number of requests.

Some of the most urgent problems for which they contact us are: power cuts (due to inadequate contracted power), giving a CUPS by mistake and having your electricity removed, bills of 11,000 euros for a water leak (in that case a technician must go, solve the leak and make a report to complain to the company that provides water for the fertilizer) or estimated gas readings that have nothing to do with actual reading and consumption.

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For someone who has a lot of assets in their property, what is the best solution for their water, gas, electricity, etc.? 

Normally, It is cheaper not to have electricity and gas with the same supplier. They tend to pay a lot less on one than the other.

There are customers who have only one CUPS per building. This may seem more convenient because it is a single bill for everything, but since they are large contracts of more than 15kw, they tend to be much more expensive. We usually recommend one CUPS per floor, for example. Contracts with powers lower than 15kw are cheaper.

In the case of water, not much improvement can be made, since it is a monopoly depending on the region.

What do you think is wrong or what makes supply management so cumbersome?

That customer service be with external companies (also the commercial part that harasses us all with their calls). This makes the services very unspecialized and even less professional. Every time you call for the same thing, you may be given different solutions and the processes take a lot longer.

Yes or yes, we are required to have one of these trading companies because we all use supplies. That gives them enormous power, but they don't always have an appropriate department to serve customers with problems.

Ignorance when choosing the rates and services of supply suppliers means that large supplier companies have more and more customers and that they abuse and take advantage of this situation with poor customer service, which does not solve problems, websites and virtual offices with defects, etc.

At Polaroo, we manage so many clients from very specific sectors, and over the years this has given us expertise that our clients value. We know what documents are needed for each request or process, where to go. We are a professional customer service that provides quick answers.

I suppose that with a greater investment in all these aspects by large retailers, they would achieve quality customer service like that of Polaroo. Less ambition to win customers and then not take care of them, investment in their digital resources, this would be key!

Since working at Polaroo, have you seen an evolution in the doubts raised by supplies to customers?

Not too much. The lack of transparency of marketers and the lack of knowledge of customers - even if they are companies - is the most significant thing. Our customers are not dedicated to the supply field, but they have various businesses such as vacation rental apartments, restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, etc. As soon as a problem arises, the process is long and tedious, there are delays, lack of communication between marketer and distributor, etc. And who bears the pain? The end customer. Polaroo was born to take that pain away.

How much do customers save thanks to centralization and automation with Polaroo?

In terms of economic effects, Polaroo can save up to 40% of the cost of supplies for a Horeca business, for example. In specific cases, we have achieved 60%.

But the valuable thing in terms of savings is time and the number of people you save time for: accounting, operations, owner,...

In addition, we offer data analysis tools. Many clients have apartments rented by room (coliving). They have a budget for each of them, of what they can spend on supplies. With the calculator tool, for example, they know exactly what consumption has occurred in a specific period, and if they have to ask tenants to increase that budget. In addition to having a very exact idea of what each floor represents in expenses, by area or independently. All in a couple of clicks and unified. For a customer with 100 floors, imagine all the time they can save.

How does Polaroo help make your customers more sustainable?

The initial objective may seem to be to obtain the best prices for contracts with retailers, but in each analysis of invoices, the energy footprint is taken into account. In addition, when they ask us for advice, we provide information on the energy footprint or the use of clean energy by each supplier company. It is important to consider supply companies that offer a good price, but also have a lower impact on the environment.

On the other hand, the digitization of the expenses of restaurants, hotels, colivings, cafeterias and other businesses allows the owner to measure their carbon footprint and calculate it. And as I mentioned before, we detect leaks when we know the water consumption together with the bill (so that the customer does not take months to download a bill and realizes late the disproportionate water consumption of a house or premises).

How does Polaroo achieve business profitability and operational efficiency?

With a great team. And working together, with a lot of communication. The care of each of us who are part of, the motivation and the desire to do things well, leads us to the same goal: help the customer.

Elena has discovered the most common details and headaches of companies in different sectors such as Horeca, Coliving, Vacation Rental or Retail. The Polaroo team does research, dedicating time and love to all the problems they receive from customers. Surely, if you've had a problem with a supply, you've spoken to Elena, Susana, Ileanna, Sara, Yolanda or Anneta... or even Paula.

If you have a company or business and you have questions about your contracted power, the water company, telecommunications services or any other question related to supplies, contact us.