Ciro Trombetta and Connor Reed didn’t have any tech background when they joined Wix a few years ago as Customer Care Experts. Now, as Managers, we spoke with them about personal and professional growth at Wix
5 and a half years ago, when Ciro Trombetta began working at Wix Miami as a Customer Care Expert, he gave himself 6 months to see if he likes the job. “I was managing a restaurant before. I didn’t have any experience in the tech industry so I told myself that if it won’t work out for me, I’ll just leave. And here I am 5 and a half years later”, he laughs.
A couple of years later, on the opposite coast, Connor Reed also felt like he was stepping into the unknown when he started working at the same role as Ciro at Wix San Francisco. “It was my first real job, full-time, with benefits and all that”, he says.
“When I joined Wix we were about 15 people in Miami, and that grew to about 120 people within a year”, Ciro says. “I remember that after about 10 months my manager asked me if I wanted to lead a team. First, I said no because I didn’t feel technical enough, but very soon I realized that I’m a people’s person and maybe that’s what the Team Lead role is really all about. My first team had 4 people in it but very soon that became 10 people in 3 months and 15 people in 6 months until eventually we acquired another company and I was offered to move to Los Angeles where I hired and built a team that closely matches our support organization at Wix. I was there for 10 months and after 10 more months I got another call and was asked how I felt about moving to San Francisco and becoming a Customer Care Group Manager which essentially means that I was now going to manage Team Leads. So, I said yes and that was my first position in which I was managing managers”.
Connor’s quick growth at Wix also was the result of finding his passion for people through his role. “Two years into the Customer Care Expert role, and after the pandemic had started, I moved into the team lead role after my manager saw some leadership potential in me. That was my first time ever managing a team, and after a while I realized that my passion was growing and developing people. Having somebody who had done it with me, it was really my mission to be able to do that with others and help them grow and develop”, he says.
Must have been challenging to do it during Covid.
“Oh Yeah. Most of my management experience has been managing remotely, but although it is extremely challenging, I think it helped my growth in the role. Relationship building is way easier in person than through Zoom, but it helped me become stronger at those aspects and finding more creative ways to do it.
“What happened next was that Wix grew dramatically during the pandemic, so Customer Care also grew very fast and when we opened a new site in Denver, I was asked to help start Wix here and be a Customer Care Group Manager”.
How did you feel about that kind of change?
“I love change, and I think that this role has helped me really embrace change, so when the opportunity came I was ready for it. Starting Wix in a new state, and starting building relationships, setting up our culture and having people feel the amount of care that Wix has in this remote environment without people seeing each other in person, seemed like a really exciting new challenge. What I do is build relationships with the Team Leads that I manage directly, giving them the tools that they need in order to fill the growth and development needs of their teams”.
What does it take to be a good Customer Care Group Manager?
Ciro: “You have to be people focused. You may be incredibly talented on a technical level but if your core isn’t people it’ll be very difficult for you to be effective and achieve goals for your team and for our users”.
Connor: “When I interview people for this role, I make sure that they are receptive to feedback and focused on growth and development. I also ask about how they feel about change. If you don’t feel comfortable with change and you’re not accustomed to it, you’ll find it difficult at Wix since we change all the time. The main thing, however, is caring and being compassionate. We want our Customer Care Group Managers to genuinely care about people - our users and our employees”.
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