The crazy tech guy who wanted to be a Formula 1 driver

I’d tell them that I make our customers happy, that I make sure they don’t feel like just another number. It’s my job to ensure our customers know they made the right choice with imc.

You know, my role is actually a mix of customer success manager and e-learning consultant, and indeed I feel this is a very critical role for the company. Because here in Australia these roles are not so strictly separated from each other as in Germany, for example.

So, I take care of all issues that our customers have with our learning management system (LMS) and make sure they feel comfortable with our service and our product. But that’s not all. It’s also part of my job to ensure they trust and believe in us as a capable team.

Our tagline is “we empower”. And that’s what I try to do: I aim to empower customers to work as effectively as possible with our product. My goal is to find the best business solutions for them. Moreover, I want to make talking to us a positive experience for them, and, as I said earlier, make sure they don’t feel like just another number.

That’s correct. My career path at imc is quite unusual. I started in pre-sales for our LMS, but then worked in the content team for a while. It was a great time, and I learned a lot, but I feel that I’m more of a tech guy. I love our LMS, and that is where I belong.

But one thing that all my roles at imc had in common was a great sense of exciting complexity. In the content team, the approach was rather top down, but the process was highly creative. In the LMS team, you work with a lot of different departments and people in various roles. That can be challenging and involve a lot of back and forth, but I love interacting with different people and in different ways.

I just love our system. For me, the LMS is like a black hole – and I mean that in an absolutely positive way. It’s so wonderfully complex, and you’re always finding new functions, or new ways to use certain functions. It’s like navigating in a spaceship in outer space, and I’m the navigator – for our customers.

It just feels good when a customer calls you – perhaps they’re desperate, or annoyed with something – and I can help them out. I enjoy that feeling of confidence and being a subject matter expert with the ability to turn an unhappy customer into a happy one within the space of a single phone call.

But I have to give big credits here to the team in Germany. At the beginning, they taught me a lot about the system, and they still have so much detailed knowledge that they’re always happy to share.

I’m originally from India, but I lived and worked for many years in the USA. When the e-learning company I was working for closed, I applied for a visa for Australia. I just didn’t want to go back to India, plus Australia seemed like an interesting country. When I finally arrived here, I had nothing. No apartment, no friends, no job.

Then I saw the job at imc, and it just fitted perfectly. So, I applied, got it, and spent the first three months in my new country making the imc LMS my new girlfriend. I wanted to learn as much about the system as possible and really get a deep understanding. So, I did a lot of self-learning, including in the evenings and on the weekends.

Oh yes, that’s a great story. As I said, I had worked in e-learning before and had 15 years of work experience. Anyway, when I was interviewed, it was a panel including a German-speaking colleague.

First, he asked some basic questions about me – my attitude and things like that. But then he wanted to test me, so he gave me some more challenging questions. Well, I was able to answer all of them. I challenged him back and told him to give me harder questions, but I was able to answer all of those, too.

Finally, he gave me a mischievous grin and said: “Ok, now I will give you one question, and I guarantee you will not be able to answer it.” I told him to go ahead but was still optimistic. Well, he asked me a question in German – which, obviously, I couldn’t answer as I don’t speak German. It was hilarious!

… to see passion. I’m very passionate about our product and my job, and I expect others to do their job with the same passion. I don’t like it when people just have a nine-to-five mindset. I want to see them solving customers’ problems and really diving into the topic.

Marketing, because I guess in all other departments I would know what to expect. But honestly, I have no idea what Marketing does. I think it’s rather complex, and there is much more going on behind the scenes than you see. So, I would like to learn more about that and also about how they go about making people happy.

People who are not doing their job. Because when I look at myself, I feel that I do much more than I should. But sometimes people put their own interests ahead of those of the company. That’s not my way.

Scarface: “I always tell the truth, even when I lie.”

Before coming to Melbourne, I wasn’t big into coffee at all, but now I drink two to three cups a day.