What’s your role, and where does it sit in the business?
As Head of Client Operations, I’m responsible for managing two functions – Onboarding and Guest Experience. The onboarding team consists of two specialists, while the guest experience team has fourteen members responsible for guest communications and service requests. Both these functions are at the core of our relationship with the clients and the guests.
Onboarding, as a function, sits at the second level of contact with our clients. This is a critical process ensuring our clients are set up efficiently on Lavanda PMS to achieve the desired results. Speed, Accuracy and Client satisfaction are three important parameters for us to define the success rate of the onboarding team.
On the other hand, the Guest Experience team is the first point of contact for all the guests. Starting with a small team of six Associates and one Team Lead in 2021, the team has grown 100%, with fourteen members spread across three hierarchies.
How does your role contribute to the overall experience and value that Lavanda offers its customers?
As an ex-entrepreneur, I consider myself to be a jack of all trades. Having worked in the coliving industry in India, real estate has always been close to my heart. As a highly process-oriented individual and strong follower of PPT (People, Process and Technology) framework, my focus from day one has been on building scalable processes. These processes, in combination with Lavanda’s cutting-edge tech, are being used by our amazing talent to offer the best-in-class product and services to our clients and guests.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
Having started my first company at the age of 20, I believe I have climbed the learning ladder with a lot of on-ground experience accumulated working directly with clients across various functions and industries. My first professional success came at the end of 2017 when my startup got acquired. This gave me freedom and motivated me to explore various career options.
Along with this, an MBA from the University of Edinburgh in 2021 proved to be a major milestone in my professional career as it has allowed me to learn about various cultures as well as international collaboration and work experience.
Currently, I’m based in West London with my lovely wife. Other than work, I spent most of my time watching, playing and learning about cricket. I play cricket for Twickenham Cricket Club, which is a part of Middlesex County Cricket League. I’m a big fan of Indian food, too; hence I chose West London as my abode, considering the ample number of Indian restaurants here.
What have been your most recent achievements at Lavanda?
Achievements play a big role in my life as they keep me driving for the next best thing. Most recently, we rolled out the Onboarding CSAT survey for clients. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction) is a key metric to track the satisfaction of the client, and respondents rate it on a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being very satisfied and 1 being very unsatisfied). Since the launch of CSAT 3 months ago, we have a perfect score of 5, which is a huge achievement considering onboarding was considered one of the weakest functions in Lavanda a year ago when I joined.
Another major achievement has been to increase the speed of onboarding, reducing the time to take a client live. With the new processes in place, trackers to track the steps and efficient use of Salesforce, we have been able to get a few of the clients live the next day (while the industry turnaround standard is between 7-14 days).
What do you most enjoy about working at Lavanda?
There is not just one thing that I love about Lavanda. It is a blend of the team, culture, product and flexibility which empowers me to give my best and achieve perfection. Seeing the business grow almost 3-4x in the last year gives me great pleasure and further motivates me to give 100%. The future looks bright!
