When you think of customer service, what do you think of? For many of us, maybe we think about something like making a return in a store. Or talking with someone at a welcome desk.
For others, customer services isn’t obvious. But it’s central to their work.
For Rossana Roberts, her work with Abacus Evaluation may not seem like customer service, but it is. And she she’s just won an award from the UNC Research Core Facilities Staff Recognition Program for it.
We asked Rossana for her reflections on the award and what it means to her.
About the award
The UNC Research Core Facilities Staff Recognition Program is designed to recognize extraordinary achievements by SHRA and EHRA-NF permanent, full- and part-time employees of biomedical research cores at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Rossana was selected as the recipient of the Spring 2024 Core Facility Staff Recognition Award in the category of Customer Service. The Customer Service category is one of three award categories.
According to the initial story, Rossana’s “nominator highlighted her ability to understand the customer and their priorities and to quickly and seamlessly pivot when those needs may change or shift mid-project.”
Rossana was also recognized for her “effective management” and helping lead “her team during a gap in leadership, ensuring the customers continued to receive the high-quality project management and data evaluation services they required.”
The article sums up Rossan’s work, highlighting how she impacts the whole team. “Rossana was commended for her in-depth knowledge of the data her team works with—and her ability to quickly and accurately assess what changes may be necessary to the data structure as the customer needs change and evolve. This allows her to provide accurate timelines and meet both internal and external deadlines.”
Customer service and evaluation go hand-in-hand
According to Roberts, the award “shows the role that customer service plays in research and evaluation.”
She said that “a lot of times customer service isn’t what comes to mind when you think about being in an Evaluation Research Specialist role.” She listed common role areas like “data, analysis software, writing up papers and reports and so on.”
While those are “a huge part” of her job, she never forgets “the customer service piece”.
Roberts said that “the engaging with clients aspect is also a huge part of what we do” in Abacus. She added, “so it’s very rewarding that that aspect of our work is also getting recognition.”
What customer service looks like for Roberts
Part of Roberts’ role includes engaging with clients to support the evaluation component of their projects. She said, “this means meeting with project teams to understand their project and what they hope to get out of collaborating with us, answering questions they may have, and providing subject matter expertise.”
In addition to those and research tasks, there “a lot of communication, relationship building and problem solving.”
Roberts balances both!
Advice for other providing customer service
We asked Roberts what she’d share with others doing customer service.
She said, “the outlook you have on your work plays a huge part in shaping how things play out.”
She explained that working with someone is built on trust. “When someone chooses to work with you, or comes to you with questions, it’s because they feel that you have the skills to help them, and I think that’s very motivating to keep in mind when you’re doing this work,” she said.
To help encourage others, Roberts also shared good reminders. She said that even when there are “challenges and roadblocks,” attitude matters. Roberts suggests “reminding yourself that you don’t have to have all of the answers!”
She adds that “approaching the interaction with empathy and openness” to understand the issue is key. Then, you can work with the client to “try to find the best solution.”
Finally, Roberts offers words of support in the face of change. “Most of the time, project plans change and things happen that will be out of your control so being okay with that and focusing on what you can control helps navigate those situations.”