Welcome to our latest chat with the folks behind the scenes that help make the magic happen here at Loot Crate!
Here at Loot Crate, we take how we interact with our customers very seriously – from the talented Community Managers that take care of our Looters across all of our social media channels, to the Customer Support Agents that work each and every day to answer any and all questions sent their way by the Looters. Both teams are well oiled machines, but it takes solid leadership to help keep everyone on track, and one of those very leaders is Janice Luong, Customer Support Manager! She was able to find some time for an interview with me about her experiences with Loot Crate since she joined over three years ago – give it a look!
Thanks for taking time to chat with me, Janice! Before we get started, why don’t you tell us who you are and what you do here at Loot Crate?
Of course and thank you for having me! I help manage our awesome Customer Support team!
What were you doing before you joined the company?
Before I started at Loot Crate, I was an Administrative/Office Manager at an Acupuncture and Wellness Center.
I’m not sure we’ve ever talked much about it, but I do recall that part of your educational background is in Communications and Public Relations – tell me how that experience has helped you with your work here at LC?
Yes, I did! My background studying Communications has been incredibly useful here at Loot Crate, having an understanding how important it is to effectively communicate to our Looters, especially when something goes wrong.
The customer support department that has been built here at Loot Crate is very impressive. What do you think sets your team apart from your average run-of-the-mill support team?
My team finds the right balance of solving problems, relaying information, and making sure the whole process is smooth. What really sets us apart from the rest is that we’re like a friend you can GEEK out with. When you contact our support team, you also have someone to share your fandom with!
You’re one of the Loot Crate veterans, coming up on your fourth year with the company. What has been the most rewarding part of working with Loot Crate? The most challenging?
I can’t believe it’s been almost four years! The most rewarding part has to be that moment after we’ve shipped out all of our crates and we start to see posts from Looter unboxings. We have some of the most creative Looters and it’s so awesome to see the excitement and creative ways they display our products in photos. One of my biggest challenges is keeping up with the number of franchises we include each month in our crates. I try my best to read up on all the franchises that I’m not too familiar with, but there’s so much information! It’s both challenging and educational. I’m always learning something new!
Janice hangs out with fellow Customer Support Manager Robby Shuttleworth (left) and Co-Founder Matthew Arevalo (right) on Onesie Wednesday!
I spent some time working on the support team when I first joined Loot Crate, and in that short time, I had come upon some really cool stories from our Looters about what LC meant to them. What’s one of your most inspiring Looter stories you can share with us?
There are so many great Looter stories! One of my favorite stories was when we received a thank you email from a father, telling us how much his son looked forward to his Loot Crate. His son was going through surgery at the time and was spending a lot of time at the hospital. He then went into detail about how they would open his crate together and there was one month when we included a Fifth Element item, his son had never seen the movie , but his father was a huge fan – and then they ended up watching the movie together!
When working at a company like Loot Crate, it’s not unusual for the employees to be fans just as much as our Looters are – especially for someone like yourself that interacts with our Looters every day. So what kinds of things do you geek out on the most?
I geek out on music, photography, pinball machines, and side-scrolling video games. I proudly have on display at home my working NES and collection of 50+ games (BurgerTime, Balloon Fight, Super Mario Bros. 3, Duck Hunt).
And now for my go-to final question for each of my Behind the Crate interviews: If you could create your very own Loot Crate, what would it be?
If I could create a Loot Crate, it would a music crate. It would be a way to introduce people to new kinds of music and I’d call it the Music Box.
Thank you so much for taking the time to chat, Janice! Quite the impressive array of rare NES games you have, as a fellow gaming fan myself, I must say that I’m jealous. And maybe we’ll see a Music Crate (ahem, Music Box!) someday soon – a crate that would be music to my ears! (I’ll see myself out…)
