World-class Technical Customer Support in Under 2 Minutes!

For our Head of Support, Teemu Toivanen, enthusiasm for great customer experience began when he was just a 16-year-old rookie, working in a store. It was there that he realized: the customer is the one who brings the money in. And when you make them feel valued, they return. Later, Teemu moved into his very first customer support role. Getting that sense of “I actually made someone’s day better by solving their technical issues” hooked him for good.

Breaking the “entry-level” stereotype and challenging the giants

After a stint in the corporate world, Teemu found his way to UpCloud. Being connected to us already, the choice felt natural. The industry was another draw. So many companies offer basic web hosting, but working at an actual cloud provider is on another scale. Being part of a sharp company that is gutsy enough to challenge the global cloud giants — pretty cool!

Teemu’s constant fuel in his work is the relentless focus on world-class customer service. “No one likes waiting in line,” he explains. By the time a customer finally gets through in a more traditional organization, they’re often frustrated before the conversation even starts. That creates constant pressure for the support agents, too.

Consequently, customer support is a field with notoriously high churn. These roles are often seen as entry-level jobs you want to get out of. But not at UpCloud. “Our employee turnover in support is strikingly low. Why? Because here, the work is actually rewarding ”. Customers send in positive feedback, whereas in so many other places, customer support mostly gets frustrated messages.

UpCloud’s team has the tools to truly solve customers’ issues, instead of tossing them around. The work has also become increasingly more technical, requiring smart problem-solving, even taking a bit of a solution architect role, so to speak. That flips the usual support stereotype upside down!

Head of Support, but never in an ivory tower

Despite leading a global Support function, Teemu hasn’t distanced himself from the front line. He still follows feedback closely and does some hands-on support work time to time, too. He sees his leadership role as being the support person for his own support team: listening to their concerns, removing obstacles, and making sure they’re empowered to shine.

On top of people leadership, there’s strategy. Especially now, with AI and large language models shaking up customer service, the field is at a changing point. Teemu is deeply involved in how new tools can drive efficiency and improve customer experience even further, while keeping the human trust factor intact.

Learning fast, growing faster

Over his time, Teemu has witnessed huge growth within UpCloud. Looking back, he sees how processes, data collection, incident handling, and maturity have all evolved. Our powerhouse of a team is extremely diverse, spanning five countries across three continents, covering all time zones. Together, they keep the 24/7 operation running smoothly.

This agility is key when competing against hyperscalers with near-infinite resources. There’s never too much highlighting when it comes to the support team’s extreme speed in response time: it’s just under 2 minutes!

Unlike large corporations, change here can happen in days, not months. When a bug is spotted by a support member, our developer might very well have fixed it within a couple of days, even.

What excites Teemu most right now is how support has become increasingly data-driven. The team studies why people reach out and feeds that information back into product development. The goal: fix root causes so that problems never occur twice, and solve the issues and questions preferably even before our customers notice them or report them.

A culture of trust

For Teemu, UpCloud’s culture boils down to trust and freedom. People are given responsibility and the backing to act on it. He’s also learned to adapt his leadership style across cultures: “What works in Europe might not work in Asia or the USA.”

Teemu is especially proud of the autonomy and initiative his team shows. Last summer, while Teemu was on vacation, his team recruited a new colleague with the assistance of other UpCloudians. “I had given them my trust, and they did great.”

What Teemu finds as the most unique characteristic in UpCloud’s customer support is its genuine, responsive, human response. Customers truly feel the difference. As he sums it up: “The happier our support specialists are, the better the customer experience becomes. When people truly enjoy their work, that good energy passes directly to the customer, and that is what matters in the long run.”