Working at Modality
Meet Kelly
Our roving reporter Kelly monitors customer satisfaction
My interview this time is in the first person because it does feel somewhat awkward to write about myself in the third person. My name is Kelly and as Modality's roving reporter, my responsibilities include all the articles on the website, the messages on LinkedIn and the newsletters; I also hassle our customers with an annual customer satisfaction survey.
Rekindled spark
My official job description is Marketing Manager & Customer Care. In this capacity, I aim to optimally inform customers about new developments within Modality through our communication channels. By conducting personal customer interviews and analysing the outcome from our annual survey, I identify customer wishes to improve our products and services. About 18 years ago, I ended up in the logistics/maritime sector more or less by chance (thanks to a summer job). After completing my marketing studies, I continued working at the same shipping company where I also did my graduation internship. Since management considered it important for me to first gain operational experience, I started out as a planner. After working in planning for a number of years, during which I learned all the ins and outs of the operational processes and mastered the very specific maritime jargon, I was able to apply my marketing skills in practice. During a major rebranding project my spark for an old passion of mine was rekindled: writing. I noticed that due to the advent of online marketing, there was a new, important role for written texts; in addition to good websites, companies now also required blog articles, email marketing, social media posts and more to convey their expertise to the outside world. I also saw that knowledge of the logistics and maritime sector was invaluable for writing good, convincing copy - not something everyone could easily do. The fact that at that time, more than five years ago, only a few logistics companies had embraced online marketing got me thinking as well.
Kelly (so, me):
"Modality has a strong corporate culture that is characterised by a high degree of collegiality and calmness. To me, the freedom to organise my own work and show initiative constitutes the ideal combination between entrepreneurship and salaried employment."
Change of plans
The opportunities I had identified in the market, combined with the entrepreneurial genes passed on to me by both parents (and grandparents), spurred me to start my own marketing agency for the maritime sector. Elias introduced my colleague Lisette and me to Jan and Evert, which ultimately resulted in the opportunity for us to also publish the first newsletters and articles for Modality and breathe new life into their LinkedIn page. We successfully did this for a number of years and I was convinced that I would always remain an entrepreneur – until 2021, that is, when a cup of coffee with Jan abruptly shook up those plans. Being self-employed has given me the wonderful opportunity to go behind the scenes at many companies. However, most assignments are only temporary and you only have limited influence on the result. In addition, I missed being part of a team, especially following the Corona pandemic. Jan and Evert were starting to notice the first positive effects of the marketing activities and after much lobbying, we were even able to convince them to give the logo and corporate identity a fresh new look 😉. And thus, a great match was made at the end of 2021. I decided to start working for Modality full-time - after completing my running projects and transferring my other assignments, of course. A decision that turned out very well 😊.
