Call us on the phone and there's a good chance you'll be greeted by an American accent. No, we haven’t outsourced our customer support; you’ve just “met” our customer service all-star (and token American), Hilly Goodwin.
These days, she considers herself half-Kiwi, having lived in New Zealand on and off most of her adult life. But, ironically, it was while stateside that she landed her job at Rocketspark. After four years living in Los Angeles, she, her Kiwi husband and newborn son were ready to return to Aotearoa. We caught wind of the news and, having heard the legends of her administrative wizardry (all true!), offered her a role with us. Says Hilly, “We were moving back; they were looking for a support person—it was a match made in heaven”. Now she plies said wizardry to providing support for both Rocketspark staff as well as customers. A major part of her role involves translating the developers’ jargon into plain English for clients. “Thankfully, I’m not too high up the Nerd Scale,” she quips. “There’s a certain amount of zhooshing that needs to take place, finessing their geek-speak into something the rest of us can understand.” There are some things even Google Translate can’t interpret; that’s why we have Hilly.
Since being able to translate tech mumbo jumbo is a rare skill, we sometimes wish we could clone Hilly. Fortunately, we don’t have to—she has an identical twin living back in the US. She and her twin made a formidable batting combo in their glory days as school softball sluggers. Coming in at number three and four respectively, their power-hitting helped their team (The Bandits) to an undefeated record that lasted several seasons. Since hanging up her mitt, Hilly has gone from running to home plate to improving her home’s state, with household projects being one of her favourite hobbies. “I like working with my hands, doing things around the house, woodworking—any kind of DIY.” And when she’s not working on the home? “Hanging out with hubs n’ bubs.”
