We sat down with Haruna & Yuko of our online team recently & talked about their works on a normal day in the office:

       
  1. Can you tell us more about your team? Who are your team members and what do they do?

We would like to introduce our team, Haruna and Yuko. We both have over 10 years of work experience at Aotea.  Haruna looks after the Japanese market and answers all inquiries from different countries, and does packing orders & admin jobs.  Yuko helps packing our orders twice a week.  Of course, we also have other team members who look after our Chinese market and western markets.


  1. When does your day start & finish? How does your day go?  

Haruna normally comes to the office around 8:30am Monday - Friday, and Yuko starts from 9am on Monday and Friday.  We start packing orders as soon as we come in because we would like to deliver the ordered products to our customers as soon as possible.  Our courier normally comes around 11am every day to pick up the parcels.  After we finish packing, Haruna checks all emails and answers customers' questions.  Yuko helps tidy up our stockroom and check stock conditions and expiry dates of our products.  That keeps us very busy throughout the day as new online orders come in from time to time


  1. Please tell us some of the challenges you face during COVID-19 lockdown & how did you overcome them?

During COVID-19 lockdown, delivery time was uncertain both for domestic and international services. We received many inquiries asking about estimated delivery time, we also had parcels which took longer to be delivered due to logistics challenges during time of lockdown.  Delivery time within NZ is back to normal now.  International delivery service is also back to normal, but it still takes bit longer than usual to deliver.  Depending on the destination countries, there might be slight delay but I would say things are getting better, and it won’t take long for our customers to receive our products !!


  1. What satisfaction do you get when you receive guest compliments or praise for your work well done?

When we receive emails from our customers saying that they received parcels in good conditions and are satisfied with our services, we feel really happy.


  1. What are the most popular items that our customers buy recently?  Do you have any recommendations for our customers?

Our current best sellers are manuka honey, bee products, NZ made beauty items, canned butter and Kapeka fashion!

We recommend Kapeka fashion items and Koha beauty range.   We wear Kapeka garment as our uniform throughout the year (even in Summer time!). Knitwears are really soft and strong.

Koha lanolin is one of Haruna's favourite items. She uses this hand cream every day after using hand sanitiser. This cream makes her hands moisturised and keeps them soft for many hours.


  1. How do you deal with time zone issues when many of our customers are living outside of New Zealand at different time zones?

We are trying our best to respond to customers' emails/phone calls as soon as possible. We also have Mark International, our agent in Japan, who looks after our Japanese customers.


  1. After a long day at work, what do you do to relax? a happy hour drink together? 

Haruna often catches up with her friend after work.

Yuko is really good at baking! Our team eats Yuko's cupcakes and roll cakes when she makes them.