Getting to know Marta

Behind every Obbi account is a person learning how your club really runs and staying in your corner long after the sale. This month we sat down with Marta, one of our Customer Success Managers, to talk about the day job, life outside it, and what makes working with clubs so rewarding. Along the way we discovered a former child actress, a keen gardener, and a firm believer that momentum beats ambition.

The day job

How would you explain what a Customer Success Manager actually does to someone outside the industry?

A Customer Success Manager is the person who makes sure you actually use the thing you bought. A bit like a personal trainer for software. In practice it means I learn how a club really runs, work out where Obbi fits that, and stay involved long after the sale so the system is genuinely being used rather than sitting there looking tidy.

What does a good day in customer success look like for you?

A good day is when nothing is on fire, which in my line of work is not a metaphor. The great days are when a customer rings to say they aced their audit, or that their insurance premium came down because all their evidence was sitting there ready. Add in a call where someone shows me something clever they have built in Obbi that I had not thought of, and that is the full set.

What is the first thing you do when you log on in the morning?

I check what has landed overnight from the US accounts. Their whole afternoon happened while I was asleep, so the inbox has already had a day I was not present for. Once I know nothing urgent is sitting there, I make coffee and start properly.

What is something about you that would surprise the rest of the team?

I was a child actress. Two years at the theatre, proper stage, proper audience. It turns out the best possible training for a customer call is having once had to hold a room full of strangers while wearing a wig.

Life outside work

How do you like to spend your time when you are not looking after customers?

The gym, the garden, or a canvas. They all have the same appeal, which is that you can see what you have done at the end of it.

What is your favourite way to recharge after a hectic week?

Same three things, but the garden usually wins after a bad week. There is nothing like pulling up weeds to reset a person. Painting is for when I want to think, the gym is for when I want to stop thinking.

If you could instantly master any skill, what would it be?

Painting faces. I can manage a garden or a landscape quite happily, but people defeat me every time. Something about a portrait means you can be a millimetre out and the whole thing knows it.

Obbi and the customers

What drew you to Obbi, and what has made you stay?

I arrived knowing nothing about startups and even less about SaaS. What I could do was talk to people, so customer success found me before I found it. What has kept me here is the customers. Golf clubs and hospitality teams are refreshingly direct about what is and isn’t working, which is the best thing you can ask for in this job.

What is the most rewarding part of working directly with customers?

Watching someone go from “I suppose we have to do this” to sending me a screenshot at half eight in the morning because they are proud of their audit trail. That switch is the whole job.

Is there a moment with a customer that really stuck with you, a win, a breakthrough, a thank-you that meant a lot?

A customer who was not even fully onboarded got hit with a surprise audit and sailed through it, because everything the auditor asked for was already in Obbi. They had done the work. I just got to watch it pay off.

What do you think customers most want from the companies they work with, and how do you try to deliver that?

To be treated like a person rather than a ticket number. Most of what I do is unglamorous: knowing which club is mid-season and cannot take a call, remembering that someone’s greenkeeper is off sick, following up when I said I would. It means when something does go wrong, we already know each other.

What is one piece of advice you would give a new customer to help them get the most out of Obbi?

Start smaller than you think you should. Everyone wants to switch on everything at once, and the accounts that thrive are the ones that pick one thing, get the team genuinely using it, then build out from there. Momentum beats ambition.

In closing

That is Marta: direct, practical, and quietly proud of the clubs she looks after. Her advice sums up how we like to work here. Start with one thing, get your team genuinely using it, and let the proof build from there. If you would like that kind of support behind your own club, we would be glad to talk.