Current Work and Digital Tools in Use
I currently work in customer support at Digitaalinen asuntokauppa – DIAS, a digital platform that enables fully digitalized real estate transactions in Finland. My daily tasks include assisting customers, managing feedback, coordinating training sessions, and supporting business development activities.
To perform these tasks, I rely heavily on a wide variety of digital tools. Some of the most important tools I use are:
- Google Drive for document management and collaboration.
- Zendesk for handling customer support tickets efficiently.
- Azure Data Studio for managing data and reporting.
- Miro for visual collaboration, planning, and brainstorming.
- Google Meet and Microsoft Teams for virtual meetings and trainings.
- Instagram for marketing and customer communication activities.
- Email for formal communication and documentation sharing.
At DIAS, we have a completely flexible remote work culture, meaning that employees are free to work remotely as much as they want.
Because of this flexibility, almost all meetings are organized digitally — either fully online via Google Meet, hybrid with both live and virtual participation, or entirely in-person when preferred.
Digital tools are an essential part of my daily work, supporting communication, task management, and customer service in a dynamic and technology-driven environment.
📄 Utilization of New Digital Tools
Pinterest is a platform where users collect visual ideas and inspirations into boards. In my work at DIAS, Pinterest could be utilized for gathering ideas for customer communication, visual materials, marketing campaigns, and internal development projects.
Positive aspects: Easy to collect and organize visual ideas, supports creativity and innovation, and can serve as inspiration for new customer training materials.
Negative aspects: Pinterest is primarily designed for public sharing, so sensitive or internal material should not be stored there. It can also be time-consuming if not used purposefully.
Doodle
Doodle is a simple scheduling tool that allows multiple participants to suggest and vote on meeting times. In DIAS, Doodle could streamline the process of setting up internal meetings or customer training sessions, especially when participants are from different organizations.
Positive aspects: Saves time compared to back-and-forth emails, user-friendly interface, clear visualization of available times.
Negative aspects: Limited functionalities in the free version. External tools may raise data privacy questions when scheduling across organizations.
Todoist
Todoist is a task management tool for organizing and prioritizing work. In customer support at DIAS, Todoist could help track and prioritize customer feedback, new training needs, internal tasks, and follow-up items.
Positive aspects: Improves personal productivity, easy prioritization, visual progress tracking.
Negative aspects: Individual task lists might become isolated if not shared effectively with the team. Requires discipline to update regularly.
Issuu
Issuu is a digital publishing platform for sharing brochures, guides, and magazines online. DIAS could use Issuu to publish customer-facing materials, such as user guides for digital signing or information brochures for real estate agents.
Positive aspects: Professional visual presentation, easy to embed into websites or emails, increases the accessibility of materials.
Negative aspects: Some advanced features require a paid subscription. Public visibility might be a limitation if the material needs to remain private.
WhatsApp could be utilized in customer service as a dedicated DIAS information channel. Through this channel, customers could receive important service updates, notifications about service disruptions, reminders about signing deadlines, and other relevant information related to their real estate transactions.
Instead of using WhatsApp for internal communication between employees, it would serve as an external communication tool providing quick, accessible updates to customers who opt in to receive messages.
Positive aspects:
WhatsApp enables real-time communication with customers, allowing important updates and notifications to reach them instantly.
Because customers tend to check WhatsApp messages quickly, the open rates are very high compared to traditional email communication.
By proactively keeping customers informed through a familiar and accessible platform, the overall customer experience can be significantly enhanced.
Negative aspects:
Not all customer groups may feel comfortable using WhatsApp for real estate-related communications, which could limit its reach.
The use of WhatsApp also requires clear privacy policies and explicit customer consent to comply with GDPR regulations.
Additionally, communication via WhatsApp needs to be carefully planned to avoid spamming or overwhelming customers with excessive messages, which could harm trust rather than build it.
Elements of Successful Use of Digital Tools
The successful use of digital tools in customer service and business development relies on several key elements. First and foremost, the selection of tools must match real business needs — a tool should never be used just for the sake of technology, but because it truly supports efficiency, communication, or customer experience.
User-friendliness is essential: the tools must be easy and intuitive for both employees and customers to use. If a platform feels complicated or confusing, it easily remains underutilized.
Training and onboarding are also critical. Even the best tools cannot deliver results if users are not properly trained or encouraged to use them consistently. Companies should invest in continuous support and learning opportunities for digital tools.
Data privacy and security play a major role, especially when dealing with sensitive information such as real estate transactions, personal data, or financial details. Ensuring GDPR compliance and protecting customer information must be at the heart of any digital strategy.
Finally, integration between different tools is a success factor. Ideally, information should flow seamlessly between systems — for example, customer communications sent via WhatsApp should be documented into Zendesk to maintain service continuity.
Overall, digital tools should support not only operational efficiency but also build trust and transparency toward customers.
Self-Reflection
This assignment encouraged me to think critically about the digital platforms and applications that are used or could be used in my daily work at DIAS. I realized that I already use a wide range of digital tools effectively, but there is always potential to further develop and refine these practices.
Exploring new platforms like Pinterest, Doodle, Todoist, Issuu, and WhatsApp gave me ideas about how to improve both internal efficiency and external customer communication. Especially the idea of using WhatsApp as a customer-facing information channel and Issuu for publishing visual guides feels very inspiring and achievable.
I also reflected on the challenges of digitalization. Although digital tools provide huge benefits in terms of speed and flexibility, they require careful management to avoid information fragmentation, maintain customer privacy, and ensure that everyone has access to the necessary skills and support.
In the future, I would like to deepen my skills particularly in integrating different digital tools more tightly together, so that customer service processes become even smoother and more connected across platforms.
This assignment strengthened my belief that digital tools are not just “technical support” for work — they are an essential part of modern customer service, communication, and professional development.