Behind the Work | Cara Jensen

Posted on: July 23rd, 2018 by Writing Intern | No Comments

To most people, Cara Jensen is CITY’s controller, but what exactly is the role of a controller in a laundering business?

For Cara, it is a behind-the-scenes role that is essentials to a number of operations. From accounting and billing to IT (information technology) and human resources, Cara is a vital piece to the company’s overall success.


 

Customers at the Fore Front

Customer service is at the core of everything we do at CITY. Even though clients may never directly interact with Cara, she helps make every customer’s experience that much better. We create a sense of confidence in our customers by always being accessible and responsive, and it starts at the executive level. Cara is just one member of the executive team who is working towards those goals.

“I love how the CITY family truly is a part of my personal family, it’s not like other family-owned businesses where they just have the label of a family environment. CITY’s culture actually aligns with those values,” said Cara. “My children enjoy when I come home and have a story to tell them about what is happening at work so they can know what it’s like at a business that is family-owned.”

 

Overall Differentiators

We pride ourselves on being transparent, and that transparency is alive and well through Cara and the departments she oversees. Cara manages the following areas: office personnel, human resources, information technology (IT), accounting, and billing,

From the office, to human resources, to IT, Cara helps train and makes sure employees and customers’ expectations are being met. Cara helps meet or exceed all employee and customer expectations with professional account management, proactively finding solutions for unique needs all in a timely fashion.

For our clients, we are able to provide customized programs with Cara’s help. We are able to offer our clients customized solutions for their schedule, product services, inventory management, and billing.

Besides the departments that Cara personally oversees, she also works closely with all departments at CITY because they have an affect our on client’s experience. At the end of each day, being able to provide our customers with a positive experience is where CITY’s success comes from. For many, that experience ties hand-in-hand with billing procedures.

Unique to the Industry

Cara manages our usage vs. inventory billing system that is exclusive to CITY. Unlike our competitors, CITY’s clients are billed only based on actual usage rather than a percentage of total inventory, thus saving some of our clients up to 30 percent compared to inventory based billing.

This is made possible by CITY’s UHF (ultra-high frequency) chipped inventory, and Cara helps guarantee our clients are only getting billed for what they use.

In addition, Cara is involved in CITY’s own CITY Asset Management program (CAM). CAM is a pricing methodology that aids our business in being 100 percent transparent with our clients by calculating a client’s bill based on operational needs, the quantity of items, and the use of those items. This program is valuable to our clients because they receive the estimate prior to the actual billing process, which allows our clients to properly budget for each bill.

In order to provide a transparent, responsive, and unique service to our customers, Cara plays a large role in that consistent CITY guarantee.

 

A Typical Day

Cara starts her day with a proactive mindset. The day starts by meeting with Colin Wetlaufer, President of CITY, to discuss new developments or things going on in the business. She then meets with the different members of the executive team to ensure all aspects of CITY are functioning well. Cara then works closely with the office staff to help answer questions, solve problems, or provide further assistance where needed. On a normal day, Cara has visitors from multiple departments, as Cara has an open door policy. When everyone is all set and on track, Cara focuses her time and energy on budgeting and reporting for future projects and growth.

“I want to play an instrumental part in the success of a growing business and that is what CITY is about,” Jensen said.  “We have a bright future at CITY and I am happy to be on this team.”

Cara has been with CITY five years and is an ideal representative of an employee who lives our vision, mission, and values every day at CITY.

Learn more about Cara outside of CITY here.

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