A Warm Handoff: Anders Coe Joins PSDS as the Customer Experience Lead

Anders Coe

After a decade in the service industry, Anders Coe brings his talents and passion for providing high-quality customer service to UVA. Coe recently joined Procurement and Supplier Diversity Services (PSDS) as the Customer Experience Lead—a new role. In the job now for roughly six weeks, Coe has only kind words for his colleagues, saying they have been very welcoming and helpful getting him acquainted with department’s work.

“Coming in, I think that it’s really about being able to put a friendly and inviting spin on the procurement process,” Coe says. “With people having questions about what’s going on, we want to invite them to inquire about their problems and make it a smoother process. I like to solve problems, so that was one thing that attracted me to the job.”

Though Coe is new to UVAFinance, he’s no stranger. He learned about the opening from his sister Addie Coe, who also works in PSDS. In addition, he may be familiar to a lot of us, as he bartended at Zin Burger in Barrack’s Road for some time. Most recently, he worked at Lowe’s, a role he pivoted to when restaurants shut down because of the pandemic. He began in hardware but quickly moved to leading the internet sales unit, which has been booming. While hesitant to leave the team he led at Lowe’s, the opportunity at UVA felt too good to pass up.

Coe will be working primarily with Connie Alexander, Danae Polemi, and Raegan Harouff Gaye, to whom he reports, but will also collaborate with the rest of the procurement team. He fields incoming inquiries, an Anders-of-all-trades if you will, addressing those he can and passing along those he can’t to the appropriate person.

“My role is about being able to help out as much as I can and to be able to give a warm handoff rather than a cold open for customers who need assistance from someone else on the team. Not just being like, ‘You have to go talk to this person,’ but being like, ‘I found out this much; let me prime this person before they hop into fixing this issue for you.’” 

The timing of his joining the team, with UVA COVID-related restrictions easing, enabled him to meet many of his colleagues in person early on, which has helped him settle in. He reiterates just how welcoming and kind the team has been.

Coe sums up the goal of his new position as “being able to make the whole process of finding information and learning how to do things for customers, whether they’re our vendors or staff and faculty at UVA, a whole lot easier and feel a little better.”

Coe’s passions include playing music and acting. He loves to perform. His first musical performance since COVID hit is coming up in September. He’s also excited that Four County Players is resuming theater productions and looks forward to future opportunities on the stage.