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CSIA FOCUS
CSIA Member What was your first role in customer service? My first role in customer service was in fact at the company that I work for at the moment. I was originally in a solutions consultant position with the company and my responsibilities grew very quickly as I learned more about the products we were building and the clients we were servicing. I had the opportunity to build the service division from the bottom up and develop the processes, operations, vision and direction of the service function.
Vanessa Holden Head of Client Services Adslot
Adam Bury Team Manager IT Service Operations Townsville City Council
What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given? One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things (Henry Miller). This retinoates with me on a personal and professional level. Through empathy I am able to see things through my customer eyes and gain a new way of seeing things - a new perspective or clearer understanding of their world. It helps me gain insights into how I can better serve our customer's needs or solve their problem(s). What is your proudest achievement in customer service? That's a tough one. The most proudest achievement would have to be when we brought on a new MSA with an existing global client which had complex market level SLAs. The complexities were surrounding the timezones, scheduled business operating hours and resources which all needed to be SOX and ISO compliant. On top of this we had to build out monthly reporting dashboards for each market (roughly 17 global markets) to align with the auditing and compliance requirements. It was a huge undertaking for such a small business at the time, but we nailed it and to this day still deliver 100% of the SLAs for each market. What advice would you give to a person starting in their customer service career? Ask questions - lots of questions. No such thing as a silly question. Questions are key to gaining a deeper understanding - whether that's an understanding of your role, your customers, products and services you are supporting, processes and operations - you name it - the more questions the better. Questions also show that you are engaged and eager to learn. What is the best thing about working in customer service? The ability to continuously be learning - whether it's a new product or service offering, new problems and issues, new customers and their businesses or new processes. Things are constantly changing and you are at the forefront of that change and solving the issues that come with it.
