Every business wants their customers to leave satisfied and things are no different at Intelligent Leads. A Customer service administrator is crucial for companies that rely on their customer base to create revenue.
Customer Focus
Dealing with documentation, complaints, and customer doubts can be a demanding daily task, but one that customer service administrator Rebecca and the rest of her proactive team are ready to take head-on when they sit down in the morning. For a department that can be gifted around 700 leads over a weekend, these folks need to be ready.
Customer Based, Slow Paced
I walked Rebecca down to the cold room where the interview would be conducted, it didn’t phase her. A constant smile adorned her face whilst she held onto her notebook, prepared with notes to the questions I was going to ask. This readiness was not only a window into her as a person but also how she conducts herself in her role.
Interview with Customer Service Administrator Rebecca Murray
Billy: Tell me a bit about yourself, how you came to work for Intelligent Leads and your role at the company.
Rebecca: I’m 24 years old and I wanted something a little more slow-paced after working as a teaching assistant, a role that came with a lot of challenges. I sought out a customer service job and this one popped up! I applied, got the interview the same day and was offered the position.
I was newly married and wanted somewhere to settle down to eventually have kids. I’ve been here over a year now and it’s flown – a lot has changed! It’s grown so much.
Rebecca’s team deals with a daily wave of correspondence, speaking to customers over the phone and ensuring that everything is going as it should for those customers who have qualified for free government energy grants.
Billy: I imagine a big part of your role is ensuring that things are running smoothly, from handling correspondence to preparing documents; talk to me through your processes and what your day-to-day at work can look like.
Rebecca: We receive a call from the sales agent, and they let us know which installer is going to the qualified customer. They also inform us of the route they are going down, either the income or medical route. We then discuss this with the clients and determine what documentation they need to send us.
We will notify them by email and send out any brochures in the post to clarify who we are and what they are going to be receiving. It’s a big thing to send someone that you don’t know your personal documentation, so that’s why we do that.
We keep in touch with the client every two to three days and offer them any help if they need it. A lot of customers struggle with the GP form if they have qualified under a medical referral. We help with that, but we have installers that have their own GPs now, so it takes off some of that load.
Just as with the care and relationship Karl Donald displays in his sales executive role [read his story here], this vital skill seeps over into the admin department, creating a flowing stream of care for the customers.
Rebecca: We create a good rapport with the clients. Make sure that they feel safe, you know? We’re the friendly types on the phone, so if they’ve got any concerns, we just let them know that we’re there for them.
This blanket of care cannot all be held on the shoulders of one person though, and the team at Intelligent Leads have each other’s backs without questions, whilst maintaining some healthy competition among themselves.
Billy: What’s it like working in a team of administrators?
Rebecca: It can get quite competitive. It can be a lot of “I’ve done this many! How many have you done?” But we always work as a team, so if anyone has any questions, we know we can always ask each other.
This type of team bonding can create tough morale, a strength that is needed to convince those customers who have had second thoughts about their decision later in the process.
Billy: You meet customers at a point in the process where they have qualified and have decided to go through with the work. Have you had customers get cold feet in the past, and if so, how do you deal with that?
Rebecca: We get that quite often and there can be a few different scenarios. You will get customers saying things like “I’m too old for this. I’m 78. I can’t be bothered with this!” You have to sympathise with this kind of response and tell them that they might feel too old for the work but it’s 60 grands worth of it going into your property. Normally after reassuring them that this is an inheritance for their children and grandkids when it comes to selling the property and that their winters will be much warmer, they are happy to go ahead with things.
It’s quite easy to reassure the client when you know all the answers and having that knowledge and being here [at the company] for now just over a year, I’ve gained so much knowledge about what I can do and where I can send people to help them in different ways.
This daily task of convincing customers can be difficult, and the team can spend a lot of their energy on it, alongside their other duties that require much-needed care and attention. After all the trials and tribulations though, the hard work can be rewarding in the end.
Billy: Can you recall a moment in your role when you were proud of the result?
Rebecca: I had this one guy, and he was very unsure about the scheme at first. He’d moved over from Australia, being put into a little cottage. I worked alongside him for three months, trying to get him to think about it, which eventually he did, and he enjoyed it so much!
Once he was a part of it, we stopped talking on the phone and would exchange emails instead as he told me he preferred it that way. When he sent us all his documents, he told us that “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men are on these documents!” And that just made my day.
He got his work done another 2 months after that and contacted me to let me know how happy he was with it. He took pictures all over his house and said, “Look what they’ve done, it’s all shiny new!” He was made up.
I made me stop and think, “I’ve really helped someone there.” It may have taken 5 months but it’s good to know that you’ve helped them in the end.
These success stories are the foundation of the future for Intelligent Leads, and for Rebecca, the future of the company and her own as a customer service administrator is something she is determined about.
Billy: What do you see for the future of Intelligent Leads?
Rebecca: Hopefully, we can get more installers and help more people because the scheme is fantastic. When you think about it, it’s 60 grands worth of work for absolutely nothing. It’s an investment in a sense and with the documents, they always get them back. They send us photocopies or pictures of them.
Once all the work is done, they are over the moon. And it’s saving them money.
Billy: Where do you see yourself in the future, either as part of this company or in your personal life?
Rebecca: I hope to be head of the Admin Department maybe, passing on the knowledge I have gained to any new starters. Knowledge I have gotten from senior staff members who we have in the office now. I would love to be able to pass that information down really and take a bit of leadership.
I hope I’m still here. [Laughs] I love my job. I absolutely love it.
