Skill Highlight: Customer Service
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This is how I bring my years of customer service experience to my job as a Virtual Office Admin.
Photo by Gaurav Dhwaj Khadka on Unsplash
This is the first post in a series that will highlight each of the skills that I bring to my job as a virtual office administrator. First up: customer service!
Let’s take a short tour of my work history where I gained valuable experience that I use to this day. I’ll highlight the main skills I learned at each job and talk about how I gained new experiences and built on them over time.
Babysitter: Active Listening and Following Directions
Like a lot of teenagers, my first job was babysitting for kids in the neighborhood. Back then, I thought of it as just hanging out with some younger kids, having snacks or doing crafts, and getting some cash at the end. I’m not a parent of human children, but I’ve heard from lots of parents who value getting a break to get stuff done while knowing their kids are being taken care of. I was providing an important service to my neighbors, and I learned how to actively listen and follow directions.
Receptionist: Interacting Professionally With Clients
My second job was at my neighbor’s chiropractic office, where I was basically the assistant to the receptionist. I learned how to answer phones, file documents, and greet customers professionally. I also learned that flip-flops are not considered acceptable footwear for a medical office.
Party Host: Time Management
A few months later, I got hired at my local rec center. My main job was to greet birthday party groups at the front desk and show them to their reserved party room, take delivery of their pizzas, and put paper wristbands on a dozen kids hyped up on soda, cake, and party vibes. I learned valuable time management skills since there were usually multiple parties in a day between three different party rooms. I also built on the skills I had learned at the chiropractic office when it came to greeting customers, and my prior babysitting experience was also useful when talking to kids and parents alike.
Retail Associate: Organizational Skills and Providing a Good Customer Experience
After working at the rec center for about a year, I journeyed into the world of retail when I got a job at a newly-built department store in my neighborhood. I was on the sales floor most of the time, making sure the fitting rooms were tidy and racks of clothes were organized by color and size. I loved helping customers find what they were looking for, even if it meant calling another store to ask if they had an item in a size or color that my store didn’t have. I also discovered my weird love of organizing things like a fitting room stall with a pile of clothes on the floor up to my knees. Did that love of organizing clothes transfer to my bedroom at home? Absolutely not. But that’s not the point.
Front Desk Clerk: Quick Thinking and Adapting to Stressful Situations
Working retail was a great place to build on my customer service skills, which I used even more at my next job at a hotel. By this time, I was very comfortable answering phones in a professional way, listening to guests, and generally keeping up a comfortable and welcoming vibe. I mostly loved interacting with guests (the exceptions being the occasional older gentlemen who would push the boundary between friendliness and flirting), and I really felt in my element whenever a guest asked me to recommend a local restaurant or needed a few extra towels delivered to their room. I learned how to think on my feet and adapt to different situations, like the time I came into work on short notice to help turn over rooms, and ended up with soaking wet shoes when a water pipe burst over a couple of rooms and we had to throw guests’ belongings into housekeeping carts to keep their things from getting ruined. That was a wild afternoon, but I came out with a funny story and great experience on how to act quickly in a chaotic situation.
Final Thoughts
I’ve had a few other jobs in the time between then and now, and I’ve gained valuable experience from each one, which I use today as a virtual office admin. The world of customer service isn’t glamorous and it definitely has its unique challenges, but I honestly love it, and I’ve enjoyed learning and improving my skills over the years! I would love to use my customer service experience to help you with your business, so if you could use an extra hand with customer outreach and communication, let me know!
Do you have your own wild story from working in customer service? I would love to hear about it in the comments!
