On the 16th of January 2017, myself, my colleagues Mary (CSR), RR (Paraplanner), and Shi-An (Head of Client Services), flew to the Land Down Under and got to stay there for two weeks to meet our dear clients, get to know them more, experience working with them in their offices and, attend the AMP Conference.
While working in their office, we were able to observe their work setting, how they do their tasks, their attitude towards work and colleagues, and saw for ourselves how busy they are. Every second counts and the quality of work absolutely matters, therefore as their “assistants” we learned we should always be mindful of how efficiently we work on our tasks.
Communication-wise, being onsite with them is definitely easier for both parties especially when working on tasks.
Some of the things that are common to our clients when we shared each of our experiences are:
– They seldom wear casual clothes at work
– Their offices are very quiet when it’s work hours
– Non-work-related chit-chats are very minimal
– They are very polite
– They treat each other with equal respect
We couldn’t help but compare what we witnessed to our own setting – but realised that it is incomparable. “To each his own”, as they say.
While we appreciate the formality and quietness of their office settings, we couldn’t deny that we are still comfortable with how ours is. We admit that we sometimes get a bit loud and that’s something we need to improve more but the culture that we have which we integrate into our work environment is just right for the type of people that we are, yet still maintaining professionalism.
We confirmed that the assistance we provide them greatly impacts their workflow, i.e. the amount of workload taken off them is a big scoop out of their bowls. Aside from getting their own tasks done quicker, we give them more time doing client focused work thus better supporting the planners with their own clients. Seeing this first hand gave me a much deeper appreciation of our business in general, and how we make it work.
We were also able to confirm what we already knew, that having a good relationship is essential because apart from all these work-related experiences and observations, we were also able to have times off from work together and bond with our fellow team members.
We had meals together, went sight-seeing, and even shopped together! So yeah, we got to see their more “human” side.
It’s humbling to get to know them more than just professionally because just like most long-distance relationships, misunderstandings are very common, and being miles and miles away, this is mostly true especially in CSRs whose clients seldom communicate face-to-face in venues like video meetings, etc. It is not uncommon for written words to be misunderstood, most especially, if you do not know the person well.
All in all, the Oz trip was both a fun-filled and learning experience for all of us. It taught us to value even more – not just the clients but also the work we do for them. We could never thank our big bosses, VBP as a whole, and our clients enough, for making this possible, for choosing us to represent the company and giving us this opportunity to be one of the first few to have this experience.
For me personally it was a tick off my bucket list – being able to visit one of the best countries in the world, and was awesome to be able to meet our wonderful clients!
