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Job Role: Customer Service Administrator
Jack works for Chemdry UK at their head office which is based in Beverley in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Chemdry UK is a fire and flood restoration company for insurance claims. The business takes in claims made by policyholders from insurance companies when they have had a fire, a flood or an accidental damage claim to carpets, upholstery or furniture. This will then be assigned to one of approximately 700 Chemdry franchises throughout the UK to attempt to restore the property back to its pre-incident condition. The Beverley office provides a UK-wide call centre service for its customers which are insurance companies. Around 200 people are employed at this site.
Jack works as a Customer Service Administrator, working within the existing claims team. His role within the company is to provide high quality customer services to franchises, insurance companies, policyholders and loss adjusters by receiving and processing telephone calls and allocating work to the franchise network in line with company procedures.
His day-to-day activities involve taking incoming calls regarding existing insurance claims. These calls cover a very wide range of queries from insurance companies needing information on the progress of claims, passing information to franchises or builders needing confirmation to go ahead with work that has resulted out of a claim.
He works within one of the 2 existing claims teams. The team is made up of 8 people, plus an assistant team leader and a team leader, whom Jack reports to directly.
Jack says "I enjoy the job role as every call that we take is different; on one call we can be appointing builders to do some work at a property and the next call advising insurance companies of items that a policy holder needs replacing. I also enjoy working as part of this team, we all get along very well and help each other if needed, which makes the working day a lot easier and the time pass quickly.”
A personal benefit to Jack in working for Chemdry is the location. He lives in Beverley, therefore it takes him about 10 minutes on a bike to get to work, meaning he doesn’t have to pay for buses or rely on lifts.
Jack feels one of the least enjoyable parts of the job is the shift work. The staff work shifts that are from 8am until 8pm. Jack explains "The early shifts are great because although work starts early, you finish at 4.30pm so have the rest of the day to yourself. The late shift though means work finishes at 8pm and there isn’t really much else to do for the rest of the day. The shifts we work are on a rota basis, so change week to week.”
The current role that Jack has at Chemdry was not originally part of his career plans. After school he went to a sixth form college to study Computing, IT, Psychology and Maths. After college he went to university to study Internet Computing, but after 6 months this didn’t work out. Jack joined a recruitment agency working a week at one company and a week at another until he was asked to work at Chemdry for 2 weeks covering reception. Whilst working on reception a temporary role for 3 months came up in customer services. He was offered that role and after the 3 months was asked if he would like to join the company permanently, which he accepted.
Jack explains "The training whilst at this job has been very good. It has all been in house training focusing directly on the job that I do, although many of my colleagues have completed NVQ’s through Chemdry in customer services. This is something I hope to do in the near future.
There are 3 different grades of staff within the role of a customer service administrator at Chemdry. When first starting staff start as grade A. Once the team leader believes the staff member is ready they will start training to become grade B. This involves spending a week in other departments of customer services, also training other members of staff, or showing visitors the role that we do. There are also some small tests to show we have the knowledge of the company. Once the member of staff has completed their grade B training they can then move onto becoming grade C. This involves similar work as grade B training. As the member of staff becomes a grade C then more responsibility and tasks come their way. I am currently working towards my grade B. My aim for the near future is to complete grade B and then work through my grade C training.”
