Tech Support / Customer Service

Question 1

Tell me about yourself

Answer 1

Grew up in Norwich, studied comp sci at UEA, moved to Bristol for work (tech support), moved up the ladder took a career break after 5 years to travel

Question 2

Why do you want this job?

Answer 2

Would like to work for a company making a positive difference. Love the branding and message of the company. Good work life balance.

Question 3

Why YOU?

Answer 3

Have good customer service and technical experience. My CV demonstrates that I go above and beyond, always wanting to learn more and be more useful.

Question 4

What are your greatest strengths?

Answer 4

I’m a natural problem solver, and I have an aptitude for finding things that could be streamlined. Tenacity

Question 5

What are your greatest weaknesses?

Answer 5

I can be a bit shy at times, public speaking is not a strong point. Something I’m aware of and work on. Can sometimes zoom in too far and not see bigger picture

Question 6

What’s your greatest achievement?

Answer 6

My degree. It’s something I worked really hard on, I took on modules that didn’t necessarily play to my natural strengths, and it really challenged me in a way that I just hadn’t experienced before that.

OR perceptium software project.

Question 7

Tell me about a conflict at work and how you solved it?

Answer 7

The sales team were often noisy / distracting. I asked them a few times if they could keep it down, didn’t really get anywhere. Finally I realised, that I could adjust, and so I did – put headphones in, hot-desked elsewhere if I needed to get something important done.

Question 8

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Answer 8

I would like to try my hand at a managerial or team leadership role, but at the same I know I would have a lot to learn to get there.

Question 9

What’s your dream job?

Answer 9

I don’t mind what I do, but I’d like it to be for a good cause and I’d want to be the best I can at it

Question 10

What other companies have you applied for?

Answer 10

Nothing yet really, I’m being picky taking my time to get it right

Question 11

What are you looking for in a new position?

Answer 11

II like to be good at what I do, so something that plays to my strengths is always good. I also want to learn, and I see a new industry as being a good opportunity to do that.

Question 12

What type of social work environment do you prefer?

Answer 12

I certainly like to be friendly with colleagues, but I think you also have to know when to respect boundaries / work / deadline.

Question 13

Tell me about a time you showed leadership

Answer 13

Ownership of perceptium software project - “This isn’t working, we need to change it” dredged the whole thing up from scratch, start to finish, drafted in external stakeholders.
OR took over difficult call / workload from the support team as part of pro serve.

Question 14

How would your manager describe you?

Answer 14

would hope they’d say I have a strong work ethic, I have an eye for seeing problems and roadblocks and doing what’s necessary to avoid them, and that I’m someone who always wants to improve, and to be useful and valuable really.

Question 15

How do you deal with stressful situations?

Answer 15

Remember to breathe. Stay organised and make a to do list, no matter how big. One thing at a time.

Question 16

What do you need to get started?

Answer 16

I’m used to working from home, used to some of the technologies you use like Slack. I think the key thing for me is industry-specific knowledge (i.e. energy). I’m someone who learns mostly by doing - dummy data, test environs etc.

Question 17

Describe a time you disagreed with a boss’ decision – how did you handle it?

Answer 17

At bp we decided to bring back self implementation – I thought it was a bad idea, potential for havoc on customers and support team. Made my feelings known to the line manager as opinions are valuable. Informed that decision wouldn’t be changed. Decided to do extra prep for when self imp. came back just in case we got caught short.

Question 18

Give me an example of a time when you had to manage conflicting priorities

Answer 18

Something that used to come up a lot at BP - had two managers, one in UK and one in US. First, try to pre-empt - start every week with a high level review of work coming in, schedule etc. - Build a buffer. Next, stay late or work through lunch. Next, are these things really of equal priority? Finally, ask for guidance on genuine conflicts.

Question 19

QUESTIONS FOR THEM

Answer 19

What’s your favourite thing about working here?

How often would travel to the office be necessary? Any travel expenses?

Any holiday / benefits etc.?

What are the challenges / opportunities over the next 5 years?

Question 20

Tell me about a time you had to deal with a difficult customer

Answer 20

Guy on the phone at bp was notoriously short tempered. Blew up at me one day, swearing etc.

Kept calm, stayed empathetic, tried to reorient the call towards a solution.

Customer eventually calmed down, no final fix but gave workaround. Not happy but not unhappy.

Question 21

Give me an example of when you gave good customer service

Answer 21

Toni at BP - always calling about Magento problems that weren’t in our remit. Support team sick of her + fobbing off.

I gave it a go one day as I knew how to fix. Explained not our problem but this is how to fix. She was very grateful and made more effort after that.

Question 22

What does good customer service mean to you?

Answer 22

Pure and simple about being treated as a human and not a number. LISTEN. Treat every case as unique, don’t give canned responses. be as honest as you can.

Question 23

Do you prefer to work alone or with others?

Answer 23

Both have their advantages and disadvantages, I’m totally comfortable with either. If pushed I probably would prefer to work alone, as I’m someone who likes to take ownership of everything I do.

Question 24

Describe a time you liaised with other stakeholders to get something done?

Answer 24

When dealing with 2nd tier support queries you often had to draft in help from Escalations, Tech Ops, Product and Dev. Example of corrupted Amazon key that screwed up entire customer account. Required data fix, product / bug fix, documentation update.

Question 25

Describe a time when you had to use your initiative to get something done

Answer 25

Charged with unblocking inventory imports. These were slow to unworkable for go-lives. Decided to draft in partner software developer (perceptium) to build something for us over API.

Never done that before, but took charge of entire project: planning, specification, project lifecycle, testing, sign off.

Question 26

What do you know about the company?

Answer 26

Started in 2016. Growing at 30,000 customers a month. Just agreed deal to buy out Co-op energy. Doing big push on smart meters and EV’s. Subsidiary of Octopus Group (asset management firm).

Question 27

Tell me about these continuous improvement projects you ran at Brightpearl?

Answer 27

1) Introduced ticket system redesign - instead of 1-heap cherry pick, we have support tiers and product specialisms. Accompanying training and documentation
2) Developed a tool to streamline data kick off email while in pro serve - saved 8-10 hours of work every month.
3) Built tool to analyse client data - saved approx. 20 hours of work per month
4) Oversaw in house development of a product import tool, feeding back our needs
5) Had total control of perceptium inventory import tool project

Question 28

What does a project manager do?

Answer 28

Planning and executing a project. Analysing and managing risk, budget, timescale.

Question 29

How would your boss describe you?

Answer 29

Hard working, always working to improve. Someone who is good at spotting road blocks before they happen.

Question 30

Why did you leave your last role?

Answer 30

Don’t have a bad word to say about BP. But after 5 years of startup mode, I was a little burned out. Twelve hour days a lot of the time, and after 5 years I wanted to see what else was out there. Just wanted to take a break before I went into next role as I’d never really one anything outside of work and study.

Question 31

What do you do for fun?

Answer 31

I like cycling, I enjoy being out and about in the countryside, hiking / camping etc. part from that, all the usual stuff really, I like films - huge marvel nerd, I like Netflix, music, odd trip to the pub.

Question 32

Give me an example of problem solving based on nothing but your own initiative

Answer 32

At BP, we often had problems with the invoice template generator. Black box. Data went in, sometimes gibberish came out, no logging etc.

What you had to do was break the problem down logically. Does it work with standard inputs? If so, then the problem is with the specific data. Can we divide and conquer i.e. swap out? Eventually get to the problem this way e.g. an umlaut.

Question 33

How do you work under pressure?

Answer 33

At Brightpearl there was nothing but pressure - multi-million pound business would live or die by our software. Remember to breathe, make a to-do list - no matter how big - take it one step at a time. Know when to ask for help (difference between frustration with a problem and hitting your limits).

Question 34

What did you LIKE most about your last role?

Answer 34

They gave me lots of autonomy to go out and do whatever needed to be done. The attitude was just get it done.

Question 35

What did you DISLIKE most about your last role?

Answer 35

Sometimes processes weren’t always defined - this was a good and a bad thing. It meant you were given lots of freedom and autonomy, but sometimes you could feel like you’d been left floundering a bit.