Thursday, May 28, 2009
An Employee Perspective, by Mike Bandy
Hello all...I guess I'd like to start by introducing myself...my name is Mike, and I am the newly appointed Team Development Specialist here at Junk My Car (as of June 1st). I've been with the company for almost two years (my anniversary is 6/20), and I love working here. I can honestly say that this is the most unconventional place I've ever worked; I've never worked for a company that put up with my different hair colors or pants with chains on them! That is what's so cool about working for Junk My Car...I'm allowed to be who I am. But I digress...
During the course of my time here at Junk My Car, I've held a couple of different positions, most recently being a Team Lead and supervising a group of 4-6 people at a time. When I started here, though, I was just a customer service rep, answering phones and assisting our customers as best as I could. Right away, I noticed that the people who work for Junk My Car were distinctly different from people who work in other call centers, and the biggest difference is that everyone here LOVES their job, and you can hear it when they answer the phone.
Too many times I've been a customer of a call center, like when I have to call the phone company (I'll be civil and not say which one)...most people who answer the phones for places like that are doing just that: answering phones. They don't have a lot of desire for what they do, and when they answer the phone, they almost sound bored, or even worse, angry. I think that that's probably because, ultimately, if someone doesn't pay their phone bill, the employees in the call center are not generally affected.
Here at Junk My Car, the customer never has to experience a bad time on the phone with an employee, because everyone here is invested in the work that we do, and we're all like one big team working together for the common goal: to help our customers get their vehicles removed in a timely manner, and to have an experience that they'll remember and share with others!
I was able to give a customer an experience like that on more than one occasion, but the one time that sticks out in my mind was the woman that I helped in California. She had submitted her vehicle to us, and we had sent her an email with all of her vehicle information, and it contained some mistakes as far as the condition of her car. She called in, and she sounded a little distraught by the situation, and she asked for my help. I performed the tasks that I usually would: I went into her account, changed the information to her specifications, and resent the email. I assured the customer that the mistakes would in no way affect the timely removal of her car. I thanked her for calling and strongly suggested that she have a nice day.
Half an hour later, an email came through our system, and I happened to be the one to receive it....it was from that customer, and she was writing about me! One of the first things she said was, "I cannot believe that I talked to him on a Saturday and he spoke to me as if he loves what he does, cares personally about my experience, and did not mind at all working on a Saturday." She went on to say that, "This guy really values his customer's time. And not once did he mention that he was not my initial contact. He took ownership of the issue with efficiency and GREAT ATTITUDE."
The customer ended the email by stating that I was a great asset to the company, and thanked us for taking the time to read her letter. I still have this email posted at my desk, and it serves as a constant reminder of what I'm in this for, and also as a constant reminder that when you give your all to help people and go out of your way, they will go out of their way to show their appreciation. That's what it's all about for me.
Now that I'm moving on into a position in the HR department, I'm really looking forward to helping out our company in new and creative ways, and being able to be a part of the team in a bigger way than I already am. It's going to be very different from anything I've ever done before, but I'm so excited for the challenge, and for the opportunity to bring new and exciting people into our growing company. We're going to be able to help so many more people!!
I'm thrilled that we now have a blog where we can share our experiences with people, and I know it's going to be a huge success!! Thanks for reading, and remember, if you have a junk vehicle to remove, please visit www.junkmycar.com to get the process started! We're waiting for your call right now!! :)
-Mike
Labels: Customers, Helping, Junk my Car
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
A Diamond in the Rough
Last night Junk my Car's employees ventured to Bridgeport Connecticut for a Bluefish baseball game. It was a great time aside from the crummy rain and we even had box seats! The Bluefish won the game against Somerset 7-2.I thought the stadium was in a pretty cool location. You have this big factory in the backdrop and the Metro-North train tracks run right by the field as you can see in this picture. At one point they actually had to pause the game to wait for one of the trains to go by. I wonder how many trains have been hit by baseballs! There also was a port behind the stadium wall and at one point the ferry was passing by which could be seen from our seats.
I have not been to a baseball game in quite some time but will have to make an effort to see more live games like this, even if it is just the minors. There's an exciting atmosphere to it all.
Labels: baseball, bluefish, box seats, Junk my Car, stadium
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
And...We're Back!
So the first post on this blog was a shameless plug. Can you blame me? I did not think I would be using blogger as our main company blog but let's see how it goes. There's a few choices I need to make regarding the template design and integration with this blog into our site but for now this will do.A little about me.. I'm Rob and I handle the marketing around here. I have been with Junk my Car, LLC since January 07. I am excited to start blogging about the company and I'm sure there will be many changes as time goes on which is always fun. It also gives me a chance to work on my writing skills.
At Junk my Car great things are happening. We recently returned from our first trade show at the iT Auto & Truck Recyclers Review on May 15th and 16th. It was a great success in our eyes. We met many of the towing and salvage companies we work with in person which was nice, and spoke with some prospective companies we may work with in the future. Here's a pic of our booth setup: http://twitpic.com/57rmp
It was our 100 day anniversary of being a Results Only Work Environment which we started testing in February and officially launched in March. There has been road bumps along the way but we have adapted, creating quotas and point systems to keep employees focused. Every day we find something new to be tweaked, but there's no going back. We have fully embraced R.O.W.E. and we will be putting out a Press Release on that soon.
Labels: iT, Junk my Car, ROWE
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