IT Customer Services Partner Review

My job role is IT Customer Services Partner, and I am part of a team that is the first port of call for anyone in the business who is experiencing IT issues. These can range from a simple password reset request to a major outage potentially across multiple sites! I manage and distribute rota's each week which span across multiple teams with the department, making sure that everyone is aware of their responsibilities within that week, meaning that our customers can always get the best, quickest resolutions. My time is spent answering the phones to our users, and helping them over the phone, and resolving helpdesk tickets that they have raised via our online portal. I work to agreed SLA's to ensure that no customer is left waiting for any longer than necessary to speak to us or for their issue to be resolved. I will also be in touch weekly with our external Out of Hours team. I let them know each week which engineers need to be contacted if any customers call with an issue outside of regular office hours. I am also a main knowledge practioner for the IT department. This includes creating, editing, uploading and sharing knowledge articles with the rest of the department, meaning that once an issue has been resolved, everybody knows the resolution and this will speed up resolution times in future for the customers.

I have learnt so many new skills since starting my apprenticeship! My soft skills have massively improved. My written and verbal communication skills have improved thanks to the amount of time I spend speaking to colleagues and customers, and composing emails to them too. My general confidence has improved greatly too. I have never really been shy talking to people, however working in this job role has just made me even more confident in speaking to people and helping them out. Tulip put me on an ITIL course in 2015, which taught me best practices for the IT industry, and gave me a qualification in what is widely considered the best global framework within the industry. Tulip have also given me access to a great website which gives me a huge array of training courses and classes. Watching these courses has given me a wealth of information to use and apply in my day to day job. I also partook in the Microsoft training courses held at the college, so I am now a Microsoft certified professional in Systems and Security, Server Fundamentals and Network Fundamentals too.

I enjoyed the programme very much. I have now completed it, but I had a great relationship with my tutor and he was very helpful at all times. All of the units I completed were relevant to my job role and have helped me to develop a lot. Learning on the job was a thrilling experience too. So many of my schoolfriends continued on at 6th form and were complaining that they had no money, but I was earning and learning at the same time. That gave me a lot of satisfaction and also enabled me to have a level of independece outside of work that I had not experienced before.

Very valued. I always wondered whether people here would see me as "just" an apprentice, but that couldn't have been further from the truth. In my time as an apprentice, colleagues here treated me as a normal employee. They would entrust me with special tasks and important responsibilities, and guide me through the processes that we all strive to follow. Training was regular for me from my manager and colleagues, which meant that I quickly became more and more comfortable in my role and helped me to learn the essentials of the job so much faster than I expected. Tulip helped me to develop both personally and professionally with regular reviews of my progress and objectives to meet. Whenever I aciheved anything, like passed an exam, learned to drive etc, my manager would openly tell everyone. This made me feel valued and respected by everyone.

Everything was really well structured in my opinion. I had an induction at the college the first time I went and that helped me to feel comfortable there as going to college was something completely new to me at the time. I was also introduced to everyone in the office on my first day and really made to feel like part of the team. I received constant support and training from thereon in, with people all around me always offering help whenever I needed it. Every 12 weeks, I would have a review with my manager, and my college tutor, along with a member of the HR team who oversaw the apprentices at the time. We would discuss objectives, any areas I could improve, any areas I needed help in, and also just a general chat about how things were going.

I used to receive a tremendous amount of support from my tutor. Even though I rarely had to go to college, as most of my work was completed from the office, I knew that my tutor was always only one call away and was on hand to help me or give me some advice or support whenever I needed it. He was very friendly and made himself very approachable.

During my apprenticeship I received a lot of support from my employer, and that has continued through to my full-time employment. My manager has always been very open and friendly. We can talk to each other straight and have a proper conversation regardless of the topic, whether professional or otherwise. The HR team have been great too, they've always answered any questions I have about the company's policies and they have treated me with a lot of respect whatever situation has arisen.

My salary has always been sufficient for my needs. At my 12-weekly reviews, if all my objectives had been met, Tulip would give me quite a generous pay increase. This meant that within a year my salary had more than doubled! It continued to increase steadily and so even though I have recenntly moved home, further away from work, and I now have a family to provide for too, the salary is still more than I need, which is a great feeling!

Every year there is a christmas conference and party. Other than that, I can't really think of any other events that go on within the business. We have sites all over the UK and so we are sometimes able to go and work from another site which is always fun. We are also invited to Denmark to our parent company's office from time to time. Tulip pays for all travel expenses and gives us a generous amount of money to spend on food each day we are travelling too.

Yes

Because Tulip takes great pride in developing its apprentices and employees in general too. Tulip take care of its people and is a company that is beginning to take more and more of the market. I feel secure in my job and have a great team of people working around me. The ethic within the whole business is great and I really feel motivated to do my best every day.

Be yourself. Be honest and open in your CV, and in your interview just relax! The people here are lovely and there will be no need to be nervous. Do your research on the company, it's history, it's brands and it's vision. Don't worry if you don't have a great deal of knowledge relevant to your job role; Tulip will help you develop and will make sure you get the best out of your time here, however long that may be!