What's your job about?
I am part of the Customer Services team here at Chemcouriers in Auckland. We are a transport depot who specialise in moving dangerous goods. Day to day, I do a variety of tasks but everyday always starts with a stocktake! This could take 20 minutes or 2 hours depending on how much freight has been left behind. Simply put, it enables us to notify our customers if their freight didn’t make it onto the truck for any reason. Plus, by physically putting a green sticker on the freight it means our loaders know which items need to be prioritised when loading up the truck at night. Once stocktake is complete, I turn to emails and phone calls to assist with customer requests. Most of these requests are ETAs (estimate time of arrival) or SSRs (special service requests) which involve loads of communication with customers and other Mainfreight branches throughout New Zealand. It is pretty weird getting know people all around NZ, even though you wouldn’t recognise them if you walked past them in the street! Another common task is locating freight- sometimes it gets “lost” so we need to find it and get it where it needs to go. Mostly, we go into the depot and search for it, but if that is unsuccessful we use technology. We have 20+ cameras in our depot which we use to track freight off the truck, follow it around our depot, then onto another truck for delivery.
What's your background?
I am a South Auckland girl born and raised! Throughout school I was always busy with extracurriculars- piano, netball, swimming lessons which morphed into playing water polo around the age of 10. This led me to my first part-time job at a swim school which turned out to be a pretty sweet gig as it was great having an active job and I loved working with kids. When the end of high school was approaching, I had no clue what I wanted to do next so on a whim, decided I’d go for a nursing degree.
A year in, I was on the fence and wasn’t sold on nursing so decided to take a semester off and do Camp America. Best. Experience. Ever. 3 months spent lake side in my togs making lifelong (so far) friends around the world was epic and I, no joke, loved every minute. Turns out my instincts were right though- the next 18 months of study were tough, to put it nicely, but I made it to the end and sat my state exam to become a Registered Nurse. Despite a job offer at Middlemore, I went full time and joined the management team at the swim school for a couple of years before it was time for me to hang up my togs.
I struggled with what to do next as I was so passionate about swimming and couldn’t see that transferring to another industry. Thanks to a suggestion from Mum, I decided to apply at Mainfreight. The culture, the company values and the people all suited and (I think I even said this in my interview) it just felt right. I spent a year getting down and dirty in the heart of the business, the depot. It was an epic year, I spent half of each day in warehousing and the other half in the transport depot AKA my gym, lifting and shifting freight. After the Christmas rush, I moved into Customer Services which brought a whole new set of challenges which I have loved so far!
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely yes! I feel like I’m a great example of someone who was not primed for the freight industry! I had no qualifications in business or supply chain and had no experience with freight outside of online shopping.
The most important thing a person needs to make it with Mainfreight is the right attitude. From my experience so far, the thing that will get you places is having a ‘Go For It’ or ‘Give It A Go’ mentality. If you’re willing to give anything a try and not afraid to get stuck in, this is the right place to be.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
One of my favourite parts of this role in customer service is the warm fuzzy you get when you’ve helped someone out- working in customer service can be challenging when it feels like you go from one angry customer to another. I love the triumph when a customer calls who is angry or frustrated and I am able to calm them down and provide a solution to their problem.
I also really enjoy being able to talk to so many different people every day and hearing their stories. I once helped organise an urgent delivery to a customer who had ordered dry ice for his wedding day, and I’ve also assisted with a delivery of 160L of fuel for a guy who had a race car!
What are the limitations of your job?
My year working the depot was definitely physically demanding! I had callouses on my hands and it was challenging trying to learn the processes and all the destinations when I was physically tired. I also worked an afternoon shift for a year which was a tough gig socially, I wasn’t able to catch up with friends after work or for dinner as I wouldn’t finish until 9pm.
In customer service, the thing I struggle with the most is when I’ve exhausted all my options but it isn’t enough to please the customer. Sometimes we do everything we can at our depot, but we don’t have any control over other teams so we have to put our trust in them that they will be able to get the task done for us.
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