Starting in the Customer Success Center (CSC) at Railinc gives employees a solid foundation to build on as they work to reach their career goals. In this guest post, Railinc Customer Success Specialist Karin Bennett talks about the phone calls, the schedule, and the opportunities to learn, grow and make an impact across the company. Click here to find out more about our Railinc Customer Success team.
Before I started working in CSC at Railinc, I saw customer support like most people probably do: a large group of employees in a room answering phone call after phone call — all day, every day.
I do answer a lot of calls—as many as 30 a day—but there’s more to it than just answering the phone.
We're the first point of contact most of our customers have with Railinc. When I'm not answering calls or responding to emails, I work with colleagues across the company to ensure I know our products and services inside and out so I can help make the customer’s experience better.
I don't have a typical day. If I'm not on-call, I get in at 8 a.m. and begin responding to customer emails from the night before. New cases start coming in soon after and include everything from permission requests to unlocking online accounts to questions about error messages a customer might receive when working in our applications.
Beyond responding to phone calls and emails, CSC oversees reviewing permissions requests from customers who want to access our applications. We put each request through a verification process to make sure that customers get the right permissions and that our data are secure. We test applications, keep important industry databases up to date, and play important roles in company-wide disaster recovery exercises.
But we aren't expected to be subject matter experts from the start.
Every Railinc customer success specialist goes through a 90-day training period to learn the basics of all our products and get comfortable interacting with customers. We do things like unlock online accounts, respond to email requests, and send a "morning report" to the entire company that recaps any issues from the last 24 hours, as well as any completed or scheduled product releases. After our first 90 days, we keep learning through product training sessions and shadowing groups throughout the company.
We also work closely with Railinc's product support teams, which provide second-level support, and attend meetings and training for individual product groups. I like shadowing product support because I end up having a greater understanding, not only of the products they support, but of processes that I can repeat with customers to provide quicker support. This training helps us understand Railinc products, keeps us up to date with product releases and lets product groups know about any persistent issues customers have had. It feels good to know that the customer feedback we collect and share is used to improve our products.
Because we provide 24/7 customer support, there is an on-call rotation. For one week every two months, I'm responsible for responding to emergency requests that come in after business hours. While I haven’t experienced an emergency call during my rotation yet, one team member had to facilitate a conference call at 3 a.m. when one of our applications went down. It can be challenging, but it's a reflection of how important a responsive CSC team is to Railinc's work.
It's tough learning the freight rail industry and all our products and services as an entry-level employee, but it positions us well to advance in the company quickly. A lot of our product support employees, managers, business analysts and others started on Railinc's CSC team. The opportunity to grow and advance is just one of many things I like about working in CSC.
Another is flexibility.
It might seem like I’m tethered to my phone and computer during work hours, but I can take advantage of Railinc's flexible work environment, too. I have been able to participate in company events and work from home when there is inclement weather or some other reason I can’t come into the office.
A CSC role isn't for everyone. You need to multi-task. You need to be patient as you figure out what you can to do to help a customer with their challenge. And you need to make sure the customer gets what they need.
At Railinc, our job in CSC is about more than just answering phones. We’re helping build a strong foundation with our customers and supporting the work everyone throughout the company does.
—Karin Bennett
A graduate of North Carolina State University, Karin Bennett joined the Railinc Customer Success team in 2017. Interested in becoming a Customer Success Specialist at Railinc? Apply today.