The mayhem starts at 5.45am when I get up and try my best to walk our two dogs. Easier said than done, especially when they’re having a ’diva day’ and refusing to move from their beds. Then it’s time to make sure that my son and my partner are all set for the day.

I’m out of the door by 7.15am and hop into my car for a short 15-minute drive to the office in Didsbury on the outskirts of Manchester. It’s probably the calmest part of my day; I listen to Absolute 80s Radio and belt out a couple of power ballads. It’s a great way to start the day!

The first thing I do when I get into the office is divert the phones back to us from the Tamworth office. Greenergy is a 24/7, seven days-a-week operation and the Tamworth team takes over from us during the night and at weekends. I spend the first 30 minutes or so going through their handover and then it’s time for our morning conflab (that’s what we like to call it) where we prioritise, divide and conquer. Sometimes the day runs to plan but more often than not we are kept on our toes with last-minute customer requests. The weather, vehicle break-downs and traffic also keep things interesting. It’s what makes the job so much fun.

There are three of us in the Customer Care Team. Together we handle anything from 360-800 calls a week. We manage stock levels for a lot of our customers, making sure they never run out of fuel. Snow always proves to be a challenge at this time of year, especially in Scotland and remote areas. We work across the business, talking to drivers, schedulers and operations to track the impact on traffic and make sure the customer is constantly kept up to date. Last month we had a number of situations where our drivers volunteered to spend the night in their sleeper cabs rather than risk returning home and getting stuck in the snow before getting to the customer. These challenging deliveries are possible because we work well as a team and can track everything in real time, giving us the flexibility to respond to situations as they happen.

Getting to know dealers

Greenergy has grown at an astonishing rate since I joined. We now have our own in-house haulage operation and supply Esso dealerships nationally. We supply a lot more dealers than we used to and talking to them all is the most interesting part of my day. Their passion and resilience is inspiring and I’m proud to be helping independent businesses succeed in a competitive marketplace.

Most customers are happy with our service but if they’re not I make it my mission to find out why and resolve their issues as quickly as possible.

Planning ahead

In the afternoon I work closely with our Tamworth team who do the scheduling for our in-house fleet. I review our resources to make sure we have some capacity for last-minute orders and can sometimes rearrange delivery times to accommodate customer requests or bring deliveries forward to release spare capacity later in the day. Planning ahead and keeping track of our resources puts us in a better position to accommodate last-minute orders and achieve over 99% of deliveries on time.

At the end of the day, I like to catch up with my team and help close out any outstanding issues. If we have received useful customer feedback whether positive or negative we make sure this is fed back into the business. For example, some customers recently requested text message delivery confirmation in addition to email and we’re already testing a new system. Greenergy is always looking for ways to do even better, challenge the status quo and put new ideas into action. It’s what I really like about the company if you have a good idea you’re given the power to run with it.

It’s then time to hop back in my car to perfect my karaoke skills on the way home before re-entering the mayhem of home life, shuttling my boy to one of his many activities.

Topics