The people person: Emese's story
Having a degree in sociology usually doesn’t lead straight to working for a global energy business. This is exactly what Emese was thinking, until she talked to some of our colleagues at the university career fair, where she realized that enthusiasm, great English skills and a bit of experience in customer service was enough to start her career at bp
Emese has been studying English here and there throughout her life, but a huge improvement in her language skills came, after she’d spent a summer in the USA working at a children’s camp a few years ago. When she finished university and got her degree in sociology, she started to look for her very first full-time job. Then she came across an open position of ours that didn’t require experience, only English skills. Having a great command in English and a positive previous impression of bp, she instantly accepted it.
Emese has been working for bp as a Customer Service Representative in the USA Lubricants Auto team since last fall. Her daily job is to manage and follow -up orders of customers from the United States. These customers vary from small businesses who do a one-time purchase of a few hundred dollars to huge retailers who regularly make high value purchases.
The perks of working in shifts
She works together with another, premium customer service team as well as with sales colleagues. Since Emese and her team provide service for people across the globe, to overcome time zone differences they work in shifts. This means Emese works in 4 week long periods: first, she works from 10 am to 6.30 pm for two weeks, then from 2 pm to 10.30 pm for a week and then from 3.30 pm to 12 am. Although this might sound tiring, it has its benefits too.
The thing she always says is key when asked about working in shifts, is to have a consistent sleep schedule. No matter what shift you work at any given week, you should be going to bed and waking up at the same time every day.
Receiving support
She highlighted how she loves that she receives all the support that she needs both from her team and from the company. When she first started at bp, she experienced some challenges due to cultural differences. It was hard to get used to the tone and expressions of the foreign customers. She had to realize which phrases come across as nice, rude or respectful. Her line manager was a great help overcoming these issues and other ones as well.