ProspectSoft has a growing reputation for genuinely helping it’s customers. This is something we all take pride in and our sales and marketing team can really promote, however it is not just a buzzword that you can use to vaguely describe your company. It takes real effort to help a company grow and improve and even more before you can start bragging about it.

As a technical placement in Client Services I am proud to say that I am one of the important wheels that help drive this reputation. I don’t really have an average day at ProspectSoft, they are all pretty exceptional. Whether working on eCommerce and client websites, advising resellers or providing technical consultation for our clients directly, I always have responsibility and a bit of a challenge in my day to day tasks.

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To put it simply, I would define a customer-focused business as a business that puts customers at the centre of its business decisions. One estimate suggests that it costs five times as much to attract new customers as it does to keep an existing one.

The relationship between the customer and the organisation is therefore an important one, and one in which I am very happy to have been heavily involved in at ProspectSoft. I was thrilled to be placed in the Account Management Team when I started at ProspectSoft, and with our increasing customer base it keeps me extremely busy!

Working within the Account Management Team has allowed me to develop relationships with many of our customers whilst also acting as the interface between the support team and project managers. Speaking to customers daily gives me great insight into how ProspectSoft is genuinely helping others, and is an even better feeling when you receive positive feedback after helping a customer with a query. One of the most challenging aspects has been developing my technical skills. Bearing in mind I had (very) little knowledge before I started, I think it is safe to say if you join ProspectSoft you definitely become a bit geeky!

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It’s rolling on for Christmas time here at ProspectSoft and the twilight zone of a weather pattern that afflicts the Stokenchurch area has led to bizarre days of unnatural fog that would be more suited to a horror movie than it would an unassuming English village. The office is located in a particularly odd little region of the country.

Before writing this post, I was previously unfamiliar with the placement blog and took a few moments to read the old posts. By far the most obvious thing about them was the number of authors to be recognized. Many of the faces in the photos are no longer placement students, but instead full-time employees. It’s also most amusing how you can relate their personality to their writing style. It’s a small tight-knit company so you get to know everybody pretty well.

If you’re looking for insight into the activities of sales & marketing placements, or the life of technical placements in Client Services, it would seem you’re well catered for. I appear to be in the unique position of being able to elucidate on my day-to-day as a technical placement in Development.

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Placement Reindeer Hard at Work

It’s coming up to our first quarter of working life at Prospectsoft, and I can safely say I have loved every minute of it. The opportunities I have been given are things I thought I would have never been doing before starting a placement year (especially so early on). When I envisioned life as a placement student, I was apprehensive it would be sitting behind a screen doing admin jobs and making lots and lots of tea. To be fair that’s half true because I’m in an office full of tea and coffee enthusiasts, but my duties are far from monotonous and each day is completely different.

One of the highlights of my role at Prospectsoft is the opportunity to get out of the office and get the chance to meet with customers, partners and associates. It’s always nice to get the chance to put a face to a name, and get to know the correspondents I speak with everyday on a personal level.

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As the new ProspectSoft placements, we have now been in our main job roles for a month and a half, and it is safe to say we are now happily in the swing of things.

After an intense month of training, which not only involved learning a huge amount of information in what felt like an extremely short period of time but also the equally testing challenge of adjusting to ‘working life’ (early morning starts, long days) after two years of lax student living. However, despite this, we all really enjoyed our first month at ProspectSoft and all felt we had already learnt so much about ProspectSoft and what they do (thanks to lots of support and patience from our teachers) as well as polishing up on our individual presentation and technical skills!

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We have now entered our 8th month at ProspectSoft, and it is safe to say that we are all left wondering where that time has gone – It only seems like yesterday that we were having our ‘Post Xmas Office reshuffle’.

For me, the start of 2012 has been very enjoyable. From previous blog posts you may remember that one of my main responsibilities lay in the recruitment of the 2012-2013 Sales and Marketing placements. We received around 250-300 CVs and Cover Letters and from them, I chose 12 successful candidates to attend our assessment day on the 2nd February.

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My role at ProspectSoft can be summed up in one word…Varied! I am working in the Client Services department which means that that majority of my work involves our existing customers. This is definitely one of the bonus’ of my job, it’s great to hear how customers are using ProspectSoft and how our Account Managers help them find ways to make their business more efficient. On a day-to-day basis I create quotes and process orders for our resellers, and help them with whatever they may need to secure a sale. My job does not end there…

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Now that you’ve heard from our technical and new business placements, it’s my turn to let you know exactly what goes on in the Marketing corner of the office – don’t worry I won’t keep you too long.

I was thrilled to be put in the marketing role when I started at ProspectSoft, and so far it has been even better than I could have possibly expected.

Marketing allows me to dabble in loads of different things: planning events, telemarketing, social media, branding, email targeting and campaigns. This keeps me extremely busy, and whilst it can be tough at times, every day is different.

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Just a quick break from our ‘The Life of a….’ series for some exciting news…

The National Placement and Internship awards are a huge deal for companies providing placements and I’m sure many of you used Rate My Placement to find out exactly what to expect from various different companies. In the past we have been lucky enough to win a variety of awards such as ‘Best SME Placement Provider’ and ‘Best Student Contribution to a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise’ (won by a returning placement, Vicki).

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During our intensive month of training at ProspectSoft, there was a lot of secrecy surrounding the specific job roles that the Sales and Marketing Placement Students would find themselves in for the following 12months. After many attempts to prise this information from employees and managers alike, Nikesh and I were placed in the New Business roles. Amongst other things, the role itself includes supporting partners and clients in progressing sales enquiries, but as always at ProspectSoft, you are also given the opportunity to take on different projects alongside your day-to-day role that gives you a chance to ‘dip your toe’ into different areas of the business.

The main responsibility I have been given is the recruitment of the Sales and Marketing Placement Students for the 2012-13 year – a very important responsibility as it is the main way we recruit new members to join the ProspectSoft team. This year, we have had a very large number, but at the same time a very high standard of applicants. We are looking for the right candidates to fill the (hopefully very large) shoes that we will all have left next September when it is time for us to return to University.

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