Autumn Beach

With this role, I work 6 nights a week delivering milk and groceries across Wiltshire & Gloucestershire, ranging from Haydon Wick, all the way to Gloucester. As this is a night time role, I did not meet many customers, however when I did meet customers, I would ensure to give them great customer service and ask them if there were any problems for deliveries or anything they needed to talk to me about. They would often leave written notes out, which I would always ensure to reply to. My working night would start at 10pm, I would have to take a handset to complete my pre vehicle safety checks, check my stock, pick my milk, load up my van, and then deliver to all my customers. On my busiest day, I would deliver up to 220 customers. Be it just one pint of milk, or 15 bags of compost, their deliveries are always made. This role has enabled me to be challenged, as we have recently had a new system which has completely changed our routes, giving us new areas and customers we did not know, but I accepted the challenge and ensured I finished the round and customers got their deliveries as they always had done in the past.

My day at dpd would start at 7:30am, and usually end between 6pm-9pm. At the start of the day, I would have to sign into my handset, find my parcels, and scan through them all. While doing this, I would number each one in order of when they would be delivered. Once I have checked all my parcels were scanned and numbered, I would carefully load them into my van, highest numbers being at the back, and not putting heavy parcels on top of light, fragile ones. I would also have to ensure all high value parcels were kept safe in a tote box so they did not get lost or damaged. Every delivery had an hour time slot in which they had to be delivered in, I was not allowed to deliver early, and could not deliver late. I had to ensure all premium parcels (before 10:30am or before 12pm) had the highest priority and were delivered in time for when the customer had specified. On my route, there was few houses which sat navs could not find, therefor using my handset, I would call the customer and ask for directions to their property. Once all deliveries had been completed, I would then return to the depot, where I would scan and relabel any parcels I could not deliver due to customers not being in, or any collections I had made. I would put these in the correct cages in the depot. Once finished, I would get a manager to approve my end of day and then log out of my handset.

During my time at Aldi, I expanded my knowledge of customer service. Initially when I started this role, I was tasked to prepare all the special buys. This included ensuring all the stock was delivered, planning out how I was going to display them, putting them out onto the shop floor by 10pm Wednesday & Saturday nights, then ensuring that the special buy tables were kept neat and tidy throughout the day. After a few months, I was then assigned to be on the shop floor, putting out stock, and being on the tills serving customers. Due to previous experience I had, I was use to a fast pace environment, so I was able to complete tasks in allocated times, and ensure people were served quickly on the tills.

During my time working with McDonalds, I have improved greatly with my communication skills. For the first year I would always be in kitchen, preparing and cooking the food, this may not have been a customer facing role but I had to ensure I communicated effectively with my colleagues. For instance, if I was preparing the food and I had a big order come through I would ensure that I let my colleague know who was cooking, that I would be taking a lot of their food so they can make sure to have enough cooking so the customers wouldn't have to wait so long for their order. In the kitchen it is crucial to follow strict procedures as when handling food it is easy to contaminate if you do not follow the procedures correctly, such as washing your hands every half an hour. With a lot of my shifts lately I have been in customer facing roles which includes working in the drive thru and on the front counter. I must ensure that I am always polite and showing the correct body language to customers as we like to ensure that their visit to our McDonalds is special and encourages them to visit again. However, we do get complaints and when this does happen, I have to make sure that I deal with these effectively, knowing when I can deal with the complaint myself or when the complaint needs to be handed to a manager. This role has brought out my confidence hugely with my communication and customer service skills improving significantly since I first started to work for this popular company. I have improved drastically from the first few months only knowing a bit of the kitchen to now where I know all stations and I am able to assist others who are unsure of a certain station they are working on. The McDonalds I worked at was open 24 hours so I am extremely use to working unsociable hours on the night shifts, from 11pm until 7am.