Week 2 of Jacob Byrnes

The first week of my internship, I was overwhelmed with the amount of activity and information I was expected to process.  My week of training merely scratched the surface.  No amount of training could have prepared me for the hectic environment that I would soon be in.  It wouldn’t be long before I was comfortable with being uncomfortable.  In fact, my first task on my first day was to take a complete stranger home.  I was thrown a set of keys, and told Carol would need a ride home; as she had just returned her rental.  I am relatively talkative, and so was Carol, so the task wasn’t as daunting as I initially thought.  It was this car ride that reminded me why I wanted the internship in the first place.  I wanted to be able to connect with people, and this internship allowed me the platform to do that.  When I got back to the office there was a steady stream of customers, and the phones continued to ring off the hook.  There was no time to discuss my next task.  I immediately felt like a contributing member of the team, as I hopped on the phone and made my first reservation.  Though it took me a while to get through all the relevant information I needed to, it felt good to alleviate at least some of the stress a ringing phone brought to the office. 

Everyone from the car preps to my branch manager played a vital role in the rental process.  As a Management Trainee Intern, my primary responsibility was focused on assisting customers in all phases of the rental process.  However, in order to try and provide the best service possible, roles changed frequently.  If one of my colleagues were assisting a customer, I would help clean cars so that the customer could get in and out as fast as possible.  If I needed to verify an insurance policy for a customer, I could count on another employee verifying a personal reference if they had a free minute.  I was blown away by the attention being given to individual customers with so much other noise and activity going on in and around the office.  I was always under the assumption that multitasking took away your ability to perform at a high level on a specific task. That assumption was quickly put to rest.

I would agree that the summer brought a good majority of the customers into our office, as it is prime time for vacations.  However, it was made crystal clear why customers continued to come back.  Customer service is literally the most important element in this position.  Everyone in the office goes above and beyond for each customer whether they are in front of us, or on the phone a thousand miles away.  I had experience in customer service, which played a big role in my landing the internship initially.  My past experience was nothing compared to what was expected of employees at my internship.  Exceeding customer expectations was expected of every interaction.