My way as a remote employee :-)

I have long wanted to write a similar article, but still there was no time, although it is still gone, but there is a reason. Six months ago, I worked for a company that created websites for local companies (Penza). Everything was as usual, but the management of the company divorced and it became unbearable in the company. The director says one thing and the director is different and often they had opposing opinions. In general, the company was engaged in different tasks, it was necessary to make and program in PHP besides basic duties, I even had to make friends with Windows Server 2003. But the time came when it was already impossible to work - and I left.

On the recommendation of a close friend, I decided to look for work on the Internet. I compiled a resume, sent it to several companies and posted several ads on the forums. There were various offers, including funny ones. After a month of searching, I selected three proposals, but all three, although from serious projects, were not very clear in terms of responsibilities and payment. Even at the beginning of the search, a friend of mine recommended one company to me, and it was just in this company that I got a job on the recommendation and rejected the other three offers. I got a job on an 8-hour shift for the position of technical support officer. Work remote to a well-known hosting company. Now I decided to tell the Habrachitateli about their six-month path.



The first month was the richest in terms of consumption of new information. Although in my previous work I constantly worked with hosting companies, but work on the other hand in the first month opened up a lot of new information for me. I learned a few things and studied a mountain of information, read customer requests and studied control panels. The first feeling was that it was a big anthill, where everyone goes about their business, interacting with others using various means of communication (jabber, icq, wiki, forums, planners, phones, etc.). The lion's share of employees work remotely, and from different countries. It seemed to me that all interactions were happening so fast that it would be difficult to work at that pace, but I quickly got involved. Here the whole point was simple - when the pace of work is large, then hour after hour is very imperceptible and sometimes it’s a shame when time flies too fast, because it seems that the day is so much, and at the end of the day you see that the day is so little.

In the company there is always something to do besides the main responsibilities, and also there is always the opportunity to realize your idea, if there really is something to realize. I took up a few little things and somehow in the process I began to further deal with the analysis of reviews on the Internet for our services. When a company has thousands of customers, there is always a group of dissatisfied. Of course, like any company, there are drawbacks, but there are advantages. There is nothing ideal and it is especially difficult to predict the risks associated with the provision of services by third parties (equipment suppliers, signalmen, power engineers, etc.). Most risks can be cached, but, unfortunately, not always. So, gradually, I began to analyze and resolve customer complaints, and this grew into my additional responsibility, and I got the right to officially respond to letters,

In addition, she was simultaneously engaged in advertising contacts and additional assignments. It was at this time that I learned about Habré and other TM projects and met some employees. On working matters, you have to contact various companies and over time various business contacts have appeared. In addition to solving business issues, we sometimes play chess, cards or just discuss the news. These are the interactions between the companies.

In general, every month I realized various ideas, there were more and more business acquaintances. Because I deal with customer complaints, I encounter several service gaps in which customers also reproach us periodically. I conducted a survey among regular customers to identify the main problems and assess the quality of work. Clients' recommendations for finalizing the control panel were transferred to the development section and some of them were implemented within a week. We are constantly looking for any new products, but, unfortunately, there are very few really worthwhile ones. Recently, we began to use MegaPlan, which helps in the work, and also changed the web interface of the mail client. Now we are finalizing the control panel, as well as launching the new Windows VPS service. The one

For my part, I wanted to do something big that I am doing now and it seems that this is some kind of illness. Every month I want to do more than I did in the past, but sometime there will come a time limit, so I thought about automation. At the same time, I graduated from the institute with a degree in “Engineer for Automated Control Systems”, so I saw various automation systems and I know what is possible already within the framework of modern technologies.

Thus, I came up with the idea of ​​a new department in the company. When you work in technical support, you come to understand that there is a side chapel in online maintenance. When there are few clients, you can devote a lot of time to one client, but there are peak hours in the work at which you manage to serve clients within the normal range and no more. Therefore, various situations arise when the client comes to the chat, asks for something outside the operator, and you meet him. Another time, he comes into the chat again with the same, but at rush hour and to another operator and leaves dissatisfied with the answer of the operator, because he could not help him. In addition, you serve many clients per shift and you cannot physically remember all of them so that the client does not explain the same thing ten times, does not storm the mail, etc.

My idea was a new approach to customer service - this is a mixture of various forms of technical automation, an individual approach, quality control and the principle of a single window. Minimum action on the part of the client, the fastest and highest quality solution to the request. I described the idea in detail to the management, after which it took a long time to discuss the concept. In this idea, there are many unknown values ​​that will be calculated during the work, for example, the average time to resolve the issue and the average number of calls, I proposed to gradually increase the number of customers, starting with the largest for each type of tariff (virtual hosting, VPS, renting dedicated servers ) Because it is not known how much labor it will take to provide the best service for one client, it is impossible to calculate all the costs.

The concept is called " VIP-service " ( vip-service.mchost.ru ). Do not think that VIP service is only the destiny of selected customers who spend a lot of money to pay for services. For us, the sum of client expenses for our services is not only and not so important, but the availability of permanent websites with quality sites. The main objective of VIP service is to reach as many customers as possible without losing the high quality of service. It took more than a month to develop and implement the concept and launch the work of the VIP service department, and I took the position of the head of the VIP service department of McHost.Ru . This is the story of my work as a remote employee of the company.

Unfortunately, in most companies in the IT sector, where remote employees can be used, this is not done, although I believe that in many positions you can work remotely, as all the same, people are in the office and use the same means of communication as remote employees. Much, if not all, depends on the views and desires of company management.

I described my story not as a freelancer, but as a remote employee from technical support to the head of the VIP service department. Perhaps someone will be interested to know that there are also such modern forms of work that I personally did not know about before.