Amy Nechat – Client Services & Marketing Assistant
My day starts fairly early, with the alarm going off at 5:30am. Then it’s the usual getting ready, micro-managing an 11 year old to get her out the door with her bag, lunch and sometimes a flute, all whilst trying to keep my sanity intact! Living locally, I have no excuse and walk to work most days. Although when there’s torrential rain, I tend to send out an SOS to the team!
Getting into the office at 8:30am, the most important thing is obviously the kettle. We are an office of avid tea and coffee drinkers, averaging about six cups a day, so the kettle is rarely cold. After getting my computer fired up and logged in, I read my emails to see what has come in overnight, what needs dealing with and what needs to be unsubscribed from! Our back office system, Prestwood, is basically the centre of our/your universe and holds every last detail of every client, every call or email between you, us, or another company. It also works as our diary system, which helps us with our nagging! I check my diary and combined with my emails, this generally prioritises my ‘to do’ list for the day. I’m normally the first point of contact at the office, as I am the designated team member to answer the phone. I’ve refined my gatekeeping skills to weed out the sales calls, so ensuring that Nicola and the team’s time is saved for your queries and working on your plans. I work on multiple files a day, picking up any task from a change of email address to chasing companies for responses, and of course chasing you for an answer to a query or to return a document!
We used to have an external person dealing with all our marketing, but when I joined the team, I discovered a bit of a flair for it. Nicola and Emma noticed this and encouraged me to dip my toes into the marketing waters. I now deal with the day-to-day running of our marketing, whilst we have a specialist who helps coordinate the bigger picture, as well as helping me to learn and develop my skills. It’s been a challenge, but one I am really enjoying, so much so, I’ve just started an evening course to gain a marketing qualification. The marketing side of things is just as varied as the client services part of my role, as I can be dealing with event planning, to adverts, to website work, to writing the newsletters!
My day tends to finish at 5pm, unless my other half Ray is running late or I’m working later for one reason or another. We go home and enter the battle ground for convincing my daughter to do her homework and flute practice, which is always a delight! I’m very lucky as Ray is the cook of the household, he enjoys it and I enjoy letting him do it! Although it does mean I’m stuck with the washing up. My evening normally ends fairly quietly, I’m an avid reader and cannot be without a good book in my hand.
One of the main reasons I enjoy my job is the fact that it’s so varied. When I first started working 16 years ago, the one thing I always said I would never do was to work in an office, in front of a computer all day, every day…yet here I am and I wouldn’t change it. My days are always different, I get to indulge my creative side with the marketing and I get my “people fix” with the client services side, speaking to all of our lovely clients and helping with any issues that come up.
Production
