The ‘heartbeat of London’

Thankfully, Vanessa’s previous role as a regional coordinator for a care company, where she was responsible for allocating 2,500 hours of care across 25 carers, has stood her in good stead and there is little that fazes her. And as the only female in the region, she’s not daunted by working in a male dominated environment either.

“I do have to keep the lads in check sometimes,” she jokes. “But they are a great bunch – everyone works hard and we all get on really well. It’s a very happy and motivated team.”

Described by our training manager Matt Hunns as ‘the heartbeat of London’, Vanessa works closely with our regional manager Sam Low and supports the operatives and supervisors, managing the region’s emails to ensure everything is actioned. She spends her day producing quotes, arranging new bookings, checking and matching customer purchase orders and organising calendar links. She also manages customer call-outs, books battery exchanges and organises inspections to make sure the lights and trailers on hire are working properly.

“This job carries a lot of responsibility and things can change at any minute, but I love the variety of the role and I really enjoy working with customers. I believe that it’s essential to provide exceptional customer service and I will always do my very best for them. It’s important to communicate with customers at all times, to respond quickly to any requests and deliver what they expect.”

Naturally, Vanessa has used her enviable people skills to build a strong rapport with her customers and they know that they can call her at any time of the day if they need anything.

“I’ll often get a call at the end of the working day requesting lights for the next day and I won’t go home until I’ve sourced the kit, quoted for it and raised the purchase order. I’ll also call the operative to make sure they are aware of the job and know what to do. I don’t leave any room for error, I follow everything through.”

Vanessa has a close working relationship with our business analyst and support manager and resident Syrinx expert Vicki Jagger. Vicki trained Vanessa on this software system and Vanessa uses it for all of her routine tasks, enabling her to fulfil our promise to attend all call-outs within two hours.

“Syrinx is an amazing system,” says Vanessa. ”It doesn’t just help me raise quotes and organise up to 80 battery exchanges a month, it’s invaluable in our reporting too. With Syrinx, I can easily spot if there are any discrepancies and make any changes I need to. It is an incredibly sophisticated system.”

From lightbulbs to lighthouses

Vanessa now trains new supervisors on how to use the system and she likes nothing more than when they have what she calls a ‘lightbulb moment’. One of the most rewarding parts of the job for me is to sit down and show them how use Syrinx and then suddenly they go ‘aha’! I know I’ve done my job when we reach that point.”

After two years with SRL, Vanessa is a key member of our team and, let’s not forget, we couldn’t have named our Intranet ‘The Lighthouse’ without her (Vanessa was the winner of our in-house competition to name it). She sees a long career ahead at SRL and is proud to work for a business that constantly innovates.

“SRL is not a business that stands still – it makes things happen,” says Vanessa. “It has revolutionised the temporary traffic industry with developments like VMS, CCTV and our multiphase ADS system. It’s wonderful be involved and to play a part in bringing these game-changing solutions to our customers. Seeing our customers achieve growth is hugely rewarding for me.”

Vanessa, we salute you for the passion and dedication you display for our customers every day.