Technical Support Review

Working on the Support desk at ProspectSoft was extremely enjoyable. Some days were harder than other depending on how busy we were. But one thing that did make it enjoyable was the staff. They were extremely friendly both during and outside of work

Because ProspectSoft is a small and growing company you are treated like a full time member of staff. During our Support meetings your opinion was always taken into consideration and if the opinion was valid it would be actioned upon.

If you required any Support or Guidance any member of staff was willing to offer assistance. However because the company is striving for success people can sometimes be busy, so using your own initiative will be required.

There is always work to be done, whether is be telephone Support, internal Support or testing of new version.

I got the impression from my time that they were very willing to give you as much responsibility as they/you felt could handled without applying too much pressure. During my time I was offered the chance to do some solo on-site Support, and got involved in a couple of implementations.

Being on the Support desk managing your calls / time is crucial. This allowed me to developed my time management skills which when doing your final year project is extremely important. One thing that did increase was my self confidence, when working on the Support desk you are always talking to different people each day, and if when you hand the customer a solution you don’t sound confident, the customer is going to be confident. From a technical point of view my database knowledge increased dramatically and I gained knowledge which I feel could only be achieved by working with a LIVE database.

The atmosphere was amazing. It had the perfectly level of Professionalism and fun that allowed you to get your work done as well as enjoy your time. It became a pleasure to come to work in the mornings.

The placement scheme at ProspectSoft has grown over the last couple of years, and so has their organisation of it.

The first three/four weeks were spent doing internal training. Most of this time was spent learning the product, which working on Support was extremely helpful. I feel the real development came once I started work on the Support desk, and started to learn the possible issues that existing and what the best way to solve them was. During the first couple of months the Support Manager invested a lot of time to assist me whilst we got up to speed, but after the first month I had the confidence and the knowledge to resolve problems without speaking with the Support Manager.

During my Placement year I was offer the oppotunity to come back after my degree and work full time. But were I had worked on implementations I was offerred the chance to work as an implementer.

All the placements during my year either lived local or it was a reasonable drive, so social events were very common. Also where out work force is quite young other fulltime staff also joined us on nights out.

I lived in Oxford and commuted to High Wycombe. It was roughly a 60 minute return drive, which along with rent in Oxford (which is not cheap) did come to an expensive year. However my salary did cover this and still allowed me to socialise. However a couple of other guys were commuting from Oxford, so we set up a lift sharing scheme which allowed us all to save money.

Night life in Oxford is brilliant. With two universities in the area there are lots of different night clubs to visit. High Wycombe night life is not bad, luckily it is improving dramatically all the time,

During the year we had 3 company socials. A christmas party, a summer BBQ round a directors house and usually a Summer event that all the company can participate in. But there are also activities arranged by other members of staff such as:- Football, Badminton, Tennis, Golf, Cricket