One on one with Simon Barrow of Member Support
victoriatagg
Yesterday we had an interview with our Member Support team. One of them, Simon Barrow, was away and sent me over his answers after the post went out. As I want everyone to have a chance to have their say, here's his answers to your questions.
Do you get to work from home, or if not, where is your office based?
If I could work from home it would be great but we do have a pretty cool office in Derry, N. Ireland and the team are great so I can’t complain really.
What is a typical day like for you?
Well it’s up at 7am with a quick shower and breakfast before the dreaded 8am start! I’ll have a load of unanswered queries to get stuck into which have built up from 6pm the previous day and that’ll keep me busy most of the morning! Obviously the queries keep on coming during the day so with a little help from the Finance and Technical teams I’ll try to keep the giffgaff standards as high as possible for Customer Service!
What did you do before working as a member service agent for giffgaff?
Well like most of the team I worked for Sky’s Technical Department taking calls and helping solve general queries customers had with their Sky equipment or viewing.
What phone do you each have?
Well I’ve always loved having the latest phone so I currently have the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10i which is my very first smartphone! 
I absolutely love it and use it like a mini laptop so I always stay up to date with the latest football news.
Do you get VIG SIMs? Or pay your way like the rest of us?
What’s a VIG sim? Lol no unfortunately I’m not that lucky but feel free to nominate me for one if you wish! I’m on giffgaff’s £10 goodybag and I must admit that since leaving my contract I’ve saved myself a fortune as giffgaff is simply so cheap in comparison.
PC or Mac?
Well I’ve always used a PC because I could never afford the MAC so I guess it’s the PC then!
html5 vs flash?
Who's the winner? Has to be Flash because it’s been around for so long and has never given me any problems.
Weirdest customer support question?
Well sometimes I think a few of our customers think we’re mobile gurus with the queries they ask us although I’ll always do my very best to get them an answer. But the weirdest query I’ve had to deal with was if I could triangulate the location of a lost phone. Unfortunately after checking with the Technical team the answer was no we couldn’t do that however the customer was still happy that I got back to him with an answer!
What is something that's happened at work that's made your day?
I suppose anytime a customer takes the time to thank me always makes me feel like I’m doing a good job for giffgaff and it’s great to know the community will always help out too. The team have all put a lot of effort into giffgaff since day one and every now and again the top brass will acknowledge this too, something that is always going to make my day! 
