1 month of Zendesk

"Time passes fast when we are having fun"

That's one of my favorites quotes and I always associated it to spending time with friends and family or traveling somewhere.

Lately, I've been associated it to work, something I never thought I would.

A month ago, I started a one-year internship at Zendesk Paris office, for those of you who still don't know what the company does:

"Zendesk is a customer service platform that builds software to empower organization and customer relationships."

In other words, it helps companies solve your problems faster and make your experience much better.

After this first month, I've learned a bunch of new things and that's the reason I'm writing this article, to share some takeaways about this first month.

Previous Experience

Just to explain a little bit what I was doing before Zendesk, I 've worked for a two-year period in Seed Stage Startup in Brazil, then went for an exchange program in Spain.

I'm a stronger believer that every college student should start working as soon he starts Business school, by the way in this article I explain why.

So, I applied for another internship and here I am.

Coming from a startup background and landing in a public company was definitely a major change, especially in my mentality and in the way I was used to working and doing things.

So, here it goes some takeaways.

1- Processes and Hierarchy

I have always been used to be the person creating processes and testing everything to see the outcome, even if I screwed up, wasn't a big deal and I would learn from my mistakes and never repeat it.

That's the typical Startup Mindset.

That's completely different from working for a public company, the processes were already created and tested.

You must follow the process in order to make sure everyone is the same page, avoiding problems that might cause major damage to the company.

Another very important point is completely nailing the hierarchy and make sure you understand the responsibilities of everyone within the organization, that will make you navigate better internal difficulties and overcome some miscommunications that might occur during your daily basis.

2- The importance of Culture

I know writing about culture nowadays may sound clichê.

However, a strong culture it's what keeps us motivated to wake up, go to work and perform in a high-level.

I personally wake up super excited about going to work, since I will arrive in multicultural fast paced working environment, that steers for performance and challenge you every day to get out of your comfort zone.

Feel that the company you work for really takes care of you is really important as I can tell from my personal experience of traveling to the EMEA Headquarters in Ireland for a two-day on-boarding, being just the "Intern".

3- Real Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Since my internship is within the marketing team, I was exposed to huge flow of information about marketing best practices and terms that I wasn't aware when working in a Startup.

While working in Startups, you would be mainly focused on digital marketing strategy, since it's easier to measure ROI and usually more accessible for a tighter budget.

As soon as I started, I realized that a marketing strategy is a much broader concept and digital is only a part of the big picture.

I was introduced to the world of events, direct mail, hospitality, and PR, practices that I had no previous experience, mainly because of the lack of budget available in a Startup

I learned that those practices, despite requiring a bigger investment, really increase lead generation and pipeline, even better when well coordinated with the digital campaign, leading to a thriving marketing initiative.

4- Customer always come first

I can tell that Zendesk is a very customer-centric company, which is completely understandable, as the company is a reference in customer support software.

As soon as landed in my position, I realized how important is the relationship between the company and its customer, the whole point is developing a rapport and make your customer your brands ambassador.

This is very visible from a marketing perspective, as the events hosted by the company usually counts with the presence of clients showcasing their success stories to the audience, leading to some very interesting conversation and great networking opportunities.

5- Mentorship

As an intern, the most important thing is learning as much as you can, be a "sponge" as a friend used to say, absorbing the content that is shared with you from your coworkers.

The Zendesk Parisian Office is a place where mainly senior positions are based, sales and marketing teams focused on the growth of the Southern European region.

In the first month, I realized that senior coworkers are always willing to give you feedback, share their experience and give you tips about how to proceed with some situation.

This kind of mentorship is what really makes a difference in our professional development, especially when you're young and looking forward to expanding your knowledge in a certain matter.

However, is also very important to find the right "timing" to reach out to your colleague and ask questions, as usually they are very busy. Talk to them at the end of the day and lunch/coffee break.

This first month has passed very quickly and I'm pretty sure the next ones will definitely pass even faster, especially when you are in a fast-paced environment, full of interesting activities, opportunities to explore and great people surrounding you on a daily basis.

I know that it's still the beginning and that there's plenty of things to discover and master, but working in a company with such a great culture and doing so well from a business perspective, makes me feel thrilled about the future and give me a reason to say every day to my fellow colleagues.

Oui, Je suis content

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