Erfahrungsbericht über ein Praktikum bei Benefit Büroservice
Willkommen zu einem kleinen Erfahrungsbericht!
Mein Name ist Michaela und ich habe von September 2019 bis Jänner 2020 ein Praktikum bei Benefit Büroservice im Online-Marketing absolviert. Ich studiere im letzten Semester Marketing & Sales an der Fachhochschule IMC Krems und Teil dieses Studiums ist ein Praxissemester. Die Lehrveranstaltungen in meinem Studium sind zu 100% Englischsprachig, deswegen ist dieser Erfahrungsbericht ebenfalls auf Englisch. Ich hoffe Sie erhalten einen kleinen Einblick, was ein Praktikum bei Benefit Büroservice bieten kann und wie positiv meine Erfahrung war.
Internship details
I completed my internship at the company Benefit Büroservice in St.Pölten. I spend five months as an intern at the company. Benefit Büroservice is a service provider for secretary services. The main service of the company is the telephone service. More than 600 customers have already used the telephone service. All customers are B2B customers who outsource their office to Benefit. That means that the telephone agents of Benefit Büroservice answer calls for different companies. Customers are lawyers, doctors, big technical companies and more.
I did my internship in the field of online marketing. Before the start of the internship my manager and I defined suitable tasks.
The tasks were:
- Responsible for the launch of the new website in Germany
- Support of the sales team with the online channels
- SEO marketing – writing blog posts
Personal learning and work environment
The work environment at Benefit Büroservice is unlike anything I had experienced before.Benefit Büroservice is organised very similar to a start-up even though they are already in business for many years. The hierarchies are very flat and the managers follow an open-door policy.
Before I could start working in the field of marketing, I had to work as a telephone agent for two weeks. That is very important for the management. So everybody understands the business and the challenges of the service.
After that I was immediately part of the team. From the first day in the company I was a full member of the team. I was invited to every meeting that had to do with marketing and my opinion was always considered in decisions. My training was cut a little short because the employee who trained me only worked 20 hours. So I was working on my own quite fast. This really helped me to think outside of the box and bring in my own suggestions, instead of just following instructions. Also you can ask everybody at Benefit Büroservice for help or advice if you need anything. Since everybody has equals decision right.
I personally became a lot more of a team player. Of course I already worked a lot in teams after four years of studying at a university of applied science. But it is different in a working environment. At university you and most of your team members follow the same goal: to get a good grade. At work it was quite different, my marketing team often worked together with the sales team. These two teams often didn’t have the same short term goals. But of course we all shared the same long time goal – corporate success.
Reflection on experience
One of my first projects in the company was to organize a photo shooting. For the launch of our new website in Germany we needed new photos to contrast from the website in Austria. I was responsible for the concept and the organization of the shooting. At first I researched motives and inspiration. Then I wrote a plan on which photos we had to take, how many, searched for examples and made a time plan for the day. I was also responsible for organizing accessories. The project had nothing to do with online marketing, but it was a great way to get to know all the models aka my coworkers. And it was also a way for my managers to see how much organizational talent I have.
One of the highlights of my internship was the launch of our new website in Germany. After one month of planning and programming we launched the website in the middle of October. Before that we had written all the texts for the website, written thirty blogposts to post immediately and chosen all photos and icons. The company also had a very funny launch party with all employees and partners. A challenge with the launch of the website was that it was not detectable in Google. Google takes quite long to organically rank a completely new website. That made it hard for us to find out if everything was working on our website and how we could improve our SEO marketing.
Launch party of the German website
Another highlight during the internship was the mystery call project. My managers asked me if I wanted and dared to supervise a mystery call project. It was quite a challenge to coordinate the communication with the customer and supervise the team to make all calls. I also did the transcription of the results and was the contact person for the customer. With this project I had the possibility to check my leadership competences.
Improvement of competences
I improved a lot of competences in the field of online marketing but also social competences. In beginning of my internship I had the possibility to take part in a SEA training session at an online agency. That was very interesting since my knowledge of Google ads was only theoretical until then. In the training session I got to know different figures which are important when using Google ads. I also got to know Google analytics a little more in depth. For example, I learned how to use Google analytics to find new keywords.
During my internship I also had the chance to take part in a SEO seminar. In this seminar I got to extend my knowledge in keyword research. I learned a lot about new tools in keyword research. And I also got to revise the use of the program WordPress.
Additionally, I discovered a talent I have during my internship. One day someone asked me if I could brainstorm ideas for job postings. I than randomly designed my ideas with an online design tool. Management really liked my ideas and design. And ever since I was responsible for small design for job postings, advertisements and event invitations. Before that I always thought I wasn’t creative enough for designing something.
My social competences also improved in many ways. On the one hand I am more of a team player now and I know the importance of common goals. On the other hand I am more stress resistant and learned how to plan my working day. In a small company with flat hierarchies you always have to expect new tasks and changes during a working day.
Value of experience
First of all, I learned the differences between a B2C and a B2B company. I always used to work in a B2C environment where the needs of the customer very easy understandable for me. So at first I really had to get to know the needs of our business customers. In marketing it is important to know who makes the decisions in a company and how to target the decision-making-person.
Working in B2B is already a challenge in marketing, additionally to that the company sells a service not a product. Services have all the special characteristics like being intangible, not transportable etc. As a marketer you have to convince the customer of your service, without the customer ever touching or trying the product. At Benefit Büroservice we try to convince possible customer from our quality. As a company we are sure of our high quality. That is why we don’t have have long term commitment and a monthly period of notice. We also want show our quality with examples of satisfied customers who work in the same branch or use the same package.
I also learned a lot about the procedures in the company. The CEO of the company really loves processes. So if you want to make a suggestion for a topic or start a new project, you should graphically show a process of how it could be done.
Another very interesting procedure in the company is human resources. I was very interested in the HR department since I only had theoretical knowledge in that field. So my managers gave me the possibility to take a deeper look in that field. The HR manager showed me tool she uses for applications and the status quo of each applicant. I even had the chance to be part of three interviews. Together with the CEO, I did interviews with possible interns in online marketing. Here I had the chance to tell them something about the company, my tasks and even asked them some questions about their studies.
I also learned a lot about decision making. Since there are very flat hierarchies in the company everybody has to make decisions. Of course you have to ask for permission before making decisions but if you have good arguments the management will always respect your decision.
The leadership style the management uses is a democratic style. They are always interested in the ideas of every team member. The management also tries to encourage every employee individually. They always find suitable tasks for every employee and try out different responsibilities.
I also got to make first experiences as a project leader. As already mentioned I supervised a mystery call project. Here I also had to assign the different calls to employees and motivate them to accomplish fifty calls each week.
Summary
In conclusion I would say I gained a lot of experience and feel confindent when I say I work in marketing now. Benefit Büroservice is the perfect company to gain experience as the team is extremely open and helpful. I would totally recommend it for other students to do their internship there.
Before I started my internship I thought I would start working in sales after my studies. But I really like working in online marketing at the moment. After my internship I will start working twenty hours a week at the company. And I’m sure that it will never get boring and I’ll learn something new every day.
Bewirb dich gerne bei Benefit Büroservice für ein Praktikum im Bereich Online-Marketing. Wir sind immer auf der Suche nach neuen Ideen.
