Krista Camille Strong – Customer Service Representative

Hi, I am Krista Camille Palacio-Strong. My friends call me “Cams” but my relatives and childhood friends call me “Mille”. I am 23 years old and married. I was going to have a child but sadly miscarried in March 2020.

I am a college undergrad. I took up Bachelor of Arts in International Studies for about 2 and a half years and then shifted to AB History, and then I stopped studying. My parents let me stop studying because during the 4 years that I was away and supposed to be studying in the city, I ended up not going to class most of the time and failing most of my subjects. My parents knew about it but I already wasted 4 years. In short I was the black sheep in the family. So my parents stopped sending allowance so I would go home to the province and didn’t allow me to go back to the city again.

Suddenly, I was stuck in the province doing nothing. I was teased by the whole family and relatives for not finishing college and because of what I did for the past 4 years, I got depressed. I even act out and moved out of our house for 2 months but had nowhere to go to. I even thought of taking my own life due to depression, but I tried my best to get up from that miserable life and go home, admit all my mistakes and ask for forgiveness from my parents. They accepted, forgot everything that had happened and gave me a chance to get back on track. I refused to continue studying because I only want to go back when I’m ready, and promised them that I will be the one who will pay for my studies not them anymore.

Luckily my sister-in-law is working in a BPO company as an IT and informed me they are hiring a data entry specialist on their graveyard shift. I didn’t have any experience before but I still tried my luck to regain my family’s trust. Fortunately I was hired on the spot so I then started working in that company on a data entry account, then after 6 months a different account but as the same company was hiring a customer service representative, it was an e-Commerce account. I grabbed the opportunity. Though the pay grade was enough I realised that if I wanted to save to go to school soon then I needed a much better pay grade but that also means I’ll be leaving my comfort zone again and leaving the province. I tried my luck to get promoted on that account, but was transferred to the main office.

I worked as a customer service representative on an e-Commerce account at Davao City. New place new set of people that are complete strangers to me but that didn’t stop me because I really needed to work for my future and also I promised my family before I left that I will help them with the bills.

As a customer service representative, I do inbound and outbound calls, emails, and chat for that account. I may not be very fluent in English but I can converse well with our customers. I talked to customers about their orders or billing as it is an e-Commerce account, we sell clothes, shoes and accessories like Amazon. I always send daily reports after every shift so our clients can track what are the issues we are getting from customers so they can improve their service. I always make sure that everything is organised when they look into each report to help them save time and can focus on other things also to make sure they don’t have any problems in the future.

Sometimes when I have less tasks I also help the client with organising the sales for the month or the season so the accounting department can easily monitor the sales. I also do the calls to follow up logistics for our upcoming stocks. I help my teammates doing the back office tasks if we are shorthanded with people and and need to double time. When I have spare time I always try to learn the things my teammates do so in case of an emergency I can always offer a hand. I am basically all around on that account.

Working with that company enhanced a lot of my skills that I barely used when I got to college. I stayed with the company for almost 2 years.
Unfortunately, I needed to resign last January due to the doctors advise regarding my pregnancy but still unfortunately had a miscarriage last March. I wanted to get back to work as soon as I recovered but then pandemic came. At first everything was okay, though it would be just 2 weeks or a month but then it became months. I am lucky that I have a husband who makes sure that everything is okay, and that he can always provide – but still I realised I really need to get a job and also want to provide for him and my family too. I tried to apply with different companies but most of them require an office based job, but I cannot risk it, for now. So unfortunately I wasn’t hired as they are prioritising the ones who can report to the office.

Finally, today, I came across a job hiring for a virtual assistant that is home-based. At first I was in doubt as the job description is a little bit different from what I was doing before but hey, I know myself that I can learn anything and can do it. I am really hoping I can secure a job and work in the comfort of my home 8-10 hours a day and earn.

I guess this is it. Thank you for reading.

For a copy of Krista’s resume please click here.