As a former school teacher, Gerard is a natural born communicator — both with his customers and his colleagues.
“I’ve got a background in primary school teaching, so I know what it’s like to communicate with people every day. I feel like I have the personality for working with people. If you can get along with 30 children in a classroom, you can get along with pretty much anyone,” he says.
On how he got the job at Royal Wolf, Gerard recalls seeing Royal Wolf containers everywhere and noticing the hoarding at sports games. “I saw the job come up and I recognised the brand. I thought it looked interesting. The marketing bit drew me in,” he says.
“I’m the first line of contact for anyone who wants to communicate with us. I do online customer service and run the live chat on the website. People often think it’s a robot, but it’s a real person. It’s me! I try to humanise the messages and tailor them to the person. Customers tend to like that. If you’re chatting to someone human, you certainly trust them more,” he says.
Naturally, Gerard has had some odd requests come through the website. He recalls a man enquiring about purchasing a few containers to transform into a music studio. “He was in a remote area of South Australia, so I asked him where the nearest city was but he couldn’t tell me. He didn’t know where he was,” he says.
When he’s not talking to customers, Gerard loves a bit of banter with his colleagues about footy. “I’m a sports nut,” he says. “I’m a Queenslander so I get a lot of grief from the other guys about sport.”
Gerard really values the team he works with. “If you don’t have a good team, you don’t want to be there. I have a good manager, which is really important too. Everyone helps each other out,” Gerard says.
Outside of the Royal Wolf office, Gerard spends his time travelling around the world doing mission work with members of his local church. “I’m well travelled. I’ve been to 29 countries. I’ve been everywhere from Spain to Brazil, Poland and Panama.”
“I’ve swum in the Nile River, I’ve been camping in Europe, I’ve done mission work in Peru — and I’ve even climbed the pyramids in Mexico,” Gerard says.
