Scroll to learn more about the Sales and Guest Services Internship from 2014 Summer Interns.

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Jake Runnion
2014 Sales and Guest Services Intern

I first started my internship off working solely as a Sales Intern in the Contact Center. It was an exciting time for me since this was my first internship, and it was also the first time I had the opportunity to work in Downtown Chicago, one of the greatest cities in the world. It was a new experience for me, coming from a small town where I hadn’t the chance to visit Chicago often. The first week was dedicated to training and preparing the interns to handle a variety of phone calls. The very first day of training is, and will be for a very long time, the best first day on a job I have ever had. We learned all about the company and the staff we will be working with, and to top it off, we were able to experience a cruise ourselves as we went out on a lunch cruise.

The full week of training was very helpful in readying the interns to handle phone calls, and even though I stumbled a couple times the first week or so, the supervisors and the rest of the staff were more than happy to help me out. The office environment was very professional, but at the same time it was laid back and fun. The employees were always full of energy and ready to share some OSS with everyone. It was always nice having such fun people to work with as it made coming to work that much better.

Once I adjusted to booking orders, I was given the opportunity to do other things such as help make the break schedule when asked. It was a good chance for me to do something different and help out around the office. I also took up the opportunity to work down at the pier as a Pier Sales Agent. It was an easy transition since I already knew everything about our cruises and all I had to focus on were the Chicago cruises. The training was short, and I was ready to be out on the pier within the first day. It was nice to talk to people face-to-face instead of on the phone, and it was really great to enjoy the atmosphere at Navy Pier. I was tasked with standing outside the ticket booth and engaging with visitors, telling them more about our cruises and encouraging them to enjoy one of our cruises. I also helped answer anyone’s questions they have regarding our cruises. I was able to work at all three of the ticket booths and evaluate which ticket booth takes in the most sales: the general consensus was that the Spirit of Chicago always ended up doing the best with day-of ticket sales. This is most likely due to the fact that the Spirit of Chicago is the first ship in our fleet that customers see when walking down the pier.

Overall, this internship was a great opportunity for me to interact with people, learn some valuable sales skills, and get to experience the great city of Chicago. I will never forget the people I met here at Entertainment Cruises, and I will forever cherish the memories and the things I learned.

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