Company and location
Gripple Ltd

Industry sector
Manufacturing/land-based and environmental

What does your job involve?
I manage the internal sales team. We deal with all aspects of sales administration and exporting: enquiries, orders, customs documentation, managing key client accounts etc.
Gripple manufactures joining and tensioning devices used in the industrial (e.g. to suspend light fittings, ducting etc. in large venues like Wembley stadium) and agriculture/viticulture sectors (e.g. fencing and trellising). We have offices in Sheffield, Strasbourg and Chicago. 80% of what we produce is exported to overseas markets, including Europe, Australia, the Middle East and India.

How did you get into that area of work?
My earliest jobs didn’t involve using foreign languages, but they did teach me an awful lot about customer service as each one involved direct customer contact. Even my part-time position as a trainer at McDonald’s while I was at school and university was invaluable. It taught me multitasking, juggling lots of different things, working under pressure, dealing with unhappy customers and problem solving.
I studied languages at university, so it seemed a natural thing to combine my customer service and language skills in my career. I’ve moved up the career ladder with experience. I’ve been at Gripple for about two years.
My job involves liaising not only with customers, but with Production, Accounts, Quality and Marketing and talking to everyone from the packers to company directors. I have to relate to and communicate well with everyone at every level. I also need to be able to motivate my team.

How did you learn your language skills?
I studied French and German at university. The year I spent as a teaching assistant in a secondary school in Germany was one of the best experiences of my life - it really broadened my horizons. I also spent a couple of months in Paris working for a graphics company.
With hindsight, I wish I had combined languages with another subject as having language skills alone isn’t really enough.
Obviously, I had to pick up a lot of technical vocabulary when I started at Gripple but this is relatively easy to do if you already speak the language.

How do you use your languages at work?
Most of our sales managers speak at least two languages – it’s essential that they have the language skills and cultural understanding to be able to deal with people in our overseas markets.
As for me, I have to call our office in Strasbourg from time to time - speaking French helps build relationships with the staff there and with our key clients and distributors. I also do sales exhibitions abroad. I once had to work at an exhibition in a very rural part of Germany, a real farming community. None of the farmers who came up to the stand spoke any English. They were quite surprised to find an English woman at an agricultural exhibition who spoke their language!

Any tips?
People think that everyone in the world speaks English – it’s not true! Even if the people you meet do speak English, they appreciate you being able to communicate in their language. Anyway, knowing another language broadens your own horizons and you never know when you might need it.
A foreign language is another string to your bow. If an employer is comparing the CVs of two candidates who have very similar skills, and one of them has a foreign language too, who do you think they’ll choose? I think learning a foreign language is as important as studying maths or English, but make sure you gain some other sorts of skills too.