Case studies: Customer service head: Helen

Having studied A-levels in biology, geography and English literature, Helen graduated with a BSc in Environmental Management from the University of Hull in 1996. After graduating, she initially worked in sales, including four years as an international sales rep. She then took a customer service role with the photography agency she works for now.

She has been with the company for about six years, and as the company has grown she has worked her way up to her current position. She has four managers reporting in to her and there are around 35 staff in her department. The managers run teams in the UK and Indian offices and report directly to her. These managers are responsible for workflow and maintaining high levels of productivity from their teams. They are also responsible for training and supervising their teams - including elements such as staff appraisal, return to work interviews, disciplinary action and monthly reporting.

As well as directly managing the customer service managers, Helen’s role requires her to take an overall view of the company’s customer service, plan strategically and liaise with senior management. She frequently gets involved with high-level projects to enhance the business’s product and improve the customer interactions with the website and frontline staff. Numerical skills and the ability to analyse data are very important - she feels these skills become increasingly important as you take on more senior roles.

Helen feels many of the skills and experiences she gained while working in sales - such as communication skills, the ability to work under pressure and to targets, the ability to pitch, organisational skills from managing a sales territory etc. - have been really useful in her customer service management roles.

The parts of her job that she enjoys most are:

• project work to initiate changes to the website or internal systems that enhance opportunities to develop the business;
• process improvement - taking a process apart, figuring out how it works and rebuilding it more effectively;
• leading and motivating a large team.

She finds the least enjoyable to be some of the more unpleasant HR tasks, such as preparing for disciplinaries.