Head of Customer Services – Red Letter Days

This 9-month assignment with Red Letter Days, the major ‘experience gift’ provider, was to manage the consolidation of three departments into a single group responsible for all aspects of the customer experience.
The individual departments (customer sales & service, complaints and fulfilment) operated largely independently which sometimes caused difficulties for customers in terms of consistency, communication and problem resolution. The departments’ respective performance measures and priorities were not necessarily mutually supportive.
Merging the departments enabled us to think of the customer experience in terms of a single end to end process. The customer journey was refined to show each stage and the accountabilities for each element clearly defined within the overall collective responsibility for customer satisfaction.

Key achievements during the assignment were –

• Embedding best practice model for operational activity and leadership team
• Recruitment, training and coaching of an extended management team
• Task-related and customer service training for all staff
• Reduction in staff turnover and, consequently lower recruitment costs  
• Increased job satisfaction and reduction in inter-department ‘blame’ culture... teams working together more effectively
• Reduced end to end service time
• Improved customer satisfaction, evidenced by fewer complaints