Serving and celebrating in stores' call centre

We look at Selfridges' call centres which combines several services and skills

SELFRIDGES' call centre, which handles more than 26,000 calls a week, was set up to provide a range of services for customers and staff of the company's four stores, plus head office.

They comprise:

• Switchboard: connecting internal and external customers for all four stores and head office
• IT/FM helpdesk: reporting and logging of internal IT/facilities issues for on-site teams at each store
• HR helpdesk: reporting, logging and resolution of HR queries for staff and potential employees; administration of training courses and new starters
• Celebration Pledgeline: to take pledges into existing Celebration accounts via telephone from guests to an event
• Customer relations: to address and resolve customer queries/complaints via telephone and mail.

It began in April 2003 when the existing switchboard and customer relations department servicing the Oxford Street store only moved from the London store to a building in Leicester which already housed the company's IT and finance staff.

Now known as the Contact Management Centre, it forms part of an internal servicing brand called Selfridges Connect, the collective title for business services, which include finance, central purchasing, information services and central HR/recruitment. 

Just two members of the original team made the move from Oxford Street: Andrew Lloyd-Callachund, now technical administrator, and Nick Vowles, now operations manager for contact management.

This meant hiring and training 32 new team members.

Mr Vowles said that ran according to a timetable of "go-lives", taking into account training of the new teams and the introduction of each telephony service to Selfridges stores and customers.

Training of the new team started in March 2003 and the first call was taken by the new Leicester-based switchboard in April; by October switchboard calls totalled 500,000.

Mr Vowles said: "As with any new internal department, the Contact Management Centre has been evolving since its introduction to the Leicester site."

Some developments include:

• two members of the original team have been promoted to team leader; one is now a team leader in the Birmingham store
• the position of lead customer service advisor has been introduced and successfully recruited from within
• the number of services has increased to include management of the Celebration Service (gift registry, for events such as weddings), hamper mail order, event ticket sales
• the team aided Sport Relief in 2004 and Comic Relief this year, where over 100 volunteers gave up their time taking and processing donations

Mr Vowles said the varied backgrounds of the 38 staff -- who are aged 18-64 -- was a major strength.  Among them are university and college students, parents, amateur DJs, artists, a stationery designer, an ex-footballer, a potter, a cobbler and a writer of romantic fiction.

He said additional staff were taken on over busy trading periods on temporary contracts, but they often returned to the business when permanent vacancies became available.

Reviews of service, systems and staff are conducted throughout the year and the success of the department is celebrated regularly with awards and recognition.

”Celebration Fridays", instigated by the contact management team, have become a staple of the Connect site as a whole, offering staff the opportunity to dress according to a theme and win competitions.  The success of the past months is communicated to the team and the Customer Service Advisor of the Month is awarded via an informal presentation of an engraved trophy and Selfridges gift vouchers. 

Asked about finding possible recruits, Mr Vowles said: "We predominantly use our web site, but we have used newspapers and, more recently radio."

Selection involves CVs, a telephone interview and an assessment centre.  All new recruits start on the switchboard and three weeks of side-by-side training with a buddy.  On completion, they continue to have the support of a lead agent.  They are assessed for other teams when vacancies occur.

The working week totals 37.5 hours and the centre is open daytimes seven days a week (HR helpdesk and ticketed events are closed on Sundays).

Mr Vowles said that pay was competitive and regularly reviewed against other call centres in the area, such as Next, HSBC, Alliance & Leicester and Expedia.

Selfridges' telephone equipment for all sites was supplied by Mitel -- Leicester has the Cyber ACD 6100 -- and they use a total of 15 30-channel ISDN connections.  Four ISDN channels are used within the Leicester site.  For internal calls between sites, Selfridges has five E1 (2Mb)circuits, although Mr Vowles said: "We are now currently looking at VoIP."

Mr Vowles initially spent 10 years working at top London hotels and moved into call centre management in the early 1990s, first with the London ambulance service.  He then managed teams for Cable & Wireless and Barclays Funds before joining Selfridges as telecoms manager in January 2000 with a brief to centralise the existing site services into one contact centre to support the company's intended expansion.

Nick Vowles is operations manager at Selfridges' Leicester call centre

Conrad Edwards joined as customer services manager in March 2003.  He had spent more than 15 years with British Telecom in various customer service and customer relations roles, including three years as assistant to the chairman and chief executive.  He joined Selfridges from Next Directory, where he was customer service manager.

Selfridges' call centre fact file

Telecoms carrier: Kingston (inc. network-based IVR)
Numbers in use: 15 national rate (0870), also from Kingston
ACD: Mitel Cyber 6110
Headsets: Plantronics, Encore and Supra models
Furniture: Wagstaff
Software: Charter, customer relations; XP Pro/Lotus Notes; Peregrine for IT/FM helpdesk
Computers: IBM Thinkcentres, IBM servers
Wallboards: Spectrum 4160c (three)
Call volumes (per week)/average length of call: switchboard, 22,000 (6,000 via automation)/16 secs; customer relations and mail order, 1,000/2.3 mins; helpdesks, 3,500/3.2 mins
Service level targets: 75-80 per cent answered within 10 secs
Other contacts (weekly)/service level targets: fax, 50; email, 70; post, 200/90 per cent answered within 10 days