Contact Centre Roles Overview

What do our people have to say?

We asked four of our Contact Centre staff about the roles they provide for Screwfix. Click on the names below and read what our employees say!

Customer Service Representative

Customer Service Representatives are the main point of contact for our customers, working at the front-line of delivering the fantastic customer service that Screwfix is renowned for, and that keeps our customers shopping with us again and again. In this role, you'll take calls from our customers and ensure that they receive great service, going away happy that they have had their requirements met and their expectations exceeded.

This includes handling a wide variety of calls, including all types of customer enquiries, ensuring they are recorded and resolved promptly or escalated when appropriate, and informing customers of any promotional activity or special offers that are currently available. A vitally important part of the role is accurately recording customer details and order information onto our systems, ensuring attention to detail at all times, while increasing order values through effective up-selling of associated products and accessories. Making some outbound information calls to ensure high levels of customer satisfaction and to let our customers know of any business information that is relevant, including new store openings and new promotions, is also key.

To successfully secure a Customer Service Representative position, you must have excellent communication skills with a friendly and professional telephone manner, and high quality customer service skills with the desire to deliver fantastic service on each and every call. You will need to be accurate and diligent with a real attention to detail, and have good problem solving skills with the desire to find an answer to any customer enquiry. Adaptability, flexibility and a team-focused attitude are of course also vital qualities that we require.

We're really open to the background that you might come from – whilst previous customer service or contact centre experience is helpful, it's not essential as full training and support for this role will be given. We have recruited successful Customer Service Representatives from a wide variety of job roles, companies and industry sectors.

A typical Customer Service Representative will earn £6.53 per hour, rising to £6.69 following successful completion of your 3 month probationary period. There is also a generous benefits package including contributory pension after 3 months, health cash plan, sharesave scheme, 20% staff discount after 3 months, a childcare vouchers scheme, and an employee assistance programme.

Team Manager

Responsible for managing the activity of a team of approximately 10 Customer Service Representatives, our Team Managers play a key role in driving the very highest standards of service and performance from their teams. In this position, you will manage team performance to optimise results, recognising achievement and dealing with underperformers professionally, while delivering and successfully maintaining our key performance indicators and targets through strong leadership of your team.

You'll be tasked with motivating your team towards service level and call quality standards through continuous coaching, reviewing and feeding back on performance and development, regularly appraising and reviewing staff in line with our company frameworks. This will include objective-setting, one to one meetings, and encouraging development, inspiring team members to understand their individual motivators and to helping them to achieve their potential.

Providing an excellent service to customers is also important, and you will deal with problems, resolving any escalated enquiries and complaints, taking responsibility for the action required where necessary to ensure that our customers are dealt with effectively and that any customer complaints are minimised.

For this role, prior experience in managing a team is essential. We look for experienced people managers, who have a successful track record in setting expectations, reviewing progress, supporting and coaching team members, and developing teams. Experience of managing a team within a contact centre environment is not essential, but is usually desirable.

A successful track record in achieving success through managing the workload of others is important, including managing multiple tasks, taking ownership of issues and successfully seeing them through to resolution. We look for experience in planning and prioritising workload and resource to ensure that goals are reached, gained within a pressurised and deadline-driven environment.

Prior experience within a customer-focused or customer service environment is normally essential. We look for experience in dealing effectively and professionally with a range of customers, understanding their needs and delivering excellent service. We also look for experience in coaching and supporting others to put the customer first.

Team Managers are paid a competitive salary alongside an excellent benefits package including contributory pension after 3 months, BUPA medical cover, health cash plan, sharesave scheme, 20% staff discount after 3 months, a childcare vouchers scheme, and an employee assistance programme.

Sales & Service Manager

The purpose of this role is to deliver contact centre sales and service targets through the provision of a world class customer experience through highly professional, engaged people and teams. Managing a number of Team Managers and through them, a large number of Customer Service Representatives, this position sits at the forefront of the customer experience within Screwfix by influencing the quality of thousands of customer interactions every single week of the year.

The Sales & Service Managers are responsible for maximising sales opportunities from inbound and outbound calls, converting queries into sales, prompting substitutions and cross-selling, and driving up the average order value through an in-depth understanding of the customer needs of different customer profiles and groups. Working closely with the marketing team, you will develop and deliver cost effective marketing campaigns using the full capability of the tools and technologies available while delivering a tailored customer experience appropriate to each customer profile and in line with marketing segmentation activity.

Through strong leadership, the Sales & Service Managers create an environment which encourages the best possible performance from everybody, by working with the Team Managers to drive the right behaviours in the whole Contact Centre population and managing the development of employees through the various stages of the contact centre career path. Actively seeking out examples of best practice within the industry and looking to apply learnings where appropriate is another important factor of the role.

To secure a position as a Sales & Service Manager, you would need to have substantial experience as a Senior Manager within contact centres with a "sales through service" mindset, together with a comprehensive understanding of current legislation and DMA guidelines appropriate to contact centres, and the storage/transmission of call data to third parties. An understanding of account management and how it is handled throughout the lifetime of a customer, and a strong grasp of the dynamics of the sales cycle are key. Also important is an overview of how contact centre technologies, including ACD, CTI, speech recognition software, dialler and call recording systems work and how they can be used to increase sales and service opportunities, adding to the total customer experience.

The ability to build effective relationships across the business with Team Managers, Heads of Department, Directors, training teams and HR Business Partners is normally vital, as is extensive experience of people management within a contact centre environment, including strategic goal setting, performance management and coaching.

Sales & Service Managers are paid a competitive salary alongside an excellent benefits package including discretionary bonus based on company performance, contributory pension after 3 months, BUPA medical cover, health cash plan, sharesave scheme, 20% staff discount after 3 months, a childcare vouchers scheme, and an employee assistance programme.

Forecasting, Resource Planning & MIS Manager

These positions focus on ensuring that the Contact Centre has the right resources in place to effectively manage demand at all times, balancing the need to give excellent service to our customers and maximise sales with the need to ensure that resources are not wasted. It is a highly technical position encompassing a range of strategic project planning, data analysis and interpretation, budget forecasting, problem solving and solution provision aspects.

Working closely with the other members of the Contact Centre management structure, these roles are chiefly responsible for the production of all demand forecasting on both a short term and a long term basis, using historical data and management information to determine how many staff, with what experience and skills, we need working in our Contact Centre at any given time to deliver our service objectives while maintaining maximum efficiency. Taking into account the impact of business initiatives, new catalogue launches, new Trade Counter openings, marketing and promotional rollouts, targets and KPIs, external threats and long term strategic objectives, the forecasting team produce and continually adapt models which allow us to accurately predict what resources we need. It's all about getting the right people in the right place at the right time.

In addition, these positions are responsible for tracking the performance of the Contact Centre against targets, by collecting, collating and analysing huge amounts of complex data to create an understandable suite of reports for review throughout Screwfix's key decision maker population. The information gathered and presented during these activities enables us to drive continuous improvement in our processes and systems, and ensure that our Contact Centre operations remain at the very top of their game.

To secure a position as a Forecasting, Resource Planning & MIS Manager, you would need to have previous experience of working in a contact centre forecasting environment, and the proven ability to extract key findings from significant volumes of data, create commercially viable proposals and drive business wide actions. You would be required to have a good understanding of statistical analysis techniques and their commercial application, together with excellent organisational and time management skills. An advanced level of computer literacy, an expert level of Excel skills, good PowerPoint and Access skills, a proactive approach, and the ability to act under your own initiative are also important, as are strong communication skills and the ability to present to board level.

Forecasting, Resource Planning & MIS Managers are paid a competitive salary alongside an excellent benefits package including discretionary bonus based on company performance, contributory pension from 3 months, BUPA medical cover, health cash plan, sharesave scheme, 20% staff discount after 3 months, a childcare vouchers scheme, and an employee assistance programme.