Sales Lead - Outbound Contact Centre

The Economist is a leading source of analysis on international business and world affairs. We deliver our information through a range of formats, from digital and print to shows and videos. What ties us together is the objectivity of our opinion, the originality of our insight and our advocacy of economic and political freedom around the world.

As the Sales and Retention Lead, Customer Engagement Centres, your role sits within The Economist's Sales Team, and is focused on delivering customer retention activity through our outsourced contact centre partner. This is a client-side vendor management role which will include spending regular time on site at the contact centre site(s). The sales activity consists of inbound telephone and live chat, plus outbound calling campaigns. You will play a key role by leading the outbound activity, also with involvement in supporting the inbound activity. As the Sales and Retention Lead, Customer Engagement Centres you will proactively collaborate on a range of activities to drive excellence in both sales performance and quality, including areas such as review of results, customer contacts, scripting and training materials - making suggestions and developing new initiatives, as well as completing checks and monitoring.

About the role

Our hybrid working policy allows colleagues to spend three days a week in the office and two days working from home. Out of the three days in the office, you can either spend these in our London office (with regular visits to our contact centre sites) or spend two days based in our partner’s Derby site and one day in our London office (Thursdays).

How you will contribute:

• Lead the successful delivery of the outbound telemarketing sales activity
• Develop and deliver new testing and activity to support the outbound strategy
• Achieve agreed targets by proactively driving sales performance and quality assurance through the OBTM channel
• Lead daily calls with outsourced contact centre, providing guidance and feedback around performance metrics and identifying areas of best practice and improvement
• Ensure activity delivered by outsource partner is aligned to standards in all aspects of operational delivery, including targets, process and quality requirements
• Support inbound sales channel as required
• Use reporting and data to analyse and drive performance
• Manage the quality process and ensure our contact centre partner is fully calibrated with requirements
• Spend regular time on site at outsourced contact centre(s) to support and drive sales and quality performance
• Get involved with ad hoc projects which relate to the goals of the Sales team, for example - reporting development, systems improvements and deep dives on key themes

The ideal skills for this role are:

• Working knowledge and proven success in the delivery of outbound sales campaigns
• Expertise in influencing and managing all OBTM levers
• Ability to set up new tests and campaigns and associated processes, reporting and training
• Successful candidates are those who are able to demonstrate previous work experience within a contact centre environment (either in-house or outsourced) and indicate such experience on their resume
• Sales-driven mindset and enjoys achieving targets
• Direct experience of working in a sales / retention team within a contact centre
• Working knowledge of delivering sales activity to the standards of a quality assurance programme within a contact centre setting
• Vendor management experience (preferable)
• Understands and implements an appropriate balance between sales and quality
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• High level of attention to detail
• Coaching and performance management skills
• Proactive with a sense of urgency
• Self-motivated driven to succeed

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