Customer Service Executive

Base Location: London, Fleet Street

Employment Type: Full-time, Permanent, on-site

Salary: £24,000 – £25,000 DOE

Diamond Publishing is the consumer division of Metropolis International and publishes multi-award-winning titles including Cyclist, Cycling Electric, Fortean Times, Record Collector, and Viz. Serving readers in niche interests, our titles are often market leaders. They delight and entertain thousands of readers online and in print each month and at our events. Our brands are passion brands, with a loyal and engaged audience.

Overall Purpose of the Role: As a Customer Services Executive, you will make sure that the needs of customers are being met or exceeded. Your aim is to provide and promote excellent customer service to Diamond customers and subscribers, making sure that service standards are being met and problems are resolved. You will ensure that all subscribers are notified of their impending renewals, contribute towards retaining subscribers with a strong focus on subscriber retention targets, and assisting in the management of our stockists.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide help to customers using Diamond’s products or services.
• Communicate courteously with customers by telephone, email, letter and occasionally face-to-face.
• Investigate and solve customers’ problems, which may be complex or long-standing.
• Handle customer complaints or any major incidents.
• Issue refunds or compensation to customers.
• Analyse statistics or other data to determine the level of customer service Diamond is providing.
• Produce written information for customers.
• Meet with other managers/Brand teams to discuss possible improvements to customer service.
• Deliver a high standard of customer service.
• Learn about Diamond’s products or services and keep up to date with changes.
• Ensure customers are reminded in a timely manner of their forthcoming renewal.
• Ensure accurate customer data input.
• Process customer renewals.
• Provide accurate reports to management on payments and orders.
• Liaise with the subs bureau and fulfillment center.
• Input sales orders and manage stockist delivery.
• Provide reports on the effectiveness of campaigns and renewal retention.

Skills and Experience:

• Communication skills that allow you to inform, help, and advise customers clearly and to liaise effectively with colleagues.
• Listening skills, to understand exactly what customers require.
• Problem-solving skills.
• Confidence, patience, politeness, tact, and diplomacy when dealing with difficult situations.
• Creative thinking, to be able to come up with new ideas to improve customer service standards.
• An ability to work well under pressure.
• A commitment to improve your customer service skills on an ongoing basis.

Core Competencies:

• Excellent organisational skills, quick thinker, problem solver, and able to work calmly under pressure.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Innovative and able to develop, and support new and improved methods, products, procedures, and technologies.
• Collaborative team player, both internally and externally.
• Confident in MS Excel.

Personal Attributes:

• Customer-orientated mindset.
• Ability to communicate and form working relationships with colleagues at all levels.
• Resourceful and purposeful, with initiative, drive, and a strong desire to deliver exceptional results.
• Able to work as a team as well as individually.
• Confident and polite phone manner.

What we offer:

Learning & Development: At emap, we believe that employee learning and development are the key drivers of our success. To ensure continuous growth and meet the ever-changing demands of the workplace, we provide an environment that fosters continuous development for our employees. Our employees are encouraged to identify their areas of personal and professional development aligned with our strategic areas, including management development, health, safety & wellbeing, sales, events management, marketing strategy, editorial, and information technology. We have a structured framework designed to help equip our employees with the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours to excel in their job roles, contributing to achieving our organisational objectives. To support our employees’ career development, we have designed specialized programs, as well as other stand-alone role-specific and generic courses, under the emap academy.

Benefits: emap is part of Metropolis Group. Together we are committed to providing a happy and healthy place to work, so we offer fantastic benefits and perks to our employees:

• 25 days of annual leave, with the option to buy or sell additional days.
• One additional day of leave per year - Celebration Day.
• Health plan.
• Life assurance.
• Private virtual GP access.
• Seasonal flu jabs available at the office.
• Continuous learning & development opportunities.
• In-house Excellence Awards and other innovation projects.
• Cycle-to-work scheme.
• Discounted gym memberships.
• Retail discount vouchers.
• Rail season ticket loans.
• Pension scheme.
• One paid volunteer day per year.
• Annual Summer & Winter Celebrations.
• Income protection and more.

Privacy: Metropolis Group respects the privacy of every person for whom we have personal data. We comply with data protection legislation such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation which regulates the processing of data and ensures that your data is processed fairly and lawfully, is kept secure and only that data necessary for any processing is kept.

Diversity and Inclusion: We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, age, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity, marriage and civil partnership, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or disability status.

How to apply: Please submit your CV and covering letter. Due to the volume of applications, we receive, we are unable to give individual feedback at the application stage, however if you are successfully shortlisted you will be contacted within 10 working days of your application.