Louise Goldsmith, Leader of West Sussex County Council joined TLC staff, including former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, Sales Director at The Listening Company, and several other County Council cabinet members to mark the occasion.

TLC will manage calls relating to a range of services across the council including social care, highways and library renewals with staff acting as the first point of enquiry for citizens calling the council.

Neville Upton, CEO, The Listening Company said: “I am delighted that we have been selected to deliver contact centre services on behalf of West Sussex County Council.  We are committed to delivering excellent customer service which will bring benefits for the Council and local communities across the County. The decision to appoint TLC reflects our strong track record for innovation in the delivery of high quality and efficient services for our customers across the UK.”

Michael Brown, Cabinet Member for Finance, West Sussex County Council said: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome The Listening Company to West Sussex. They have an excellent reputation in the Public Services industry having delivered services on behalf of a wide range of public sector organisations. They are renowned for both their deployment of cutting-edge technologies and their innovative people practices. We expect contact centre staff to thrive under their stewardship and for the people of West Sussex to experience excellent customer service.”

Representatives from a range of industries will attend the ceremony at the Sofitel Hotel, Heathrow of Friday 8^th July to celebrate excellence in customer service.

The new contact centre, which is due to open in August, will be located at Hodge House on St Mary Street and will be operated by The Listening Company (TLC), which was acquired by Serco in March this year.  The company will embark on a major recruitment drive for inbound sales, customer support and administrative staff. 

The centre will become TLC’s ninth major UK site and its first in Wales. Recent growth within the company’s existing accounts as well as from new customers has prompted the opening of the new facility. The business has existing centres in Portsmouth, Manchester, Newcastle, Tonbridge, London, Glasgow and Brora (Scotland) from where it serves a range of clients including Sky, O2 and Peugeot.

Neville Upton, CEO, The Listening Company said: “We’re delighted that the growth in our business has provided us with the opportunity to establish ourselves in such a vibrant city centre. Not only does this move enable us to enhance our geographical spread and build on our relationships with key clients, it will lead to the creation of a number of exciting job opportunities and we expect to grow the business in the coming months and years.”

For more information on development opportunities and job vacancies at The Listening Company please email cardiffrecruitment@listening.co.uk or phone 0845 855 9000 (opt. 6). The organisation is looking for people to fill vacancies in HR, recruitment, training, IT, back office admin and inbound customer service. 

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In the Press…

The customer communications outsourcer, which became part of Serco in March, will field calls including those relating to social care, highways and library renewal.

The outsourcer is set to assume control of the West Sussex contact centre at the beginning of July. The centre currently handles over 800,000 calls a year and is the first point of enquiry for people calling the Council.

Neville Upton, CEO, The Listening Company said: “This is a great win for us and further proof of our commitment to expand our service offering in the Public Services sector following our recent acquisition. In time, we hope to enhance West Sussex’s contact centre capabilities and introduce new channels to help them deliver more complex services.”

TLC employees Jigar Patel and Eddie Selmi were voted Outsourced Sales Agent of the Year and Outsourced Chat Team Manager of the Year respectively. Nationwide was crowned Industry Innovation of the Year with BT winning Innovation of the year, another boost for The Listening Company, who manage operational delivery for both of these activities.

The ceremony took place at the Mint Hotel, Tower Hill and was attended by delegates across LivePerson’s European customer base. 

The awards, which were established in 2007, celebrate the achievements of large scale Enterprise and SME organisations across EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa)

Dave Rumble, Director, The Listening Company said: “We always strive to develop innovative customer solutions and drive improvements in webchat in order to deliver against our client’s expectations. We’ve all worked incredibly hard over the last 12 months so it’s extremely gratifying to be recognised for our achievements.”

Jason Estella, Client Delivery Director, The Listening Company said: “This is a testament to the great team of people we have across our webchat channel, from our agents, our support functions, through to day to day operational management. They have all pulled together to achieve our clients business objectives and in doing so, secured longevity and growth in a competitive market place.”

15 March 2011

Serco Group has bought The Listening Company (TLC) for a deal worth up to more than £55million.

The international service company purchased TLC – a customer contact centre outsourcer – for £42.1m, which includes the repayment of £16.4m of debt.

There will also be payments of up to £13.8m, conditional on the financial performance in the two-year period from 1 March 2011 to the end of February 2013.

TLC employees around 4,000 in 8 UK locations and manages more than 60 million calls for clients in the media, retail, telecommunications, financial services, automotive and public sectors among others.

Serco said the deal would strengthen its capability to deliver high volume call handling and frontline customer services as well as help deliver local authority transformation programmes and improve its market position for private sector work.

TLC will be integrated in to Serco’s local government and commercial division. Serco works with national and local government in areas of public service, including health, education, transport, science and defence.

Christopher Hyman, Serco chief executive said: “This acquisition takes us to a new level of contact centre operation, expanding the services we offer to both the private and public sector as they seek to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their contact centre operations.

“It will not only enhance our offering in bids for local authority transformation programmes, an important part of their solution to the challenges in the UK, but also strengthen our private sector capability.”

Neville Upton of The Listening Company said: “We are delighted to be joining Serco. We have been on an exciting journey over the last 13 years to build the most trusted business in our sector, delivering for our clients and inspiring our people. We are proud that Serco chose us as the best fit in the industry, and look forward to putting our all energy into the next stage of our journey as part of the Serco family.”

Click here to go to the Call Centre Focus website.

Serco Group plc (Serco) today announces that it has acquired The Listening Company, a UK based provider of outsourced customer contact centre services to both private and public sector organisations, for an initial cash consideration of £42.1m which includes the repayment of £16.4m of debt. In addition, contingent payments of up to £13.8m are payable, conditional on the financial performance in the two year period from 1 March 2011 to the end of February 2013.

The Listening Company, an award-winning outsourcer, specialises in bespoke solutions for managing customer interaction ranging from customer acquisition to retention, renewal and growth and including advice and service. It operates across multiple communication channels including email, telephone and internet.

This acquisition adds significant contact centre expertise to Serco’s current capabilities offered in the growing markets in local government and the private sector. The Listening Company’s scale and expertise will strengthen our capability to deliver high volume call handling and frontline customer
services. This capability will allow us to promote easier access to front line services as well as encouraging the migration to the use of lower cost channels, which will be a key component of our future proposition. We expect this to enhance our capability to deliver local authority transformation programmes and also to improve our market position for private sector work.

The Listening Company’s revenue for the year to 31 October 2010 is expected to be £82m with underlying operating profit of £4.4m before one-off investment. Following full integration into our Local Government & Commercial division, we expect The Listening Company’s operating margin to be at least in line with the Group’s.

Christopher Hyman, Chief Executive of Serco Group plc, said: “This acquisition takes us to a new level of contact centre operation, expanding the services we offer to both the private and public sector as they seek to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their contact centre operations. It will not only enhance our offering in bids for local authority transformation programmes, an important part of their solution to the challenges in the UK, but also strengthen our private sector capability.”

Click here to read the full article on telegraph.co.uk.