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From CallCentre UK website.
Posted August 30, 2012.
Sophie Patrikios, Senior Director Consumer Services, LEGO
Sophie Patrikios is Senior Director of Consumer Services at LEGO. She has taken
the multi-lingual, multi-skilled LEGO customer service operation to new heights
since joining in 1999. The division’s 200 staff handle more than 1.5million
contacts every year, all at an NPS of more than 84%. Sophie loves data
crunching, managing people, and...Quorn.
How did you get into customer service?
I had been a category manager for Mars Confectionery, Walt Disney Company and
then LEGO Group and in that process discovered that I liked managing people
almost as much as I liked data-crunching. Running a contact centre was the
logical collision of two passions.
And how did you end up in your current role?
I sat on an acorn and waited. I was the operational manager for our European
contact centre, then an EU Director position was created and I got it, then a
senior director position was created to take responsibility for customer service
globally and I got that too. Our company continues to grow and change so quickly
that even if I’d stayed in my original role it would be almost unrecognisable
now.
How has the industry changed since you’ve been involved in it?
There’s a lot more focus on NPS, a greater willingness to make the leap of faith
that service excellence will pay off even if you can’t prove it to your CFO and
a stronger conviction that to achieve service excellence you have to have happy
employees.
What is your greatest achievement?
Winning the European Call Centre Awards ‘Best Customer Service’ Award in 2007,
the same year that Richard Stollery won ‘Best Business Strategist’ after I
submitted a secret entry for him.
What is your biggest regret?
That I thought we wouldn’t win so I didn’t invite the whole team to the gala
dinner.
What is the best thing about your job?
The variety. Every sixty minutes I seem to need to activate a different part of
my brain, team up with a different group of people, focus on a different country
or product. And if I can sneak a second thing in, it’s no secret that I love the
fact that my job allows me to present to large audiences where I’m the only one
with a microphone and no-one is allowed to interrupt my monologue.
Who has had the greatest influence over your life or your career?
Richard Stollery, now Global CRM Director at Adidas. He chose me in the first
place even though I had no contact centre experience, he believed in me, pushed
me, and set a vision so compelling it was easy to deliver it for him.
Which companies do you admire and why?
I visited British Gas in Cardiff recently and was really impressed by the way
they have invested in their people and the clarity with which they can all tell
that story.
What do you do for fun?
I read voraciously and watch non-competitive cookery programmes (I like the
total absence of drama or even human interest).
Tell us one unusual thing about yourself.
Despite being a huge attention-seeker, I’m actually an introvert and after being
surrounded by people I have to go off on my own and re-charge. It’s why I love
my long drive home after work, it’s a chance to de-compress.
Name one thing you couldn’t live without.
Quorn. Really, how did vegetarians ever feed themselves before those beautiful
nuggets of laboratory grown goodness were invented?
What keeps you awake at night?
Pretty much everything! I don’t like being caught off guard, so most of the
night is spent contingency planning for every possible eventuality. I’m aware
that other people find spontaneity fun but to me, suddenly deciding to go to the
cinema is the thin end of the wedge...
www.callcentre.co.uk
-end of report-
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