About me

In-house, provider, outbound

I started in 2002 on the phone at an electronics online shop, then moved into team leadership and running an operation. Since then I have been responsible for customer service in three roles, and each came down to the same question: how does a request reliably reach a result, and what does it cost.

In-house, I built and led teams: the country teams of an international fashion retailer, and a university service center that became the first point of contact for three departments. On the provider side I built sites and ran operations with up to 350 staff. As the client I managed up to 370 seats across several providers, wrote tenders and selected partners from Brazil to North America.

In recent years the focus has been outbound. For an education provider I brought lead qualification back in-house from external providers; afterwards three times as many consultations were booked. At a university I built an outbound unit with its own dialer, and conversion rose by 80 percent.

That is why I read a tender the way the provider reads it, and a call script the way the agent reads it. Both help when things get stuck.

What shaped me

Four years as an agent on the phone before I ever steered a call. A site I built from nothing, where the furniture was the smallest problem. A scorecard I introduced against considerable scepticism, which in the end convinced the people who had been against it. And a team from nine countries in which “a quick reply” meant five different things depending on who you asked.

I grew up mostly in Berlin and studied in Potsdam, economics and law. I lived in Düsseldorf for four years and in Munich for one.

Languages and certification

German and English at working level, both used in multilingual teams. COPC Registered Coordinator since 2015, and I saw one recertification through as the person responsible.