Date: January 16, 2020
Category: Blog
We’re kicking off our ‘Meet the Team’ feature with The Contact Company’s Audit, Risk and Compliance Coordinator, Leon Lonsdale…
I started at The Contact Company in January 2015, on a campaign in which customers would call up to request application forms; we would take their name and address, write it on an envelope and pop it in the post!
After receiving a high quality score each month, the Operations Manager at the time took the decision to make me a floor supervisor (or floorwalker, as it’s more commonly known) to aid colleagues with their calls, helping them answer queries and showing them where to find the information required.
The campaign was a temporary one, and at the beginning of April the contract came to an end and I was back answering calls on a different campaign- this time helping customers to manage their finances on a store credit card. This role was more to my liking, as finance and accounting was always something I’d been interested in whilst studying my degree.
I worked on the phone there for 29 weeks, passing 28 of my call qualities and achieving all targets. As a Customer Service Advisor, I had noticed several colleagues occasionally struggling to achieve their average handling time (AHT) target. I took it upon myself to go home and teach myself skills that would enable me to build a tool that would make note writing on the campaign a simpler task. Within a few weeks of this tool being shared amongst colleagues, the campaign AHT dropped and colleagues were achieving their targets. In the 30th week of my time on this campaign, I was promoted to Team Leader, on a secondment which I subsequently passed 3 months later.
I spent 2 years and 7 months as a Team Leader; in which time I had again self-trained myself to use Excel, building reports and tools for Team Leaders. This proved to be effective- such that the campaign achieved a strong ‘Green’ in their supplier assessments.
In March 2018, I successfully applied for a new role, GDPR Data Protection Administrator- the role requirements for which better suited the skills gained in my International Business & Mandarin degree. I have also since then moved in to my current role of Audit, Risk and Compliance Coordinator. In this role, I am responsible for the production of over 100 company policies, procedures and forms, as well as the design of several systems used around the business; including the Consent Tracking System and Whistleblowing system, with more planned! I also passed my driving test this past year, with the support of the company driving lessons via Al’s Driving School.
As a subject matter expert for Data Protection, I will this year be managing a company-wide project in which all data protection related documentation and systems will be revamped to a single integrated suite of documents and systems, to prepare the business for post-Brexit data protection.
What I enjoy and my skills are one and the same (in work):
Technical problem-solving and writing
Development of new procedures
Efficiency improvement of existing procedures
Planning, scoping and designing innovative systems
Seeing those systems become real after the hard work of the IT Developers
Reporting and data analysis
Being self-motivated, but also enjoying the balance we have here between that and taking instruction
Working to deadlines
What I enjoy outside of work:
I’m into tech, so I’m always looking for deals on the latest gadgets
Travel; either abroad or domestically, but mainly to places with a bit of history to see
Photography (of those historical sites!)
Learning! Yes, sounds boring, but I find a lot of things interesting and with my impulsive, addictive personality, if I’m interested in it I’ll teach myself everything I can about it
Mozzarella… on literally anything
Binge-watching box sets
