Careers

David Nichol, Business Relationship Manager

“I am my own manager and it is up to me to achieve my targets and reach my goals.”

“When I come into work in the morning, the first thing I do is check my e-mails and voice mails to see if there is any new business, or if a customer needs help regarding their account. I will then break down my day into different types of calls: Outbound welcome calls; Resign calls; and Technical and information calls.

Outbound welcome calls are when I first contact the customer to introduce myself as the Business Account Manager. I ask about their requirements, how the business works, where the business is now and where they want it to be.

Resign calls are when we have contacted a customer previously and their account is up for renewal. We will arrange a tariff review, advise on the right handsets for the business and check if any other services could be of use, e.g. e-mail on the move or data cards for laptops. We would have already established trust and confidence with the decision maker so that they felt they could trust the solutions we may offer.

Technical calls are made when a customer is struggling with one of their O2 devices or services. We are able to offer advice on how to resolve problems quickly and effectively – which is crucial as customers are relying on our technology. If we don’t know how to resolve something we have specialists who can help.

I have targets to reach each month in order to receive commission:

• New business (new connections added onto my base)
• Disconnections
• Secondary connections (when people add data on to there voice tariff)
• Resigns (when customers agree to stay with us for at least another 12 months)

I am my own manager and it is up to me to achieve my targets and reach my goals – this is definitely a job where you get out of it what you put in. I can honestly say this is the best job I have had, especially as there’s is a great career path available through the business sector.

In the last five years, my career has progressed from select customer services, to select sales and consumer retention. I have always wanted to move over into the business sector within O2 as it was something that really appealed to me. So when the position arose within the BRM area, I applied. Everyone was very supportive of me progressing my career and helped me achieve my goal of becoming a Business Relationship Manager.

I now have a base of 800+ business customers who have between five and 25 mobiles on their account, which I have to manage. It means proactively contacting my base and gaining information relating to the business. Then, I have to come up with business solutions which will make the company more efficient and help improve their productivity. For example, if a customer says they communicate a lot with e-mail and they have engineers or sales people on the road, an e-mail on the move solution such as BlackBerry or Microsoft push would be ideal for them. You have to be able to adapt to change as technology is always advancing. In fact, in an ever-changing environment, the only one constant is change.”

Rebecca Tully, Business Sales Manager

“…all my friends told me O2 was a great brand with fantastic career opportunities. They were absolutely right.”

“The majority of my time is spent out on the road, visiting prospective customers. For me, that’s the best bit about my job – meeting new people, facing new challenges and finding ways for O2 to provide new solutions.

I work in East Anglia and I’m responsible for customers within a set geographical patch. I’ll visit organisations, talk to them about their needs, their frustrations and what O2 can offer. Conversations are around their businesses as a whole, rather than simply their mobile phone packages. Customers are sometimes amazed at the problems within their businesses which seem unrelated to mobile phones, which O2 can help them with. Once I’ve visited a company, I’ll work with our internal teams, and external partner companies to find solutions for the problems that I’ve identified.

Sometimes, solutions can be as simple as a company wide mobile phone package, but more regularly I become involved in more complex solutions, like helping businesses to place orders electronically, or capturing customer signatures once deliveries have been made. My role means that I get to know lots of different people within O2, from mobilisation specialists to finance and contract teams. Working with channel marketing is particularly fun, because we help them to put together campaigns, target customers and come up with incentives.

You receive loads of training for the job: you need to know about, and understand the products, the networks, and how to explain the benefits of O2 most effectively. The training is all essential to being able to do the job well, but one of the most important factors for success is that you have to be naturally motivated. There’s no point if you’re someone who likes to plod along. You need to be highly driven, adventurous and open to training if you want to take advantage of the career opportunities here.

Personally, I really like the excitement of full-on challenges and meeting targets. I also love working with the O2 brand. People get fed up with sales calls, but if you work for a major network with a popular brand like O2, you generally get a much warmer reception, as people know us, know our reputation and like to deal with us directly.

When I was thinking about joining O2, all my friends told me I should go for it, because it’s a great brand, with fantastic career opportunities. Two and half years down the line and I can say that they were absolutely right.”

Rachel Rimmington, Regional Sales Manager

“...O2 is like a speedboat, while certain competitors are more like oil tankers…”

“I manage six sales people and I can genuinely say that no days are the same – so it’s hard to tell you what a typical day’s like! For me, there’s a whole new set of challenges every time I come to work. It’s really varied and I have to go from motivating and performance managing my team, to reacting to changes in the market. That means channelling information back into O2. For instance, a competitor changing their offer might mean our Marketing department has to alter their proposition. And my team must be ready to deal with the situation as soon as possible. It’s a mix of short and long-term focus that means you have to think quickly, but also consider the future.

There’s a huge amount of internal support. We have a common vision which is communicated very well throughout the company, which makes it a great place to work. You are continually encouraged and there really is a very enthusiastic atmosphere. In fact, that’s part of the reason I chose to come to O2. I thought it had such a fresh, vibrant image within the industry, with great branding. I loved the ideas they had about being a number one employer as well as being number one in the market. It was such a contrast to certain other employers in the same industry: I sometimes tell people that O2 is like speedboat, while a lot of the competition are more like oil tankers: slow-moving, bureaucratic and corporate!

O2 have a real sense of work-life balance too. If you do well, you get rewarded, often in ways that benefit you outside work. For instance, we’ve got the ‘One Life’ awards, where your high performance can win you a weekend away with your partner. I went to Athens last year, but you can go to places like New York and Barcelona too.

For me, O2 is a fantastic place to work. It’s demanding, rewarding and I get real job satisfaction.”

Lawrence, Key Account Manager

“O2 is second to none in the way that you are encouraged and trusted to be responsible.”

“I’m based from home (not an O2 office), and manage five of O2’s largest and most profitable corporate accounts. Ultimately I am responsible for ensuring that we both retain and grow their business whilst developing a long-term strategic partnership. My role involves increasing primary and secondary connections in these accounts as well as revenue, while minimising disconnections.

I have worked for O2 for over five years and in that time, I’ve been promoted from Corporate Acquisition Manager to Major Account Manager and now to the Key role, which I have done for the last year. Although I typically work from home one day a week, I spend the rest of the time travelling extensively – visiting clients in the UK and internationally, and being involved in internal meetings. These could be with my own team or the wider virtual teams including Service Relationship Managers, Commercial Finance, Bid Management and my clients’ service teams. It is my responsibility to ensure that we are delivering and exceeding against my clients’ expectations of service, network performance and other metrics. Understanding my individual clients’ needs and communicating that to the wider O2 team to drive positive results is part of the challenge I really enjoy.

It is a cliché but a fact that no two days are the same in this job. I really appreciate the freedom of being able to manage my own diary. There are early starts and late finishes on a regular basis, but this is something that I personally prefer. I don’t like to be desk bound! I also appreciate the way that O2 trusts me to do my job and to do it well. I have worked for other organisation in numerous sales roles, and O2 is second to none in the way that you are encouraged and trusted to be responsible. If you do well, you are well rewarded.

As a result of this I was encouraged to enter the National Sales Awards in 2007 and achieved Highly Commended status for my Strategic Salesperson of the Year entry. I also passed Gold Accreditation of the Academy training. The Academy and the O2 Way is the training all Sales staff (and other departments) go through. They provide an extensive and invaluable framework in which to navigate complex accounts. This alone is something that I feel I have greatly benefited from.

Being an O2 Key Account Manager is a job that carries a high level of responsibility with a high level of autonomy. Working with your accounts in the manner you would run your own business is an apt way of describing what needs to be done to have the best possible success, and at O2 I am given the opportunity to do this.”