She brings over 12 years’ sales operations experience to Nimans, the majority in management positions. Prior to joining Nimans she was Customer Services Leader with 02, responsible for eight team managers and 120 staff at its Bury location. She has also gained management experience with card manufacturer EGL, claims management specialist Centrus, insurance intermediary People’s Choice, the Co-operative Insurance Society and catalogue company, JD Williams with whom she started her career.
She has already embarked on an evaluation of Nimans’ existing operations and is restructuring staff into clearly defined teams. “Currently, whilst the team is split into three levels, there is an overlap between those who are reactively handling inbound calls and those that are pro-actively managing outbound calls. It will be much more efficient and further improve service levels for us to have two distinct teams dedicated to account management and inbound sales.”
She added that staff will benefit from new training and procedures such as call monitoring and feedback mechanisms, which will be designed to ensure consistent quality of service. Longer term she aims to work with the company’s IT department to introduce call routing systems which will automatically direct callers to staff with specific expertise in their area of interest. “As part of the review I am already examining how information is sourced to satisfy customers’ enquiries and orders to see if we can introduce system efficiencies. There may be better and quicker ways for us to respond to customers.”
Her appointment is part of a wider re-structuring of Nimans’ sales operations which has included Mr. Raines’ appointment. He has already embarked on a strategy which will enable Nimans to build on its dominant market position to complement its supply of product with wider solutions and is already looking at ways of extending its data and network services offerings. Mrs. Toman-Wilkes will support that strategic shift through restructuring and training initiatives.