One of Europe’s biggest distributors of office supplies and equipment has moved its customer service department from South Africa to Leicester, creating 60 jobs – and it said more staff were needed. The new Viking customer service team will help customers in the UK and Ireland and complement a customer service centre in Oldham.
Viking, which employs about 1,500 people in Europe and has revenues of £426 million, said it made the move to improve the quality of the service it offered as part of a turnaround plan started in 2022. The business, which was acquired by the French-based RAJA Group in November 2021, sells everything from notebooks and office paper to printers, desks and cabinets to small, medium and large businesses in seven European countries.
UK and Ireland managing director Simon Allan-Brooks
“Viking’s customer service is now 100 per cent based in the UK. We believe this will quickly make a significant impact on the quality of our service.
“Bringing this critical function back in-house is part of our efforts to deliver first-class customer experience.”
The business said it was looking for commercially minded customer service representatives to reinforce the team and had also strengthened its management team with two appointments.
Peter d’Amery joins Viking as sales director UK and Ireland. He has more than 20 years in strategic sales and marketing roles, including working as sales director at Office Depot, which is part of the Viking group. Meanwhile, Julia Martin has been appointed senior manager customer service UK and Ireland.
