Transforming Contact Centre Recruitment Through Insight, Partnership & Precision

Client: Leading UK fashion retailer (Contact Centre Operations)
Optima Lead Consultant: Emma Wildbore. Senior Contact Centre Recruitment Consultant
Project Type: Hard-to-fill roles, bulk hiring, ongoing partnership

The client is a well-established UK fashion retailer with 800+ employees, generating £300 million in annual turnover, and operating across both the UK and Europe. At the time of engagement, their contact centre comprised around 50 staff, with plans to grow headcount by 50% to meet rising customer demand. This growth ambition, combined with challenging attraction conditions and high turnover, placed significant pressure on their existing recruitment model.

With pressures mounting, they needed a recruitment partner who understood the market, could refine the brief, and deliver high-quality candidates at pace. What follows is how we approached it and the results achieved.

The Situation

The client’s call centre was under heavy strain. They faced:

• Hard-to-fill advisor and team manager roles with strict experience requirements
• Non-competitive salary positioning and little understanding of what the market would respond to
• High turnover and poor staff retention, creating constant backfill pressure
• Urgent need for bulk recruitment to stabilise performance across multiple call centre divisions

Traditional recruitment routes were failing. They were receiving unsuitable applicants, slow pipelines, and candidates with minimal or no relevant experience resulting in long training cycles and early attrition.

They needed a partner who could give them real market insight, increase candidate quality, and help them hire at pace without losing control of the process.

Our Approach

Emma at Optima delivered a structured, insight-led solution that changed the client’s entire recruitment model.

Real-Time Market Research & Salary Insights

We analysed competitor salary bands, candidate supply, local demand, and experience-level expectations.
This allowed the client to adjust their job specs and salary positioning intelligently, not guess.

This insight became the foundation for trust the client recognised Optima’s ability to bring data, not opinions.

Redesigning the Job Specification

Working closely with hiring managers, we fine-tuned:

• Competency requirements
• Experience levels
• Behavioural markers
• Training considerations
• Salary alignment

This ensured the proposition was competitive and realistic.

High-Quality Candidate Sourcing

Optima sourced more candidates than required so the client had genuine choice and control.
Every candidate was:

• Pre-interviewed face-to-face
• Assessed against strict competency and experience criteria
• Evaluated for division-specific fit

Running a Fast, Efficient Bulk Recruitment Process

For the initial intake of 12 Customer Service Advisors, Optima handled everything from candidate generation to on-site open days.

Time from start to finish: 3 weeks.

Expanding the Partnership

After the success of the first project, the client asked Optima to recruit:

• A Team Manager
• Additional Customer Service Advisors across multiple divisions, each with different criteria

Optima became their sole recruitment partner for call centre hiring.

The Results

• 12 Advisors recruited in 3 weeks including fine-tuning the spec, sourcing, screening, and running the open day
• High retention rates due to improved job spec, realistic profile, and better-quality hires
• Higher candidate quality reducing training time and increasing speed-to-competence
• Full trust partnership the client appointed Optima as their sole agency for call centre recruitment
• Better salary strategy based on real data rather than guesswork
• Stronger internal confidence consistent communication kept HR and managers fully in control

What the client said

“We were impressed with the quality of the candidates. We’re used to agencies sending people with no experience, but Optima found candidates who had done the job before, so they trained quickly and fitted straight in.”

“Communication is always clear and honest. We’ve been in the loop at all times, which gave us a real sense of control.”

Why It Worked

• Insight first, recruitment second market data shaped decisions
• Clear, honest communication throughout
• Exceptional candidate quality
• Fast delivery without compromising standards
• Consistency Optima became an extension of their internal team

Get in touch to start the conversation 0116 3033560.