New city, new brand: recruiting for Cardiff’s new fintech contact centre
How Jomo People partnered with Capital on Tap, one of the fastest growing companies in the UK, to help build its contact centre.
Customer Operatives Placed
Average time to hire
%
Of the Original Cohort Promoted
Capital on Tap is a small but mighty fintech business with offices in Cardiff, London and the US. It’s a relatively new brand on the scene, with a strong commitment to delivering an amazing experience for its customers and its 150+ employees.
Oh, and did we mention they’re also one of the fastest growing companies in the UK?
Pretty exciting, eh?
One way to achieve this was to create a new contact centre of customer agents in Cardiff, ready to support their customer base and next stage of growth.
The project, headed up by Senior Talent Partner, Fay Pantry, saw the need to source, appoint and set up a team of around 30 customer agents, and deliver a monthly flow of candidates over a ten month period.
BUT… there was a challenge ahead.
Actually, make that two challenges:
– They had virtually no employer brand presence in Wales.
– They needed candidates who live and breathe their values starting work within pretty tight deadlines, ensuring customer support remained seamless.
An impossible task?
Not when you’ve got Jomo People on the case.
Here’s what happened over the course of the project:
how Capital on Tap found its way to position itself as an employer of choice, and how Jomo People’s commitment to quality means that every hire from the original cohort is still working at Capital on Tap today.
Challenge 1:
Attracting contact centre talent for an employer brand not many people had heard of… (yet)
Capital on Tap was established in 2012 and built its core team in its London offices. In 2020, the decision was made to set up a new contact centre to help support its growth.
After researching potential cities to establish the home for its first contact centre dedicated to customer service, Cardiff was chosen as the best place to set up camp.
But how do you get this talent aware and interested in the Capital on Tap brand, especially in a market with big brands competing for the best people?
Remember this was a super time-sensitive project, so Fay and the HR/recruitment team needed to partner with experts who knew the South Wales contact centre market like the back of their hand.
(Spoiler alert: that’s us!)
Jomo People was selected for our knowledge of the market and speedy service.
We knew Capital on Tap didn’t have a big employer brand at this point, but what they offered – and still offer – is a genuinely attractive place to really develop a career in fintech and customer support. ”
“Jomo People has developed some fantastic relationships within the contact centre community which means we were easily able to identify candidates who we felt would really get the Capital on Tap employee proposition.
We’d then qualify these potential candidates by talking to them about the benefits or directing them to supporting tools like their Instagram page that really gives an insight into who they are”.
Results:
26 customer operatives placed – hiring 5-6 people every 2-4 weeks
100% of CVs put forward were accepted by Capital on Tap and progressed to second-stage interview.
Challenge 2:
Recruiting candidates who fit your values and meet project timelines
Working in a high-growth fintech business which is scaling requires you to really maintain the pace.
Fay tells us that timelines were tight. At the project’s peak, they were recruiting for over ten new hires every month to keep up with the growth of the company.
Naturally, whilst they were finding their feet Capital on Tap used a selection of recruitment sources, including their own direct resourcing, to attract candidates.
As Jomo People proved themselves, we quickly became the main provider on the project. The early results spoke for themselves, with the CV to interview to offer rate being the most successful.
Reducing the time to hire
Meeting deadlines is important but not to the point where Capital on Tap would sacrifice the type of candidate coming through.
“Culture is so important to us as are our values. We live and breathe them, and by doing so, can deliver a great service to our customers” said Fay.
“I don’t know how they do it but all candidates that come through fit our values. Jomo People matches our energy and drive, they get results”.
(But seriously, how do Jomo People do it?)
Cardiff is home to one of the most talented contact centre markets for talent. We make sure we develop good relationships with our candidates and manage their expectations effectively.
“Like any resourcing projects, there are busy periods and quiet periods as things settle” said Sarah. “We would make sure to manage all communication, keeping the candidates aware of what was going on at all times. The candidates loved our transparency, and as a result we saw an increase in placement rate”.
What was the end result of this engagement?
We were able to significantly reduce their time to hire over the project. The CV > interview > offer > start date took just two weeks.
Conclusion
What’s next for Jomo People and Capital on Tap?
We’re in it for the long game (and so are our placed candidates!)
Commenting on the process, Fay said: “They genuinely are an extension of our team. They just get what a great candidate is. I don’t need to spend time checking the CVs they send through to me, I trust them to do the job and the results speak for themselves.
The Cardiff contact centre is up and running, and has an amazing team powering it, thanks to Jomo People. This means it has freed me up to support the business in other areas, and increase the visibility of the People team”.
And the icing on the cake?