As part of Reach Plc, funeral-notices.co.uk have been publishing notices in local newspapers for over 100 years. With 34 years experience in the industry, Darren Minns has witnessed many changes in that time.
Darren began his career at the Hull Daily Mail after leaving school and has enjoyed every day over the last 34 years. His career began by taking a funeral notice over the phone on his first day and has progressed with the company ever since. Darren is now the Contact Centre Director overseeing Funeral Notices, Public Notices and Customer Subscriptions (print and digital) for Reach PLC.
A keen gardener, Darren enjoys spending sunny evenings and weekends in his garden. He also enjoys spending time with his family and taking their two Cocker-poos on long walks in the countryside.
Before the pandemic, the Contact Centre worked out of an office
The Contact Centre handles hundreds of inbound and outbound calls every day. Originally based out of the Hull Daily Mail offices in Hull, Darren oversaw the sometimes difficult transition to working from home during the pandemic. After making a success of working from home, Darren advocated for the team to continue to work from home on a permanent basis, helping to keep everyone safe and comfortable.
Darren manages a team of 68 people over three departments. One looks after public and legal notices, handling inbound and outbound bookings, queries and looking after key accounts. A second team is responsible for funeral notices, helping over 2,400 Funeral Directors to book notices in over 100 regional newspapers and online at funeral-notices.co.uk. A third team looks after private customers who wish to place a notice in a paper and online. This team also deals with customer subscriptions for 100s of Reach Plc print and digital products. Each department has its own Team Manager whom Darren describes as 'a superb support' to him.
The Contact Centre's objective is to: 'Strive to exceed customer expectations whilst always looking for further process improvements or innovative solutions to support our customers.'
Darren prides himself on the professionalism and dedication of his team as a whole, often working with people in some of their darkest moments, the team are compassionate and genuinely caring. During the pandemic it was 'all hands on deck' to ensure his team were available to answer every call they were presented with and help Funeral Directors and the general public navigate through unprecedented times. That relentless team effort lead to the Contact Centre being recognised across Reach Plc as one of the best teams to work with and is something they are all very proud of.
Looking after funeral-notices.co.uk is one of the best parts of Darren's role, in particular seeing the beautiful, meaningful messages of love and support added to notices by friends and family. Darren said:
"Funeral Notices helps people every day by providing a lovely tribute page for family, relatives, friends, work colleagues to add their memories of their loved one".
Funeral-notices also provides a professional service to Funeral Directors, providing notices for their own websites. Darren says:
"We can easily provide Funeral Directors a place on their website that provides all the details for every funeral they are dealing with, that also provides online donations for any family or friend that cannot attend the funeral."
Speaking of his team, Darren added:
"I am proud of my team and their commitment to excellent customer services. Families are at the forefront of everything we do here and it is an honour to provide this vital service for them.
"Funeral-notices.co.uk is now the go-to place for people to discover who has passed away in their local area, I use it myself every day. My team and I are 100% committed to ensuring we continue to meet the needs of local communities throughout the UK."
Darren Minns will be at the National Funeral Exhibition in June. If you are in the industry, why not pop over and say hello?
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