From advisor to leader
Lucy's Bupa journey

10 years is a long time to stay with a company, what have you done in your time here?

I started my journey at Bupa like most in our teams, on the phone. My first role was as a Provider Services Advisor speaking to consultants rather than customers, helping them with claims and updating their details etc. It was a varied role and I really learnt a lot during those initial months such as the out of contract process, I got exposure to complaints and really broadened my understanding of the regulatory requirements of the role. 

I’m a firm believer in embracing opportunity, so after 18 months I got a chance to be involved in the beginnings of the care support team which looked after high-cost claims, complex care cases in hospitals and a variety of other cases. Then again, after about another 18 months I was lucky enough to get a secondment to the Service Team Manager (STM) role for this area and after a while I was made permanent.

After 2 years though I wanted a new challenge, so I moved over to another area as a STM, working on one of our larger corporate contacts and getting involved more with the member side of the business and our customers directly. It broadened my understanding of how we interacted with our customers which really helped me when I went back to my old team in Provider Services as the Customer Service Manager for that area. It was great being back on familiar ground as I knew the ins and outs of how everything worked, and I really liked working alongside some familiar faces. During the 2 years I was in this role I also became Customer Service Manager for another one of our large corporate contracts, so I was a bit busy, but I really enjoyed wearing two hats!

After this I got the role I’m in now, so in 2019 I stepped up into the role of Customer Contact Enabling lead, which is all about looking after the first part of our Customer Service Advisors’ journey and making their first 6 months with Bupa the best it can be.

You’ve been at Bupa for a long time, what made you stay?

When I worked as an Advisor, right near the start of my career, the Customer Contact Director at the time came for a walk through the floor and he was talking about how he didn’t go to university. He came to Bupa and made a career for himself by taking every opportunity he was offered. I didn’t go to university either, so at the time I was worried what this would mean for my career, but I could see at Bupa that doesn’t really matter, I was able to progress based on my experience and work ethic.

I like to challenge myself and at Bupa there’s always opportunities to learn something new. When opportunities came up, I worked with my managers to help me progress, and they were really supportive. I feel like I was rather ambitious early on and my mangers recognised that and helped give me the tools and support I needed to take those steps.

Looking back, do you have a favourite role?

This is difficult to answer, maybe the roles within the Providers team. It was really busy and challenging, in a good way. There was a lot of variety there. I did like being on the phone as well. I used to jump on even when I was a Customer Services Manager because we’re all one big team at the end of the day. If I had to pick a certain role, I’d say Service Team Manager. You’re still close enough to the customers to have an impact and help them, but you can also drive forward processes to make things better for the customers as well.  As you get more senior you don’t see as much of the day to day, but at this level you’ve almost got the best of both worlds.

You’ve been in your current role since 2019, can you tell us a bit more about it?

It’s looking at the early stages of our Customer Services Advisors’ careers, so inductions, getting the right number of people in and really making the start of their journey special. That means making everyone feel welcome when they join, that they get all the training they need to succeed in the role and they’re aware of all our benefits. It’s also being there for people as well; starting any new job can be daunting so it’s supporting people if they’ve had a wobble or a bad day and easing that transition into the business.

We want to see each of our colleagues do their very best and enjoy working here so we’ll always try and put people into teams they’ve expressed an interest in and give them guidance should they want to progress. Most don’t realise the range of opportunities we have here at Bupa, I know I didn’t right at the start and look where I am now!