John Lewis to cut 200 external customer service jobs at Foundever

Foundever handles the majority of John Lewis’ customer service with a team of 1,000, but this number is set to shrink by around 200 people.

Foundever has been the department store retailer’s partner for the past 17 years. John Lewis said it was trying to find jobs for the staff impacted but that some will face redundancies.

JLP also employs its own in-house customer service staff. It said that, following the changes, the overall customer service team would “return to the same size” as it was before Christmas.

The news arrives weeks after JLP revealed new turnaround plans to identify where it can cut costs. 

The retailer is expected to axe as many as 11,000 roles across its workforce over the next five years and has recently slashed redundancy pay.

In an internal memo seen by The Telegraph at the time of the announcement, JLP said: “Against all of our competing priorities for investment, it’s fair to say that the high cost of redundancy pay has been one of the things that have prevented us from moving as quickly as we’ve wanted to transform ourselves for the future, and has restricted our ability to invest more in pay.”

Speaking about the new job cuts, a spokesman for John Lewis said: “Customer service is incredibly important to us and our team is made up of both in-house partners and support from third parties.

“We’re constantly reviewing our model to make sure we continue to meet our customers’ needs. We’re working with Foundever to support their staff and offer alternative roles within our own business where we can.”

Foundever added: “All affected employees have been informed and we are now entering a 45-day consultation period, throughout which our priority is to engage with them directly while ensuring that the exceptional level of service that John Lewis customers expect will not be impacted by these changes.”