BSH Home Appliances - parent company of Bosch, Neff, Siemens and Gaggenau - has appointed Brendan Bulfin as head of customer services in the UK.

He succeeds Bernhard Vocke who held the post from 2002 to 2011 and has now moved to BSH head office in Munich to run all overseas customer service operations for the group.

For Mr Bulfin (pictured) the new role represents a return to BSH UK, which he originally joined in 2004 as national service manager with the responsibility of restructuring the UK service division.

He moved to California in 2008 as the company’s first director of service in the USA to create a new framework for customer service in North America.

Before joining BSH, he worked in both white goods and brown goods, for companies including Thorn EMI, Granada and DHL.

“In this economic climate, the service support behind the product is more important than ever,” said Mr Bulfin.  “Our customers have chosen our brands and that gives us a duty to ensure that their experience of our service is memorable for all the right reasons.

“We are constantly innovating to further improve our customer service.  We need to maximise every opportunity we have to get closer to our customers because that is the key to ensuring they come back to us in the future when they are purchasing anew.”

BSH Customer Service is the current holder (for the third consecutive year) of the TEQ customer service award for the best white goods service in the UK kitchen appliance industry.  The award is administered by insurer Domestic & General.