Location: Grantham (Alma Park Industrial Estate)
Package: Basic salary up to £32,000 (dependent on experience) plus bonus/commission & excellent PLC benefits
Hours: Monday to Friday, between 8:00am and 5:00pm
Sector: Packaging Design & Manufacturing
Protecting what matters, together
At Macfarlane Packaging, we're dedicated to protecting what matters most – our people, our customers, our communities and the environment. Our commitment to customer satisfaction, sustainability and continual improvement creates a collaborative, supportive and friendly workplace where you can build a rewarding career.
With over 75 years of history, we combine the stability of an established business with the ambition and pace of a growing organisation. Our fast-paced, results-driven environment will challenge and stretch you, whilst providing genuine opportunities for personal and professional development.
We offer competitive rewards, flexible benefits and a culture that values teamwork, adaptability, customer focus and continuous improvement. If you're organised, commercially aware and take pride in delivering great customer service, we'd love to hear from you.
The Sales Administrator Role
Working within our Grantham design and manufacturing operation, you'll play a key role in supporting our customers and external sales colleagues, ensuring enquiries, quotations and orders are managed accurately and efficiently from initial contact through to fulfilment.
This is primarily a customer service and sales administration role, with a strong emphasis on processing orders, preparing quotations, maintaining accurate records and coordinating with internal teams to ensure customer requirements are delivered correctly and on time.
You'll act as an important link between customers and our Production, Procurement and Logistics teams, helping coordinate delivery arrangements, communicate expected delivery times, provide updates on delays or changes, and ensure customers remain informed throughout the order journey.
Whilst the immediate priority is providing first-class customer service and dependable sales administration, there will also be future opportunities to develop your commercial skills over time and become involved in more proactive activity, including upselling, cross-selling and outbound customer contact.
Key Responsibilities
- Manage day-to-day customer enquiries, primarily via email, responding accurately, promptly and professionally.
- Process customer orders accurately and efficiently, ensuring all relevant information is captured correctly.
- Prepare quotations and supporting documentation, following up as appropriate.
- Maintain accurate customer, order and sales information within Microsoft Dynamics and other internal systems.
- Coordinate closely with Production, Procurement and Logistics to ensure smooth and accurate order fulfilment.
- Help coordinate customer deliveries, including confirming delivery arrangements, providing updates and communicating any delays or changes.
- Support external Sales colleagues with customer communications, quotations, order updates and account administration.
- Monitor pending orders and customer requirements, proactively identifying and resolving potential issues.
- Manage sales administration across a portfolio of customer accounts, ensuring records and documentation remain accurate and up to date.
- Respond to telephone enquiries and communicate confidently with customers and colleagues when required.
- Resolve customer queries and issues promptly, taking ownership through to a satisfactory outcome.
- Follow up quotations and outstanding enquiries to support effective sales progression.
- Identify opportunities to increase customer spend through appropriate upselling and cross-selling as your knowledge and confidence develops.
What You Will Bring
We're looking for someone who is highly organised, detail-focused and customer-minded, with the ability to manage a varied workload accurately and efficiently within a busy commercial environment.
You'll ideally bring:
- Previous experience in customer service, sales administration, sales support or a similar coordination role.
- Strong administrative and organisational skills with excellent attention to detail.
- The ability to process information accurately and manage multiple orders, enquiries and priorities simultaneously.
- A proactive and dependable approach, with the ability to take ownership of tasks and follow them through to completion.
- Good written communication skills and confidence communicating professionally with customers and colleagues.
- A professional telephone manner and the confidence to handle verbal customer interaction when required.
- Good IT skills, including Microsoft Office and CRM systems.
- The ability to work collaboratively across different departments whilst also managing your own workload effectively.
- A commercially aware and customer-focused mindset, with an interest in developing your sales skills over time.
- The ability to remain calm and solutions-focused when managing delivery changes, customer queries or operational issues.
Experience within manufacturing, production, packaging or another industrial environment would be advantageous, as would previous experience using Microsoft Dynamics or similar CRM systems.
Please note that this is a wholly office-based role and, due to the location of our Grantham site, own transport is preferred.
What You Will Get
We provide a competitive salary alongside a range of rewarding bonus and incentive schemes. Our flexible employee benefits package can include:
- 25 days annual leave (rising to 27 days with service) plus all public/bank holidays
- Additional Holiday Purchasing Scheme
- Contributory pension scheme
- Free parking at most of our site locations
- Annual paid Volunteering Day
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Extensive training, development and progression opportunities
- Employee discount scheme across major retail and leisure brands
- Simply Health/Dental Cover option or BUPA cover for qualifying roles
- Enhanced family-friendly policies
- Long service awards
- Charitable giving options
- Financial support with eye tests and DSE glasses
- EE Mobile discount scheme
- Candidate referral scheme
Your Future With Us
At Macfarlane Packaging, we actively support career development and internal progression. This role provides an excellent foundation from which to build broader customer service, sales and commercial experience.
As your knowledge and confidence develop, there may be opportunities to take on greater responsibility across account development, internal sales or wider commercial roles. You'll be supported through structured training, mentoring and development opportunities to help you build your career with us.
How to Apply/Next Steps
All applications will be acknowledged. If you haven't heard from us within a fortnight, please assume your application was unsuccessful.
We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds irrespective of age, gender, disability, race, nationality, ethnicity, gender expression, religion or sexual orientation. Should you require any specific support or adjustments during the recruitment process, please email our recruitment team directly.
