Operations Manager

As an Operations Manager, you will be responsible for the daily running and overall management and engagement of one of our Customer support departments. We're looking for a natural leader. Someone who people gravitate towards. As a senior leader you will enable, engage and motivate your teams to meet our key performance indicators. You will identify, plan, and deliver continuous improvements to the way our customer support services are delivered and exemplify quality, integrity, and expediency in daily client interactions. Acting as a role model you will uphold the contact centre's values around performance and delivery of the customer experience.

Reporting to the Head of Contact Centre Operations for First Rail, you will manage a cohort of agents through your team leaders, ensuring that they work to maximum capacity, efficiency, and accuracy to ensure the best possible customer experience for the Train Operating companies that we support. Industry experience isn't essential, you can learn that.

• Manage complex enquiries/ claims and ensure that issues are escalated appropriately and brought to a satisfactory resolution.
• Proactively identify and address customer issues to prevent them from developing into significant reputational risks.
• Prepare reports on performance levels and customer contact trends to support business planning.
• Set and achieve targets for measurables such as efficiency, service delivery and quality.
• Work collaboratively with peers and key stakeholders, particularly the Quality and Fraud Managers to gather information, share best practice and identify/ resolve issues.
• Build and develop the Operations team, providing coaching, training and feedback on a timely basis to maintain motivation and drive performance.
• Lead team meetings and briefing sessions to support the effective operation of the team, sharing knowledge, identifying training needs and process improvements.
• Ensure the team complies with relevant policies and procedures in order to mitigate business risk.
• Increase efficiencies and exercise due diligence in the delivery of customer support through upskilling the team and developing their capability to deal with complex client issues.
• Use systems and direct contact with business managers to understand and provide feedback on the root causes of customer complaints.
• Implement improvement actions identified through internal audit reports.
• Maintain up to date knowledge of industry developments and best practice, utilising external network groups and professional bodies.

A strong coach, able to provide constructive feedback, tailored as appropriate to the recipient. An energetic and proactive lead, who can set standards and motivate the team to achieve them. They will willingly share knowledge to upskill and develop others, be a self-starter with a drive for delivering an excellent customer experience. A proven ability to work on multiple tasks under pressure and to tight deadlines, without compromising quality of output and a strong commercial sense and business acumen.

• Broad background in contact centre - shared services operations and sales
• Credibility to operate and plan at management team level
• Understanding of how customer support centre operations provide business value to the rail service sector (Preferred)
• Experienced in leading large, operational teams and motivating them to deliver excellent results
• Sound knowledge of all areas of general management, including but not limited to budgeting, business planning, supplier and people management.
• Comfortable working with and translating operational and customer data
• Working knowledge of regulatory issues, particularly data protection (GDPR) would be beneficial
• Knowledge of customer relationship management systems (Salesforce) desirable
• Microsoft Technologies – Office 365, Teams etc

We're open 06:00 – 23:00, 7 days a week, but autonomy given around working hours, you make the decisions around how best to be there for your team, your colleagues and your customers.

First Rail is one of the UK's most experienced rail operators, carrying more than 345m passengers across four franchises (Great Western Railway, South Western Railway, TransPennine Express and Avanti West Coast) and our open access operator (Hull Trains and Lumo). We operate all types of passenger railways - intercity, commuter, regional and sleeper services.

We are continually seeking ways in which to improve the experience for our customers and the environment for our colleagues. Our modern Customer Contact Centre, based in Sheffield centre, will therefore use industry leading systems to deliver excellent customer service and ensure that customers are speedily and effectively supported.

Our Customer support teams are responsible for a variety of customer enquiries which range from passenger assistance to processing customer compensation claims to complaints handling and general enquiries. .