Customer Service Manager

Job Title: Customer Service Manager

Location: South Africa

Work Level: 2A

**MAIN JOB PURPOSE**:
We are looking for a **Customer Experience Manager **who will be responsible to ensure a superior customer experience through proactive communication and collaboration to cultivate strategic partnerships. Key is seeking continuous improvement opportunities through KPI monitoring and action plan implementation, in order to maximise supply reliability, ensure customer supply chain integration, and to drive joint cost savings initiatives.

The role demonstrates success in the leadership and management of customer operations, ensuring the highest standards of safety, the delivery of key service metrics, operational and financial performance.

The key purpose of this role is to ensure customer satisfaction through proactive communication and collaboration through assessing the customer experience from ordering, delivery to collection. Intent of this role is not to manage day-to-day operations but to monitor and collect insights to influence internal and customer policy to elevate efficiency of the processes.

**Main accountabilities**:

- Understanding the needs of retail customers through internal reviews and supporting the resulting strategies through proactively initiating actions for continuous improvement
- Delivery of key service outcomes for our customers (Inbound service levels + outbound service levels). Ensures that customer expectations are met and exceeded by managing and improving the process, developing, and implementing action plans and strategies to achieve customer KPIs
- Improvement in long term customer service metrics (Dispatch Rate, Claims completion times, Approval / Rejected ratios for various processes, no of escalations and time spent on escalations)

**Key Responsibilities**
- Optimizing of customer-related processes such as delivery routes, ordering behavior (cost to serve optimization) by independently initiating and managing improvement measures and projects with customers and internal experts.
- Integrating new customers and channels into existing processes in close alignment with CD
- Evaluating logistics efficiency and cost deriving from ordering behavior and initiating and executing improvement actions
- Providing insights to the customer in terms of operational performance derived from data analytics and proposing new policy/policy revision to the customer.
- Monitors operating metrics - overseeing that the day to day is running effectively and efficiently with primary focus being on continuous improvement.
- Managing recalls (control/support for shipping communication, monitoring of quantities & costs
- Key point of contact to partner with CD on Customer trading term agreements
- Improve Forecast alignment by collaborating with customers and influence a forecast lock longer than current
- Coach team members to continually working to deliver best outcomes for both Unilever and Customers
- Create effective communication strategies with customers and internal stakeholders
- Excellent analytical, planning & problem-solving skills, and proven ability to develop and deliver executable actions to drive improvements
- Leads & participates in continuous improvement and transformation projects across supply chain; with key focus on customer collaboration, planning, optimizing data & automation

**EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS NEEDED**:

- Relevant Degree
- 5-10 years' experience in a similar role

Standards of Leadership Required in This Role:

- Personal Mastery
- Agility
- Passion for High Performance
- Business Acumen

**Key Skills Required**

**Professional Skills**
- Stakeholder management
- Analytical skills
- Communication skills
- People Management

**KEY INTERFACES**:

- Customer
- Demand Fulfilment Manager
- National Account Managers
- CBD Directors
- Customer Planner
- Customer Facing Specialist
- Claims Specialist
- Fulfil Team Lead
- Contract-to-Cash Team Lead