Great opportunity for an Operations Manager if you are numerate and a systems-minded manager. This is an operations role built on data and systems: you will own the numbers that show how the team is performing. If you are an operations Manager looking for a change then this could be for you.

The Job:

• Own the numbers for the customer team - conversion, contacts per booking, response and resolution times, average booking value, review scores - and build the analysis yourself rather than waiting to be handed it
• Be genuinely fluent in a spreadsheet and comfortable interrogating a report or a database: very little of what you need will arrive pre-packaged
• Own our CRM end to end - the data model, the pipelines, the fields, the automations and the reporting built on top of them. You are the person who makes the system work, not the person who raises a ticket about it
• Lead the implementation and ongoing configuration of the CRM alongside the technology team, including data migration, data quality and getting the team to actually use it
• Keep our mid-office and CRM records accurate enough that marketing, finance and product can rely on them without checking
• Design, document and implement the processes the team works to, and keep them current as the systems change around them
• Specify what the team needs from our own technology, bring the evidence for why it should be that and not something else, and test and sign off what gets built
• Report clearly and honestly on team and service performance at our weekly business review - the numbers, what sits behind them, and what you are doing about them
• Understand where the workload actually comes from - by brand, by day, by hour, by type of contact - and staff against the demand rather than against habit
• Build and run the rota: cover across our opening hours, peaks, weekends and absence, without carrying idle capacity in the quiet periods
• Own the customer experience end to end -from enquiry to return
• Take personal ownership of complaints and escalations, and handle the genuinely difficult cases yourself
• Set individual targets, coach against them, and hold people to them fairly and consistently
• Lead, develop and motivate a team of five, with the structure to grow as volume does
• Establish two named specialisms - escalations and travel trade - and support both people into those roles
• Support the growth of our travel trade channel, which we intend to take from a standing start to a meaningful share of sales

Skills Required:

• We want someone used to structured thinking and to handling evidence properly
• Experience gained in an online travel agency, or in a comparable e-commerce business where most transactions complete online and people handle the exceptions
• Genuinely numerate and data-driven: comfortable with conversion rates, average booking value, response times and capacity planning, able to build the analysis yourself, and able to see what is really moving a number
• Hands-on ownership of a CRM - Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot or similar. Not simply using one: configuring it, reporting out of it, automating within it, and getting a team to adopt it
• Experience of implementing a system, or of a significant change to one, together with the processes around it - you will have done this at least once and will know where it goes wrong
• A record of designing and embedding process, rather than working to somebody else's
• Degree-level education, or equivalent evidence of formal analytical training
• A demonstrable record of running a customer-facing or operational team and improving how it performs - we will want to talk about specific numbers
• Experience managing people directly, including the harder conversations
• Practical experience of rotas, scheduling or capacity planning against uneven demand
• Calm and credible on a complaint: able to step into a difficult case and leave the customer better disposed to us than when it started
• Systems-minded - the instinct to fix the process or the system rather than build a workaround
• Genuinely comfortable with change. This team will look different in eighteen months and you would be the person leading that
• Able to work in a small business where you will do the job as well as manage it

The Package:

• £40,000 - £50,000 depending on experience, plus performance bonus
• Hybrid working - 3 days a week (minimum) in our London office
• 25 days holiday, plus bank holidays
• Company pension scheme
• Discounts across every holiday we sell

Interested:

• If you are interested in the above role please click to 'APPLY' or email your cv to helen@traveltraderecruitment.co.uk