Manager, Customer Experience

Manager, Customer Experience

Department: Customer Experience

Reports To: Director Customer Experience, Operations

FLSA Status: Exempt

Revision Date: 2/13/2024

Position Summary:

Zaner Bloser is seeking a professional for the open Manager of Customer Experience (CX) position that is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Customer Experience team. The manager is responsible for leading, coaching, training, motivating, and maintaining a very high level of support to the company's external and internal customers.

Our Customer Experience team maintains a flexible work style, is present as scheduled to enhance service delivery, and creates an exceptional customer experience. The Customer Experience Manager directly impacts our mission to broaden and deepen relationships with teachers and schools by ensuring we have the capacity to serve and exceed customer needs. The manager will support specialists by shepherding their journey to becoming and maintaining status as subject matter experts. As a knowledgeable resource, the manager will provide guidance, coaching and training opportunities to ensure precise order entry that enables flawless order fulfillment and invoicing. The manager will proactively anticipate customer and team needs, be active in developing and inspiring creativity that lends to new and better solutions, root cause for course correction and process improvement as well as reporting. The CX manager will oversee the CX team, focusing on attention to detail, with an eye for continuous improvement and celebrating success.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Develop, mentor, and coach team members to ensure effectiveness and quality of service.
• Provide leadership by instilling passion, enthusiasm, and direction through coaching and the development of a cohesive team.
• Develop and align team and individual goals with organizational objectives.
• Set department wide performance, productivity and quality goals and manage work plans to achieve set goals.
• Act as a customer advocate to provide problem resolution and expedite responses.
• Analyze department metrics and call patterns and make recommendations to achieve ideal state.
• Identify and develop cross functional training needs for the department.
• Ensure complete communication--up, down, and across the business. Collaborate cross functionally with teams including Operations, Sales, Marketing, and additional departments to accomplish goals and improve the quality of performance of the Customer Experience team.
• Manage, prioritize, and lead multiple time sensitive cross functional projects.
• Continually review and question current policies and procedures to ensure the team serves our customers in the best way possible.
• Ability to travel up to 20%

What you should show up ready to teach anyone on your first day:

• Ability to nurture long-term relationships in strategic accounts, understanding needs and continuing to build business partnerships and having strong communication skills with both customers and cross functional partners.
• Demonstrate business acumen including project management and forecasting resolution resources.

• Superior presentation skills
• How to Answer customers' questions, resolving opportunities, and maintaining customer satisfaction by providing problem-solving resources.
• Maximizes customer operational performance by providing help desk resources and technical advice.
• Accomplishes customer service human resource objectives by recruiting, selecting, training, and coaching employees.
• Manages customer service staff, communicates job expectations, and performs appraisals and job reviews.

Within your first month, you'll:

• Establish a cadence of communication with your sales and professional learning team members to build relationships.
• Meet customer service financial objectives by forecasting requirements, prepares annual budgets, and schedules expenditures.
• Improving customer service quality results by conducting surveys and studying, evaluating, and re-designing processes and establishing and communicating service metrics and monitoring and analyzing results.
• Implementing production, productivity, quality, and customer-service standards.

Within your first year, you'll:

• Foster alignment by working collaboratively and cross-functionally to meet operations and leadership goals.
• Contribute customer service information and recommendations to strategic plans and reviews.
• Audits customer service procedures and trends and determines system improvements.
• Enforces company policies and procedures.
• Determines customer service requirements by maintaining contact with customers and visiting operational environments.
• Update job knowledge by participating in educational opportunities, maintaining personal networks, and participating in professional organizations.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

8-10 direct reports

Qualifications:

• Bachelors' Degree in business with 8+ previous years direct work experience in a service type of role or work equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of management experience.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Proven ability to successfully communicate ideas and recommendations to all levels within the organization.
• Ability to lead within sphere of influence, motivate others, and resolve conflicts and roadblocks.
• Proficient with ERP/Fulfillment and CRM Systems.
• Knowledge and experience of automated call systems.
• Proficient with office software, including Microsoft 365.
• Knowledge of the Educational Marketing preferred.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift including up to 15 pounds at times.

Highlights for Children provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities. Please tell us if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or to perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include making a change to the application process or work procedures, providing documents in an alternate format, using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.