Head of Customer Operations

Job Title: Head Customer Operations

Seniority: Executive / Senior Leadership

Department: Operations / Customer Experience

Industry: FMCG, with preference for Financial Services exposure

Experience: 10+ years, including significant senior or executive-level leadership experience

Reporting to: Chief Operating Officer / Executive Leadership

1. Job Purpose

The Head of Contact Centre will provide strategic and operational leadership for the organisation’s contact centre function, ensuring operational excellence, exceptional customer experience, commercial performance and sustainable business growth.

The role is responsible for developing and executing the contact centre strategy, leading large-scale teams, optimising service delivery, driving productivity and ensuring that customer interactions support the organisation’s broader business objectives. The successful candidate will bring strong commercial acumen, operational expertise and the ability to manage complex, high-volume customer environments, ideally within FMCG and/or financial services.

2. Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership

• Develop and implement the overall contact centre strategy, aligned with the organisation’s business objectives and growth plans.
• Provide strategic direction to contact centre operations, ensuring scalability, operational efficiency and service excellence.
• Partner with executive leadership to identify opportunities for business improvement, innovation and revenue growth.
• Lead transformation initiatives to improve operational processes, customer engagement and service delivery.

Operational Excellence

• Oversee the day-to-day performance of contact centre operations, ensuring service levels, productivity and quality targets are achieved.
• Establish and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs), including service levels, average handling time, first-contact resolution, customer satisfaction, quality scores and cost per interaction.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives to enhance operational efficiency, reduce costs and improve service delivery.
• Ensure effective workforce planning, resource allocation, capacity management and operational reporting.

Customer Experience & Relationship Management

• Champion a customer-centric culture that prioritises customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty.
• Develop strategies to improve customer experience across all contact channels, including voice, email, digital and other relevant platforms.
• Use customer feedback, complaints data and performance insights to identify service gaps and implement improvements.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with key internal and external stakeholders to ensure consistent customer service delivery.

Commercial Performance & Business Growth

• Drive commercial outcomes through improved customer engagement, retention, sales conversion, cross-selling and upselling, where applicable.
• Manage operational budgets, cost structures and resource utilisation to achieve financial targets.
• Identify opportunities to improve profitability, productivity and overall return on investment.
• Support business development and client retention initiatives where contact centre operations form part of a client-facing service model.

People Leadership & Development

• Lead, coach and develop senior managers and contact centre leadership teams, building a high-performance culture.
• Establish clear performance expectations, accountability frameworks and succession plans.
• Drive employee engagement, talent development and leadership capability across the function.
• Lead organisational change and ensure teams remain aligned with business priorities.

Technology, Data & Innovation

• Leverage contact centre technologies, CRM platforms, workforce management tools, automation and analytics to improve performance.
• Identify opportunities to use AI, digital self-service and process automation to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.
• Use data-driven insights to inform strategic decisions, forecast demand and improve performance.
• Ensure systems and processes remain fit for purpose as customer expectations and business requirements evolve.

Governance, Risk & Compliance

• Ensure adherence to relevant legislation, company policies, operational controls and industry requirements.
• Establish appropriate quality assurance, risk management, data protection and escalation processes.
• Where applicable, ensure compliance with financial services requirements, including relevant customer communication, conduct and regulatory obligations.
• Maintain appropriate governance standards across all contact centre activities.

3. Minimum Qualifications & Experience

• A relevant degree in Business Management, Operations Management, Commerce, Customer Experience or a related field.
• A postgraduate qualification or MBA would be advantageous.
• At least 10 years’ relevant experience , including substantial leadership responsibility within large-scale contact centre or customer operations environments.
• Demonstrable experience leading senior management teams and managing complex, high-volume operations.
• Proven experience in strategic planning, operational transformation, budget management and performance optimisation.
• Experience managing large teams, multiple operational functions or geographically dispersed operations.

4. Industry Experience

• Strong experience within FMCG, retail, consumer-facing businesses or other high-volume customer environments .
• Experience in financial services, banking, insurance, lending, collections or financial customer engagement would be highly advantageous.
• Candidates from other industries may be considered if they have successfully led large-scale, complex contact centre operations with comparable commercial and customer service requirements.

5. Key Competencies

• Executive leadership and strategic thinking
• Commercial acumen and financial management
• Operational excellence and performance management
• Customer experience and service delivery
• Data-driven decision-making and analytical thinking
• Change management and business transformation
• Stakeholder engagement and executive influence
• People leadership, coaching and talent development
• Problem-solving and decision-making under pressure
• Innovation, technology adoption and continuous improvement
• Resilience, accountability and results orientation

6. Measures of Success

The successful candidate will be measured against:

• Achievement of operational service levels and customer experience targets.
• Improved productivity, efficiency and cost optimisation.
• Customer satisfaction, retention and quality performance.
• Achievement of relevant commercial targets, where applicable.
• Successful implementation of strategic and transformation initiatives.
• Employee engagement, leadership development and team performance.
• Effective governance, risk management and compliance.