Online Customer Service Manager

Enjoy developing a team while staying hands-on? Can you bring calm, clear thinking to a busy customer service department? Looking for the opportunity to improve how things work in a growing eCommerce business?

This fast-growing online retailer has built its reputation on straightforward shopping and helpful, responsive customer service. It’s a growing business with ambitious plans, where the quality of the customer experience matters just as much as getting orders out of the door.

You’ll join a close-knit team that takes pride in doing things properly. With the customer service department expected to grow, there’s a real opportunity to develop your people, introduce better processes and shape how the business supports its customers.

The Role

Reporting to the Operations Manager, you’ll lead a team of four, currently made up of two full-time and two part-time colleagues, with scope for further team growth over the coming months.

You’ll be the main point of contact for the department, giving the team clear direction and acting as the link between customer service and senior management. Your responsibilities will include new starter training, coaching, performance reviews, rota management and handling escalated queries.

The business believes a good manager should understand and be able to do the work their team does. You’ll stay close to daily activity and be happy to support email and live chat enquiries, returns and delivery issues when needed. Customer contact is through written channels, with no telephone support.

A big part of the role will be helping the team deliver quick, accurate and considerate responses. You’ll review customer interactions, give constructive feedback and build colleagues’ confidence in making sensible commercial decisions around refunds, replacements and goodwill gestures.

You’ll also look at how the department can become more efficient, using KPIs and customer feedback to improve response times, resolution quality and the cost of delivering service. This could include refining workflows, developing help centre content, introducing automation or supporting the rollout of new systems.

Skills and Experience

• You’ll have three years’ customer service experience, including experience in an eCommerce or online environment.
• Experience managing or supervising a customer service team for a year or more.
• A hands-on approach, with a willingness to support the same work you ask your team to deliver.
• A patient, approachable management style, with confidence giving feedback, developing colleagues and handling pressure.
• Strong written communication skills and an empathetic approach to resolving customer issues.
• A commercial mindset, with the ability to interpret KPIs, improve efficiency and consider the costs of service decisions.
• Excellent organisation, attention to detail and confidence using digital systems.
• Experience training new starters, improving processes or supporting system changes.
• A background in a smaller business would be useful. Supervisors from larger organisations are also welcome, provided they bring substantial hands-on responsibility and people management experience.
• Relevant product knowledge would be helpful, but attitude and customer service experience are more important.

Benefits

Alongside a competitive salary, annual pay review and workplace pension. You’ll receive 28 days’ holiday, an extra day off for your birthday, additional holiday through length of service and honeymoon leave when you get married. There’s also free parking, a relaxed dress code, refreshments and two company socials each year, plus office facilities including table tennis, darts, putting golf and a PlayStation.

Sound Good?

If you’re a hands-on customer service leader who enjoys helping people improve and wants to make a visible difference in a growing business, we’d love to hear from you.

The interview process starts with a phone conversation, followed by an in-person interview and a practical customer service task. Apply now or contact Nick at Digital Tonic for a chat.