Manager, Customer Excellence

General Purpose Of The Job
The Customer Excellence Manager leads a Customer Excellence team engaged in the service of annuity products. The leader proactively and effectively uses tools to monitor customer processing and phone queues to make appropriate adjustments to achieve desired service level agreements, and is responsible for engaging team members through coaching, timely feedback, ongoing career development and empowerment, with an emphasis on setting and achieving customer service and productivity goals. The role demonstrates strong leadership and communication skills by working collaboratively with all internal and external customers to implement process improvements and enhance the customer experience.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Oversees the company's operations Customer Excellence processes and transactions across the full lifecycle of the customer, including but not limited to, new business/application, service requests, transfers, agent commissions, and claims.
• Manages daily activities of a Customer Excellence service team. Develops and implements call center/customer service strategies, processes and procedures that enhance productivity and increase customer satisfaction and retention rates.
• Establishes productivity and quality standards and tracks team performance.
• Serves as transformational thought leader in strategizing and developing operational goals and organizational structure to support innovative customer service advancements.
• Directs workflow and monitors workload to ensure customer inquiries are addressed promptly.
• Leads a diverse team of employees with responsibility for managing the employee life cycle and experience, including but not limited to, selection and retention of talent, continuous feedback and performance management, reward and recognition, corrective action and employee development.
• Coaches, motivates, and empowers team members to drive high performance and engagement. Leads team meetings as well as 1:1 meetings with direct reports to foster an environment of trust, accountability, and open communication.
• Understands and continues to learn the evolving needs of our customer population; translates customer needs into actionable processing initiatives and projects.
• Evaluates processing performance metrics to identify training, coaching or process improvement opportunities; coaches to metrics and growing organizational efficiencies.
• Ensures effective communications throughout assigned processing functions and cross-departmentally, with particular partnership with Operations phones to ensure an overall positive customer service experience.
• Champions innovation and process improvement by sharing ideas and encouraging the ideas and feedback of others. Implements plans meant to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness.
• Responds promptly to complex inquires or escalated situations by gathering appropriate information, identifying solutions, and making sound decisions.
• Understands and adheres to current service level agreements, taking decisive action to change workflow to accommodate standards.
• Performs other related work as assigned.

Supervisory Responsibilities
Direct Reports:
Team of approximately 6-12 specialists engaged in phone and customer service work.

General Description of Indirect Reports (2 and 3-downs
): None

Education And/Or Experience

• Bachelor's Degree in business administration or related field of study; plus four (4) years of annuity or customer contact center management experience with a high focus on internal and external customer service; or equivalent combination of education and/or experience.
• Experience managing and analyzing processing and phone queues using multiple software tools preferred.

Certificates, Licenses, Professional Designations
Completion of LOMA exams or designations are a plus.

Knowledge, Skills And Abilities

• Strong customer service orientation.
• Effective verbal and written communication skills.
• Interpersonal skills and leadership skills, with the ability to build team morale, champion teamwork and collaboration, and keep team members focused on attaining goals through ongoing coaching and constructive feedback.
• Industry knowledge with the ability to learn, comprehend and effectively explain department processes and procedures, annuity contract or agent contract provisions, and industry/government regulations and requirements.
• Sound decision-making skills with the ability to effectively resolve escalated situations.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality of sensitive company information.
• Mathematical skills and strong attention to detail.
• Ability to work cooperatively and successfully with employees, customers, and other outside third parties.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
• Strong organizational and planning skills.
• Proficient in the use of MicroSoft Office Suite.
• Ability to write reports, business correspondence, and procedure manuals.
• Ability to effectively present information and respond to questions.
• Ability to read, analyze, and interpret general business periodicals, professional journals and technical/operational procedures.
• Ability to define problems, collect data, establish facts, and draw valid conclusions.
• Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
• Ability to successfully handle pressure and meet deadlines in a fast-paced work environment.

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This description covers the major purpose and essential functions of the job. It is not intended to give all details or a step-by-step