Head of Client Assurance - Professional Services in City of London

Vacancy Name

Head of Client Assurance - Professional Services

Vacancy No

VN1358

Employment Type

Full-Time

Work Location

London

About Us

Acora are a progressive full-stack full-service business technology services partner, built for the AI era. Combining the capabilities of a Managed Service Provider (MSP), Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP), IT Consulting, Professional Services and Development company, Acora helps customers achieve breakthrough results - often quicker and at lower risk than they thought possible.

We believe in a better working world, where our customers are confident to fully embrace the AI opportunity and generate economic impact.

Our Values

We're proud to share the values we live by. They're not dusty abstract concepts. Our values define our culture: they act as a promise to our customers and a constant challenge to ourselves, both as individuals and as a team, to be Game-Changers.

• Be the best you can be
• We do what we say
• Together we win

Description

The Head of Customer Assurance is accountable for customer satisfaction across everything Professional Services delivers, and for independently assuring the quality of how it is delivered. Reporting directly to the Chief Delivery Officer and sitting outside the delivery, advisory and project management office functions, the role provides an unfiltered view of every engagement: it runs structured assurance reviews, manages senior customer stakeholders and the steering rhythm on every account, acts as the single route for customer escalations - including those arriving through Sales - and gates new services from the customer's side before they are sold more widely. The role takes accountability from no one: delivery functions remain accountable for delivery, and this role makes sure that what its reviews find is fixed by whoever owns it. It carries no sales target and, at the outset, no line reports. This is a senior leadership position within Professional Services, offered as an internal posting.

Key Responsibilities

• Own customer satisfaction across all Professional Services engagements and ongoing services: measured, reported and improving
• Map and manage customer stakeholders on every major account, and set the steering rhythm with each customer at engagement initiation
• Run structured, independent assurance reviews on major engagements at defined points - initiation, mid-engagement and ahead of critical milestones - covering delivery health, customer sentiment and commercial position
• Log review findings and track them to closure by the accountable function
• Set the customer health rating: a red rating requires a recovery plan from the accountable function within five working days, which this role reviews
• Act as the recognised route for customer escalations, including those arriving through Sales: resolve directly where possible, and raise anything unresolved - or anything the Chief Delivery Officer should know - immediately and factually
• Gate new services from the customer's side: no service is sold to a second customer until this role has confirmed it works and can be repeated
• Convene delivery, the practices and PS Advisory on new services and playbooks, testing the output against how a customer will experience it
• Own and run the growth recognition scheme with sales leadership and Finance, crediting delivery-sourced opportunities once registered and won by Sales
• Track every engagement against the success measures agreed with the customer, using reporting produced by the project management office

Key Skills

• Eight or more years in customer-facing roles within a technology services, managed services or MSSP environment - customer-facing delivery leadership, service management or account management - including at least three years at senior level across several customers at once
• A track record of accountability for customer satisfaction or retention, with evidence: satisfaction scores, renewal rates, recovered accounts
• Experience of running, or being subject to, structured engagement or quality assurance reviews, and of landing findings so they are acted on
• Senior stakeholder management across project and ongoing service relationships, at every level of a customer organisation
• Escalation management through to resolution, including engaging senior leadership with an accurate picture at the right time
• Defining and using success measures: selecting them, agreeing them with a customer, and acting on the results
• Commercial awareness: margin, service credits, and the mechanics of a recognition scheme designed with Finance
• Working knowledge of customer satisfaction measurement tooling and service management reporting; no specific platform is mandated

Desirable

• A quality or assurance qualification (for example ISO 9001 auditor training), a customer experience or client success qualification, or ITIL 4 Foundation for the ongoing services context

Personal Specification

• Independent by instinct: comfortable sitting outside the functions being reviewed and giving an unfiltered view, including upwards
• Assures without taking over: reviews honestly and holds the accountable function to the fix, rather than becoming the fixer
• Calm and credible in escalations: steadies unhappy customers and difficult conversations without drama
• Stakeholder-led: builds and maintains deliberate relationships across a customer's organisation, senior to junior
• Straight with bad news: raises problems early and factually, so no one is surprised
• Collaborative without authority: convenes people from delivery, sales and the practices who do not report to this role, and gets output from them
• Delivery-side in outlook: motivated by customers succeeding with what has been delivered; comfortable carrying no sales target
• Accountable and organised: findings dated, escalations logged, actions tracked to closure

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