Customer Experience Lead (12 month maternity cover) in Abingdon

Company Description

Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa Business, is a leading academic publishing, business intelligence, knowledge and events business, creating unique content and connectivity for customers all over the world. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100. Taylor & Francis Group produces high quality, peer reviewed books and journals. We produce unique, trusted content by expert authors, spreading knowledge and promoting discovery globally. We aim to broaden thinking and advance understanding, providing academics and professionals with a platform to share ideas and realise their individual potential.

Job Description

Every day millions of people read our content. Would you like to be part of our customer journey? Are you ready to be a Customer Service Customer Experience Lead, encouraging and inspiring others to improve customer experience, investigating and driving forward the implementation of process improvements? This role is available on a six-month fixed-term basis and will work from home and from our offices in Oxfordshire three times a week. The position reports to the Customer Service Manager and will work as part of a global Customer Service team, collaborating to manage day-to-day business processes and customer workflows, liaising with other departments where appropriate. Investigating and driving forward the implementation of process improvements to improve customer satisfaction, first-time resolution, and reduce customer effort will be a key requirement.

The successful candidate should have demonstrable previous Customer Service leadership and continuous improvement experience covering a variety of CS processes and including management of complex/challenging customer issues.

Responsibilities will include:

• Leading by example to encourage and inspire others to provide excellent customer service in line with best practice and company policy and procedures.
• Promoting teamwork & collaboration to effectively achieve individual, team, and departmental objectives, sharing knowledge and skills.
• Provide support within own team and to other teams as required.
• Taking ownership of complex/escalated customer queries through to resolution, striving to increase customer satisfaction/first time resolution and reduce the need for customers to contact.
• Leverage the voice of the customer (VOC), operational metrics, and best practice methodology to identify opportunities to improve the customer experience.
• Develop succinct and compelling problem statements for customer pain points.
• Conduct data collection discovery, subject matter expert (SME) interviews/workshops, process mapping, and related gap analyses.
• Evaluate existing day-to-day practices, analyzing root causes and identifying improvement opportunities to help define solutions that reduce complexity, and customer effort, improve customer experience/satisfaction, increase productivity, and enhance employee engagement.
• Collaborate with experts to understand the as-is customer journey, solve customer pain points, and develop to-be recommendations to close gaps.
• Develop a customer-centric culture, building relationships/partners with experts and stakeholders to assess, improve, and implement continuous improvement projects and related solutions.
• Estimate project cost/benefit; develop a sound business case for the intended improvement.
• Manage project performance, evaluating the overall performance of enhancements, for benefit realization.
• Take ownership of assigned projects, planning/managing, and delivering milestones on time.
• Take a lead role in cross-functional project teams as and when required.
• Facilitating meetings and delivering presentations.
• Proactively creating and developing improvement ideas and driving forward the implementation of those ideas to improve customer satisfaction, reduce queries, increase productivity, or reduce costs.
• Managing monthly reporting and other performance reports to ensure they are compiled and cascaded by agreed deadlines.

Qualifications

Knowledge and Qualifications

• Advanced working knowledge of Microsoft Office and systems used within Customer Service systems (ideally SAP and Salesforce) with expertise to train new team members.
• Demonstrable previous Customer Service experience in an office environment covering a variety of CS processes and including management of complex/challenging customer issues.
• Experience of encouraging others to work to KPI’s/SLA’s.
• Experience of managing projects, engaging contributors at all levels.
• Proven evidence of your ability to supervise colleagues with experience of encouraging others to work to Service Level Agreements and CS metrics.
• Ideally, understanding and experience using Lean 6 Sigma methodology.
• Understanding of the role of related departments and have a range of contacts outside and within Customer Service.

Additional Information

What we offer in return:

• Competitive salary
• An excellent work/life balance with a fantastic, flexible working culture
• 25 days annual leave per year plus a day off for your birthday
• 3 additional discretionary days off during the holiday season at the end of the year
• 4 paid volunteering days each year
• Company funded single cover private medical insurance
• Employee assistance programme – offering 24/7 well-being support
• Share Match – Plan that matches every share purchased with two free shares.
• Pension scheme
• Life assurance, plus optical and medical care

What you should know:

• This role will be based in the UK and you must have the right to live and work in the UK
• This is a hybrid position that will require on site reporting at least 3x weekly.
• Please note: Our Milton Park office will be relocating from Milton Park Abingdon to Oxford City Centre in late 2027 / early 2028.

Being Yourself at Taylor & Francis

If you’re excited about working with Taylor & Francis to foster human progress through knowledge, we invite you to apply even if your existing skills and experience don’t fit every item listed above. At Taylor & Francis, we are at our best and most successful when colleagues can be themselves and make a contribution regardless of their identity or background. Our goal is to empower you with the resources, incentives, and flexibility you need to enjoy success at work and to live a healthy, balanced life. Taylor & Francis is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in and value diversity of people and thought, fostering a supportive and inclusive environment where all colleagues can learn and succeed as their true selves.