Location
Abingdon, Oxfordshire | United Kingdom
Job description
At RM Assessment we are experts in online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, A Levels and professional qualifications. A customer starting on their digital assessment journey can move from paper to digital, with our products and services providing an end-to-end solution to support their transition. For use in single session or on-demand schedules, our products enable customers to create and author their own content as well as providing remote invigilation and other services to support successful exam sessions.
Each year, our software is used globally to carry out hundreds of thousands of on-screen tests and to mark millions of paper-based scripts. For over a decade we’ve been partnering with the world’s leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure and reliable e-marking solutions. Every year more than a million people around the world get the results they deserve thanks to RM and partners.
RM offer a range of services to our customers from a full managed service to hosting, licence and support services. The RM vision is to continue the strong growth RM has established in the last 16 years in the Assessment market by developing the relationships with our existing customers as well as bringing on-board new business.
The Service Manager plays a crucial role in achieving a high level of customer satisfaction and ensuring that all services meet their contractual and financial performance targets. Operating as part of the service delivery management team, the Service Manager is responsible for managing a portfolio of up to 10 repeatable digital customers. These customers have contracted to deliver their high stakes exams using RM’s digital testing service and are using an ‘out of the box’ service.
The Service Manager's main responsibilities include onboarding the new customer, operations coordination, contract and finance management. The aim is to achieve excellent service delivery and a high level of customer satisfaction from each customer within the Service Manager’s portfolio.
The job holder will work with senior customer stakeholders within the customer’s operational teams and RM functional teams to ensure that an excellent service is delivered. They will support the growth team to retain and develop the account, which may result in them moving to an enterprise solution. In this event, the Service Manager will work with Service Delivery Manager colleagues to achieve a successful transition into SDM management.
The job holder is empowered to take the action necessary to deliver on contract commitments and to achieve the contract budget for their portfolio of customers.
The job holder will need to have solid commercial and financial acumen, customer focus, commitment to delivery excellence and creativity. They need the ability to effectively manage a range of stakeholders, internally and externally. They will be used to and comfortable working in a matrix managed environment.
Onboarding and Transition
- Oversee the onboarding and transition of all new customers into the portfolio
- Review and understand the customer order and onboarding pack
- Complete specific tasks from the ‘Onboarding Process’ design document to include creation of customer on RM systems, request finance activities for invoicing and work order creation, engage 3rd parties for proctoring, collate and transfer relevant information into workflow management
- Confirm completion of onboarding ‘onboarding completion check’
- Manage customer acceptance and move into BAU service
Stakeholder, Engagement and Management
- Develop and maintain excellent customer relationships with accountable job holders within the portfolio of customers.
- Ensure each customer has a good understanding of the service deliverables, RM and customer obligations for their contract.
- Own and manage issues, escalations and complaints from customers teams bringing them to a timely and satisfactory conclusion.
- Own and manage issues and escalations from internal teams ensuring timely resolution
- During major, service or other notable incidents, represent the customer and manage stakeholder communications.
- Analyse multiple customer listening posts (Net Promoter surveys, complaint tracking, call listening, operational metrics) and work with RM and customer teams to drive service improvements.
- Provide a monthly customer satisfaction rating for each customer in the portfolio
- Own action plans arising from major customer issues or satisfaction surveys.
Contract Management
- Be accountable for the customer’s delivery; including planning to ensure that internal teams and the customer deliver to the agreed commitments and obligations.
- Review service performance against Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for each customer in the portfolio on a monthly basis. Coordinate with functional teams to investigate SLA failures and establish remediation plans if required.
- Provide quarterly performance reviews to each customer in the portfolio
- Develop a service plan for the portfolio. The service plan will be maintained and reported on monthly and will include: contract commitment register; contract risk register that clearly defines reputational, delivery and financial impact to the account and finance reporting
- Manage change of scope and customer change requests, channelling them to the Account Director for review and action
- Be the primary operational escalation point for the customer and RM management.
- Prepare and deliver an annual service review for each contract within the portfolio
- Ensure lessons learned are completed and where appropriate, feedback is provided to the service owner for repeatable digital/Account Director
- Ensure compliance with all quality and security policies and procedures as required by the contract and RM
- Assist with the co-ordination of quality and service improvement projects as appropriate
- Contribute to the production of new procedures as required to ensure the development of the services.
Financial Management
- Generate and analyse monthly finance reports to understand and review all actual costs on a monthly basis.
- Track the profitability of each customer in the portfolio against forecasted profitability on a monthly basis, investigate anomalies and challenge where costs are not as expected i.e. unexpected, above or below forecast,
- Provide support to the Account Director as required when they are completing service cost and revenue forecasting in the account P&L
- Contribute to annual budget preparation and regular finance forecasting activities
Strategic Growth
- Support the Account Director/Head of Sector during contract renewals/extension negotiations by providing information such as; customer satisfaction, risks and issues, insight into customer operational team preferences, and areas within the contract which could be considered for variation i.e. SLAs, onerous clauses or obligations on RM and/or the customer
- Between 1 and 5 years’ experience in business-to-business customer-facing operational or service delivery roles
- Experienced in service management functions for multi customer, time-critical and complex software services
- Track record of delivering within a line or matrix team structure balancing priorities and keeping focus on quality and timely delivery
- Experienced in the management of profit and loss (P&L) budgets with a particular focus on cost and KPI management
Behaviours / Skills
- Able to demonstrate the capability to manage effectively within a highly complex, operational environment,
- Demonstrates good judgement and decision making, delegation and planning skills
- Customer focused with ability to build relationships with customer stakeholders
- Excellent communication, influencing and negotiation skills at appropriate levels within the customer organisation, with supplier operational teams and with colleagues
- Exceptional interpersonal skills, a highly personable, engaging approach.
- Strong listening skills and the ability to adapt complex messages according to the audience. High level emotional intelligence.
- Demonstrable drive, energy and passion for understanding and meeting contractual and customer needs. Able to motivate the RM delivery teams to continually improve the service
- Demonstrable ability to deliver results meeting service level, commercial and customer satisfaction levels
- Desire to deliver continuous improvement, seeking opportunities to identify and own initiatives
- Willing to take on additional roles such as Duty Manager or Service Incident Leader to support the needs of the business.
Knowledge
- Understanding of finance and commercial activities including profit & loss (P&L), budgets and contract charges i.e. invoicing
- Understanding of service level agreements (SLAs) and key performance indicators (KPIs) is expected
- Understanding of service or project management methodologies (e.g. ITIL, PRINCE) is expected
- An understanding of how software and service organisations operate is key to the role
- Knowledge of modern IT infrastructures, would be an advantage
- Knowledge of e-assessment and/or e-testing would be an advantage
What’s in it for you?
At RM we recently introduced My Work Blend @RM which provides office-based colleagues with multi location and hybrid working options to suit them. As well as your office base, you can spend a proportion of your time working at other locations that suit your role and your life, including home, other offices, customer sites, distribution centres or on the move. We encourage you to discuss arrangements for this role with your potential line manager during the recruitment process. We expect how we make best use of hybrid working may continue to adapt as we adjust to our new ways of working.
At RM we are committed to making the recruitment process as inclusive as possible for everyone. Should you require additional support with your application or through the interview process, please contact us at [email protected] .
As well as a competitive salary and our core benefits package which includes private medical healthcare, life assurance and a Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available, some roles are also eligible for a performance-related bonus.
There are lots of voluntary benefits too. You could buy additional annual leave, join our dental plan, sign for a health assessment, or take part in our cycle to work scheme. You could even earn yourself an extra bonus for successfully recommending a friend or family member for a position within RM.
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