Customer Experience Director

Our client is a leading telecommunications and digital connectivity provider with a strong presence across Sub-Saharan Africa, serving millions of customers across multiple markets. The company delivers affordable, reliable, and innovative mobile and digital solutions that enable seamless connectivity for individuals and businesses. Guided by a customer-centric approach, it focuses on innovation, operational excellence, and expanding access to high-quality network services and digital offerings. With a diverse workforce and entrepreneurial culture, the organization is committed to developing talent, empowering communities, and driving socio-economic growth. Headquartered internationally, it emphasizes transparency, sustainability, and long-term growth, making it a prominent player in Africa’s telecommunications industry.

Responsibilities:

Customer Experience Strategy & Governance:

• Develop, implement and continuously evolve the Company's Customer Experience strategy, roadmap, service standards and priorities in alignment with overall business objectives.
• Establish the Customer Experience governance framework and ensure clear accountability for customer experience performance across relevant functions.
• Represent the Voice of the Customer within the organization and ensure customer insights are considered in strategic, commercial, product and operational decisions.
• Establish cross-functional governance for significant customer-impacting issues, ensuring root causes, corrective actions, responsible owners and deadlines are defined and tracked through to closure.
• Collaborate with Commercial, Marketing, Product, Technology, Network, Finance, Regulatory, Legal and other departments to deliver a consistent and seamless end-to-end customer experience.

Customer Support Operations:

• Lead the Customer Support Operations function and ensure effective management of internal and outsourced customer support operations.
• Ensure customers receive timely, consistent and high-quality support across all relevant customer service channels and touchpoints.
• Define and monitor operational KPIs and SLAs, including service levels, response and resolution times, First Contact Resolution, productivity and other relevant customer support indicators.
• Continuously optimize customer support processes to improve efficiency, reduce customer effort, improve service quality and control operating costs.
• Oversee internal and outsourced inbound and outbound customer support operations and ensure third-party partners meet agreed service levels, productivity, quality and customer experience standards.
• Define workforce dimensioning, capacity planning and resource allocation requirements for internal and outsourced operations based on customer demand, contact volumes and business requirements.
• Establish and oversee effective escalation processes for complex, sensitive or unresolved customer issues, ensuring clear ownership and timely resolution.
• Ensure appropriate business continuity and customer-support procedures are in place for network incidents, system outages, major campaigns, unexpected increases in customer demand and other high-impact events.
• Assess and recommend technologies, systems, automation and self-service solutions that improve customer experience, operational efficiency and cost-to-serve.
• Define the Customer Experience organizational structure and resource requirements, and oversee recruitment priorities, performance management, employee development and succession planning.

Quality Assurance & Continuous Improvement:

• Lead a structured Continuous Improvement program across customer-facing operations using customer feedback, operational data, quality findings and root-cause analysis.
• Own the Customer Experience Quality Assurance framework, including quality standards, interaction audits, mystery evaluations, calibration, quality scorecards and corrective-action mechanisms across internal and outsourced operations.
• Analyze customer complaints, repeat contacts, escalations, quality findings and operational data to identify recurring issues and root causes, and drive cross-functional corrective and preventive actions through to implementation.
• Identify opportunities to reduce avoidable and repeat customer contacts through process simplification, automation, self-service, improved communication and permanent resolution of root causes.
• Track Continuous Improvement initiatives and measure their impact on customer satisfaction, service quality, operational efficiency, contact reduction and other relevant business outcomes.
• Lead end-to-end customer journey reviews and service-design initiatives to identify pain points, reduce customer effort, improve First Contact Resolution and enhance the experience across physical, assisted and digital touchpoints.

Training, Knowledge & Capability Development:

• Oversee the Customer Experience Training function and establish a structured capability-development framework covering onboarding, product and service knowledge, systems, processes, customer handling, soft skills, coaching and refresher training.
• Ensure Training Needs Analysis is driven by quality results, customer feedback, operational performance and identified competency gaps, and measure the effectiveness of training interventions.
• Establish and maintain effective Knowledge Management practices, including customer-care SOPs, scripts, FAQs, knowledge articles and operational guidelines, ensuring frontline teams receive accurate and timely information.
• Promote a culture of customer focus, continuous learning and high performance through coaching, recognition and employee-development initiatives.

Customer Analytics, Voice of Customer & Insights:

• Lead the Customer Analytics function and ensure customer and operational data is converted into actionable insights for Customer Experience and the wider business.
• Establish CX dashboards and reporting covering customer behaviour, contact drivers, complaints, repeat contacts, service performance, quality, satisfaction, retention/churn indicators and emerging customer trends.
• Own the Voice of Customer and CX measurement framework, including NPS, CSAT, First Contact Resolution and other relevant customer experience indicators, establishing targets and monitoring performance against them.
• Use surveys, complaints, customer interactions, research and other feedback channels to identify customer needs, expectations, pain points and emerging trends, ensuring insights are translated into clearly defined improvement actions.
• Utilize customer segmentation based on relevant behaviors, preferences, value, demographics and usage patterns to support customer experience initiatives, service prioritization and relevant business campaigns.

Product, Process & Operational Readiness:

• Ensure Customer Experience is appropriately involved in the development and implementation of new products, services, campaigns, processes and customer-impacting system changes, with customer experience risks identified before implementation.
• Establish operational-readiness requirements for major launches and changes, including capacity, processes, systems, training, knowledge materials, customer communication and escalation procedures, and monitor customer impact following implementation.

Performance, Compliance & Financial Management:

• Provide senior management with regular reporting on Customer Experience performance, customer trends, key risks, operational performance, Continuous Improvement initiatives and areas requiring management attention.
• Ensure Customer Experience operations comply with applicable regulatory requirements, company policies, data protection requirements and industry standards in coordination with Regulatory, Legal and other relevant functions.
• Develop and manage the Customer Experience operating budget and monitor operating costs, productivity and cost-to-serve, identifying opportunities to improve efficiency without negatively impacting customer experience.
• Manage key Customer Experience vendors and partners, ensuring contractual commitments, SLAs, costs, quality standards and performance expectations are effectively monitored and managed.

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Communications, Marketing, or a related field,
• A Master’s degree or professional certification (e.g., CCXP - Certified
• Customer Experience Professional) is highly preferred.