Tour Guide & Guest Support Manager

WalksDevour; Madrid; Remote; EUR 70,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

WalksDevour is a high-end tour operator with a remote-first team. We seek an experienced leader to own the Guide & Guest Support function, overseeing people, processes, and platforms like Zendesk and Talkdesk.

You will drive performance, handle escalations, and build a scalable, hybrid-capable operation in a fast-moving travel environment. Responsibilities include managing daily contact centre operations, KPI reporting, and workforce planning, while mentoring team leads and ensuring GDPR

Qualifications

• 5+ years in contact centre or customer service operations.
• Experience leading teams through Team Leaders.
• Experience with Zendesk: configuring workflows, triggers, automations, SLAs and Explore reporting.
• Experience with Talkdesk: IVR and routing design, queue management and reporting.
• Proven track record of hitting service-level, quality and efficiency targets in a multi-channel environment.
• Strong workforce management skills: forecasting, scheduling, capacity planning and intraday management.
• Experience leading remote teams.
• Fluent English, strong Spanish preferred.
• Right to work in Spain, and able to commute to Madrid once hybrid working begins (unconfirmed, no sooner than mid-2027).

Responsibilities

• Run daily contact centre operations across voice, email, chat and messaging channels.
• Own and report on core KPIs: service level, average speed of answer, abandonment rate, AHT, first contact resolution, CSAT and NPS.
• Monitor real-time queues and make intraday decisions to protect service levels.
• Identify root causes of contact demand and work with other teams to reduce avoidable contacts.
• Work with operations to ensure coverage for guide emergencies via Whatsapp and other communication channels.
• Ensure we are fully up to date with all processes, workflows and documentation to ensure optimal resolution of all issues.
• Empower Team Leads and Tier 2 agents to own the function of last-minute issue resolution.
• Track instances of refunds and cancellations and work cross-functionally to improve customer and financial outcomes.
• Forecast contact volumes and build schedules, rotas and staffing plans to match demand.
• Manage shrinkage, adherence and occupancy, and plan for seasonal peaks.
• Prepare headcount and budget proposals backed by data.
• Act as the operational owner of Zendesk: ticket workflows, triggers, automations, macros, views, SLAs and reporting.
• Act as the operational owner of Talkdesk: IVR and call flows, routing and queues, skills, real-time dashboards and call recording.
• Keep both platforms configured to support efficient routing and accurate reporting, working with IT and vendors on changes and integrations.
• Build dashboards and reports in Zendesk Explore and Talkdesk Live/Explore for leadership and the floor.
• Mentor team leads to increase people management capacity and establish lines of succession & progression.
• Recruit and onboard new team members, and own the training programme.
• Build an engaged, accountable culture in a remote-first team, and lead the transition to hybrid working.
• Build relationships with leaders across the business and use them to unlock performance rather than to manage escalations.
• Understand all the contributing factors of performance and make deliberate trade-offs between quality, capacity and cost.
• Run the quality assurance programme: scorecards, call and ticket reviews, calibration and feedback.
• Write and maintain SOPs, knowledge base content and escalation paths.
• Lead continuous improvement projects using customer feedback and operational data.
• Meet regularly with key stakeholders to gather feedback on team performance. Identify and action areas with opportunity for improvement.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR, call-recording rules and internal policies.

Skills

Team leadership

Contact centre operations

Zendesk

Talkdesk

SLA management

Forecasting & scheduling

Remote team leadership

Fluent English

Strong Spanish

Tools

Zendesk

Talkdesk

Job description

About the Role

WalksDevour is a high-end tour operator, delivering best-in-class food tours, special access sightseeing tours, and day trips across Europe and North America. Our team is remote and geographically-dispersed, but connected by a passion for creating core memories for our guests.

Travel is an exciting industry but one of constant disruption. On any given day we're dealing with tour guides calling in sick last minute, site closures at major attractions, or rough waters on the Amalfi Coast. Our Guide & Guest Support Team are at the forefront of resolving these problems. They find replacement guides, work with guests to find alternative tours and times, or with operations to find and communicate alternative itineraries – all so our guests’ experiences are smooth on the surface (no matter how hard we paddle underwater). They also interface directly with guests on standard issues such as, helping them find their meeting points or reunite with their guides when lost.

We're looking for an experienced leader to take ownership of this function. You'll work in a complex system of stakeholders including local operations, sales, marketing and technology. This is a service and operations role, not a sales role: your focus is resolving customer issues quickly, consistently and well.

You will own the Guide & Guest Support Team end to end — people, processes, workforce planning and the Zendesk, Tour Optima and Talkdesk platforms that underpin them. You will turn data into decisions, keep service levels on target, and build a team that customers and colleagues can rely on.

Key Responsibilities

Guest Support Operational performance

• Run daily contact centre operations across voice, email, chat and messaging channels.
• Own and report on core KPIs: service level, average speed of answer, abandonment rate, AHT, first contact resolution, CSAT and NPS.
• Monitor real-time queues and make intraday decisions to protect service levels.
• Identify root causes of contact demand and work with other teams to reduce avoidable contacts.

Guide & Emergencies Support

• Work with operations to ensure coverage for guide emergencies via Whatsapp and other communication channels
• Ensure we are fully up to date with all processes, workflows and documentation to ensure optimal resolution of all issues. Work with senior business leaders to elevate trends negatively impacting guests

Issue resolution

• Empower Team Leads and Tier 2 agents to own the function of last-minute issue resolution.
• Track instances of refunds and cancellations and work cross-functionally to improve customer and financial outcomes.

Workforce management and planning

• Forecast contact volumes and build schedules, rotas and staffing plans to match demand.
• Manage shrinkage, adherence and occupancy, and plan for seasonal peaks.
• Prepare headcount and budget proposals backed by data.

Systems and tooling (Zendesk and Talkdesk)

• Act as the operational owner of Zendesk: ticket workflows, triggers, automations, macros, views, SLAs and reporting.
• Act as the operational owner of Talkdesk: IVR and call flows, routing and queues, skills, real-time dashboards and call recording.
• Keep both platforms configured to support efficient routing and accurate reporting, working with IT and vendors on changes and integrations.
• Build dashboards and reports in Zendesk Explore and Talkdesk Live/Explore for leadership and the floor.

People leadership

• Mentor team leads to increase people management capacity and establish lines of succession & progression. Manage performance review process for all Guide & Guest Support staff and ensure development plans exist for all staff members.
• Recruit and onboard new team members, and own the training programme.
• Build an engaged, accountable culture in a remote-first team, and lead the transition to hybrid working.
• Build relationships with leaders across the business and use them to unlock performance rather than to manage escalations
• Understand all the contributing factors of performance and make deliberate trade-offs between quality, capacity and cost

Quality and process improvement

• Run the quality assurance programme: scorecards, call and ticket reviews, calibration and feedback.
• Write and maintain SOPs, knowledge base content and escalation paths.
• Lead continuous improvement projects using customer feedback and operational data.
• Meet regularly with key stakeholders to gather feedback on team performance. Identify and action areas with opportunity for improvement.
• Ensure compliance with GDPR, call-recording rules and internal policies.

Essential Requirements

• 5+ years in contact centre or customer service operations, with at least 3 years managing teams through Team Leaders.
• Experience leading through operational incidents or crises, knowing who to pull in across the business and how to drive resolution
• Experience with Zendesk, including configuring workflows, triggers, automations, SLAs and Explore reporting.
• Experience with Talkdesk, including IVR and routing design, queue management and real-time and historical reporting.
• Proven track record of hitting service-level, quality and efficiency targets in a multi-channel environment.
• Strong workforce management skills: forecasting, scheduling, capacity planning and intraday management.
• Experience running QA programmes and leading process improvement.
• Experience leading remote teams.
• Fluent English, strong Spanish preferred.
• Right to work in Spain, and able to commute to Madrid once hybrid working begins (unconfirmed, no sooner than mid-2027).

Desirable Skills

• Zendesk or Talkdesk administrator certification.
• Experience with dedicated WFM tools (e.g. Talkdesk WEM, Assembled, NICE, Calabrio).
• Experience using AI and automation in customer service including chatbots, AI agent assist, auto-routing.
• Experience setting up or scaling a contact centre, or migrating between platforms.

Location and working arrangement

The role starts fully remote, working from within Spain. In late 2027 there may be an opportunity to step into a group-level role serving multiple tour operators, based at our Madrid office. Preference will be given to candidates who live in or are willing to relocate to the Madrid area. Working hours will follow the operation's service hours, with occasional cover for peaks or escalations.