Head of Service Assurance

Authentic Life Connections; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 1,350,000 - 1,450,000; Full time

Job summary

Authentic Life Connections in South Africa seeks a senior leader to head the Service Operations division. You will oversee the contact centre and monitoring managers, owning escalation processes and major incident responses while ensuring service accountability across technical support, sales, and collections.

You will publish CX baselines, drive improvements using live telemetry, and embed QA frameworks, playbooks, and AI-enabled enhancements.

Qualifications

• Minimum 10 years in service operations or customer operations.
• Minimum 5 years leading multiple teams through managers.
• Proven track record in customer experience improvements and metrics ownership.
• Experience in multichannel contact centre leadership across voice, email, messaging and social.

Responsibilities

• Lead the service division through contact centre and monitoring managers with accountability for second line tech support.
• Set standards for customer conversations across sales and collections and drive adoption.
• Publish and improve customer experience baselines (CSAT, NPS, FCR, complaints, sentiment).
• Own escalation framework and major incident response with proactive customer communication.
• Use telemetry to spot problems early and shift from reactive to proactive management.
• Drive root cause analysis with visible recurring issue register and accountability.
• Design QA framework, knowledge base and playbooks for consistency in service.
• Shape CX platform, telephony and reporting stack replacing manual reporting with dashboards.
• Introduce AI into workflows with controls to improve speed and quality.
• Manage divisional budget, vendors, workforce planning and after-hours coverage across channels.
• Ensure data handling compliance (POPIA, RICA, CPA) within the division.
• Run dedicated service model for strategic accounts with tailored SLAs and reporting.

Skills

Leadership

CX management

Multichannel operations

Executive escalation handling

Stakeholder management

Education

Three year degree or diploma in Engineering/Operations/Business/Information Systems/Service Management or related field

Job description

Duties and Responsibilities

• Lead the service division through its contact centre and monitoring managers, and hold service accountability over second line technical support
• Set the standard for every customer conversation across the business, including sales and collections, and work with those leaders to make it stick
• Build and publish the customer experience baseline (CSAT, NPS, first contact resolution, complaint volumes and online sentiment), then move it in the right direction
• Own the escalation framework and major incident response, keeping customers informed and reassured while complex faults are resolved
• Use live system telemetry to spot problems before customers feel them, shifting the team from reactive to proactive
• Drive root cause analysis through to genuine closure, with a visible register of recurring issues and the department accountable for each
• Design and embed a practical quality assurance framework, knowledge base and playbooks that make great service consistent
• Shape the CX platform, telephony and reporting stack, replacing manual reporting with automated, executive ready dashboards
• Introduce AI into service workflows where it improves speed and quality, with sensible controls in place
• Manage the divisional budget, vendors, workforce planning and after hours cover across voice, email, messaging and social channels
• Own operational compliance for customer data, call recordings and complaint handling (POPIA, RICA and the CPA) within your division
• Run a dedicated service model for strategic and commercial accounts, including tailored SLAs and separate performance reporting

Desired Experience and Qualifications

• At least 10 years in service operations, technical support operations or customer operations
• At least 5 years leading multiple teams through their own managers
• Hard evidence of customer experience measures you personally owned: the baseline, the improvement you delivered, the time frame and how it was measured
• Multichannel contact centre or service desk leadership across voice, email, messaging and social
• Direct experience handling executive level and reputationally sensitive customer escalations
• A record of improving how customers are communicated with during long or complex faults, not only how quickly faults are closed
• A three year degree or diploma in Engineering, Operations, Business, Information Systems, Service Management or a related field

Preferred

• Experience running a technical field service or engineering interface alongside a contact centre, a background in renewable energy, utilities, telecommunications or similar infrastructure, and divisional budget ownership
• Comfortable reading telemetry data and challenging an engineering explanation on its merits
• Advantageous: an MBA or MBL; ITIL, ISO 9001 lead auditor, PMP or Prince2; experience in a high growth or private equity backed business; an additional South African language
• Comfortable using AI and digital tools to improve service quality and efficiency

Package and Remuneration

R 1350000 – R 1450000 per annum