Retentions & Cancellations Manager

Bullock Tech Talent Partners; Wes-Kaap; On-site; ZAR 900,000 - 1,400,000; Full time

Job summary

Bullock Tech Talent Partners is seeking an experienced Retentions & Cancellations Manager to lead a 38-person team in Cape Town City Centre. You will own the end-to-end retention and cancellation journey, ensuring professional offboarding and driving churn reduction.

Responsibilities include setting targets, coaching managers, designing save offers, and partnering with Product, Network, Sales and Billing to optimise outcomes. This is an on-site, senior leadership role.

Qualifications

• Matric plus a diploma or degree in Business, Commerce, Operations or similar.
• Leadership/management qualification is an advantage.
• At least 5 years in a customer-service, contact-center or retention environment.
• At least 3 years managing managers or team leaders.
• Proven experience leading a 30+ team and improving churn/save rate.
• Experience in telecoms, ISP, subscription or high-volume recurring revenue business.

Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of about 38 through team leaders with regular one-on-ones and development plans.
• Set targets, conduct performance reviews and manage underperformance.
• Drive engagement and reduce attrition with structured onboarding.
• Design, test and refine retention/offboarding strategies and save offers.
• Own the churn outcomes, budgeting and reporting for senior management.

Skills

CRM data skills

BI tools

Excel

Data analysis

People leadership

Customer service

Education

Matric

Diploma/degree in Business/Commerce/Operations

Tools

CRM systems

BI software

Job description

Role: Retentions & Cancellations Manager (Cape Town)

Location: Cape Town City Centre (on-site)

Industry: Telecommunications

Reports to: Head of Revenue

Direct reports: 38 people in total across the function

Remuneration: Negotiable (senior leadership role)

** Please note, our client has a unique environment, they are fast-paced and unstructured, requiring leaders who are resilient, curios, take ownership and have the ability to operate in complexity **

Role Overview:

We are seeking an experienced Retentions & Cancellations Manager on behalf of our client, a cutting-edge telecommunications company based in Cape Town City Centre.

The role will lead a team of 38 Retentions Agents and cut avoidable customer churn while making sure every customer who leaves is offboarded professionally.

Purpose:

Own the end-to-end retention and cancellation journey. That means deciding why customers leave, testing what keeps them, and making sure the people handling those conversations are skilled, well supported and measured on the right things.

Responsibilities:

The manager is accountable for churn outcomes, team performance and professional offboarding across the retentions and cancellations function.

People leadership:

• Lead, coach and develop a team of +/-38 through team leaders, with regular one-on-ones, call calibration and clear development plans.
• Set targets, run performance reviews and manage underperformance fairly and in line with company policy.
• Drive engagement and reduce attrition: recruit, onboard and train to a structured 30/60/90-day plan.
• Build a coaching culture based on observed behaviour and data, not anecdote.

Retention strategy and execution:

• Design, test and refine save offers, scripts and decision flows using controlled tests (for example A/B or holdout groups) so that results are measured, not assumed.
• Segment cancellation reasons (price, coverage or speed, relocation, competitor, service failure) and feed root causes back to Product, Network, Sales and Billing.
• Work with the business to set save-offer rules based on customer lifetime value and the cost of each incentive.
• Identify at-risk customers early with Data/BI and set up proactive outreach.

Cancellations process:

• Offboard customers who choose to leave professionally: a clear, quick and courteous process that leaves a good last impression.
• Ensure final accounts, refunds, device and SIM returns, and number-porting requests are handled accurately and on time.
• Own the escalation path for cancellation-related complaints.

Quality assurance:

• Maintain a QA framework with calibrated scorecards, call monitoring and regular quality reviews.

Reporting and Operations:

• Produce daily, weekly and monthly reports on churn, save rate, quality and staffing for senior management.
• Work with workforce management to match staffing to demand, including peaks after billing runs and promotions.
• Own the operating budget and continuous-improvement projects (tools, CRM workflows, knowledge base).

Key Performance Indicators:

The manager is measured on a balanced set of outcome, quality and people metrics, so that save rate is never improved at the expense of customer experience or trust. Targets should be set from rain's own baseline data, not borrowed from other companies.

• Monthly churn rate
• Save rate
• Post-save retention (90 days)
• Net revenue retained
• CSAT / NPS on cancel and retain calls
• QA score
• Cancellation processing time
• Complaints and escalations
• Team attrition and absenteeism
• Budget and forecast accuracy

Requirements:

The ideal candidate has led a large contact-center or retention team, can show measurable churn results, and handles customers who choose to leave with professionalism.

• Matric plus a relevant diploma or degree (Business, Commerce, Operations or similar); a leadership or management qualification is an advantage.
• At least 5 years in a customer-service, contact-center or retention environment, including at least 3 years managing managers or team leaders.
• Proven experience leading a team of 30+ and delivering measurable improvements in churn, save rate or customer satisfaction.
• Experience in telecoms, ISP, subscription, financial services or another high-volume, recurring-revenue business.
• Strong data skills: comfortable with CRM and BI tools, Excel and statistical basics (sample size, significance, cohort analysis).

Advantageous

• Experience running structured retention or win-back tests.
• Lean Six Sigma, a certified coaching qualification, or contact-center management certification.
• Experience with workforce management, QA and speech-analytics platforms.
• Experience managing hybrid or shift-based teams.

Core competencies

• Leading people through team leaders, with clear expectations and consistent follow-through.
• Evidence-based decision making: forms a hypothesis, tests it, and acts on the result.
• Commercial judgement: balances saved revenue against discount cost and customer goodwill.
• Professional conduct: treats every customer with respect, including those who choose to leave.
• Clear communication with senior management, Finance, Product and the frontline.
• Resilience and calm under pressure, with strong coaching and conflict-handling skills.