Service Quality & Customer Experience Manager

Cash Crusaders; Johannesburg; Hybrid; ZAR 60 000 - 90 000; Full time

Job summary

A leading retail company in Johannesburg is seeking a skilled manager to oversee their Mystery Shopper Programme. The ideal candidate will have extensive retail experience, with a strong background in designing customer experience programmes, along with advanced skills in data analysis and dashboard creation. Responsibilities include managing the mystery shopper framework, developing performance recognition systems, and reporting insights. The position offers a hybrid working model with travel across stores nationwide.

Qualifications

• Minimum 5–8 years’ retail experience.
• At least 3 years designing and running a mystery shopper programme.
• Proven success in building performance ranking systems.

Responsibilities

• Design and manage the in-house mystery shopper framework.
• Develop and maintain a performance ranking dashboard.
• Identify chronic low performers and create improvement plans.
• Deliver concise monthly mystery shopper reports.
• Collaborate with teams to align service standards.

Skills

Retail experience

Analytical skills

Stakeholder management

Presentation skills

Dashboard building

Education

Bachelor’s degree or diploma in marketing, business or related field

Tools

Excel

Power BI

Tableau

Job description

Location

Gauteng Regional Office, Lanseria, South Africa (hybrid with regular travel to regions and stores nationwide)

Role Purpose

To own the design, execution and continuous improvement of Cash Crusader’s fully internal national Mystery Shopper Programme across all corporate and franchised stores, while building and maintaining a robust, transparent employee and store performance ranking system.

The role turns mystery shopper insights and customer-facing metrics into visible recognition of top performers and swift, fair intervention for consistent under-performers, driving a uniform, high-energy, customer-obsessed service culture nationwide.

Key Responsibilities

1. Mystery Shopper Programme Leadership
   • Design and manage the complete in-house mystery shopper framework: visit frequency, scoring methodology, question sets, store coverage, shopper guidelines and reporting cadence.
   • Recruit, train, schedule and performance-manage a small internal team of mystery shoppers.
   • Ensure 100% national coverage (corporate and franchise stores) with statistically valid sample sizes per region and store tier.
   • Continuously refine the programme based on business priorities, customer expectations and franchisee feedback.
2. Performance Ranking & Recognition System
   • Develop and maintain a fair, visible and real-time employee and store ranking dashboard that combines mystery shopper scores, product knowledge certification results, customer feedback and sales conversion metrics.
   • Publish national, regional and individual leaderboards monthly.
   • Design and execute recognition initiatives for top-ranked individuals and stores ("Store of the Month", "Service Superstar" awards, bonus qualifiers, etc.).
3. Intervention & Corrective Action
   • Identify chronic low performers (individuals and stores) using clear, data-driven thresholds.
   • Partner with the Training Manager and regional teams to create and monitor targeted improvement plans.
   • Track progress and escalate persistent under-performance to the Head of Learning & Performance and the relevant franchisee/principal.
4. Reporting & Insights
   • Deliver concise, high-impact monthly mystery shopper and service quality reports.
   • Translate raw data into actionable coaching insights for trainers and store managers.
5. Collaboration
   • Work with the Product Specialist / Training Content Developer to rapidly create targeted training interventions for recurring service failures.
   • Partner with Operations, Buying and Marketing to keep service standards aligned with promotions, new product launches and brand campaigns.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree or diploma in marketing, business, retail management or related field.
• Minimum 5–8 years’ retail experience. With at least 3 years designing and running (or significantly improving) an in-house mystery shopper/customer experience programme in a multi-site or franchise environment (advantageous).
• Proven success building performance ranking and recognition systems that change behaviour.
• Advanced Excel and dashboard-building skills (Power BI / Tableau advantageous).

Key Competencies & Personal Attributes

• Retail-obsessed with an instinctive feel for outstanding shop-floor service.
• Highly analytical with the ability to turn data into compelling stories and actions.
• Confident presenter who can command a room of franchisees and store managers.
• Firm but fair — comfortable addressing poor performance constructively.
• Strong stakeholder management and influence skills.
• Energetic, resilient and willing to travel frequently.