Head of Customer Service - Heathrow Airport

London, England, United Kingdom

12/17/2024

The Head of Customer Service is a key operational leadership position within Swissport UK&I Station Structures reporting to the Swissport Station Manager and will be responsible for Swissport Customer Service and operational delivery at the airport.

In this role you will be responsible for the day to day Customer Service excellence of the station including Lounges where applicable and will be bench marked against the Swissport Leadership Competencies of Leading and Facilitating Change, Applying Commercial Acumen, Coaching and Developing Others, Making Decisions, Managing Performance for Success and Executing and Getting Results.

You will hold financial and operational responsibility for your area and ensure safe, profitable, high quality performance in accordance with customer expectations, corporate objectives, strategy and plans. You will be responsible for the stringent management of revenue and for providing leadership and guidance to staff across a diverse workforce.

Responsibilities

The following responsibilities are associated with this job role:

Safety Leader

• Assures all employees comply with company rules and procedures and other authority requirements like Health and Safety guidelines
• To ensure that all people management practices, procedures and processes are implemented consistently across the airport.
• Implements and monitors the local emergency plan and BCP.
• Accountable for maintaining a safe work environment through the completion of workplace assessments, trend analysis and performance reviews.
  
  

P&L Management

• Accountable for the preparation of the operating budgets for the following year for prior approval by the Station Manager.
• Continuously analyse financial and operational performance and forecast data to identify trends and to determine progress toward targets. Proactively identify and capture improvement potential where possible.
  
  

Leadership and Stakeholder Management

• Establish strong leadership with unit Heads and upper supervisory staff through excellent communication skills and by ensuring a positive work environment.
• Skills in project management and change management experience.
• Solves conflicts/irregularities and takes appropriate action.
• Interpersonal and collaborative skills to influence other areas of the business and teams.
• Striving to continuous improvement, through positive people management.
• Setting robust goals and objectives to facilitate people development.
• Playing an active part through mentoring and coaching in developing the talent pipeline.
• Support continual employee engagement to reduce team member attrition rates as an employer of choice.
• Building strong Trade Union relationships.
• Developing and coaching talent within the business.
  
  

Quality Focus, Service Delivery and Operational Efficiency

• Ensuring efficient Resource Planning (manpower, equipment) in collaboration with the planning and resourcing teams.
• To manage /co-ordinate operations with station management teams to ensure required resources are available in order to deliver consistently high standards.
• Monitor and control KPIs such as customer service, operational performance and financial performance on a foundation of safety.
• Address and respond to complaints promptly
• Ensure that administrative and control policies and procedures are maintained
  
  

Business Growth and Strategy

• Is expected to have an entrepreneurial approach to seek and act on opportunities and challenges to maximise the full business potential in the market.
• Challenging the operational status quo to support improved business performance and growth.
• Responsibility to develop and enhance the customer relationship at an operational level as well as ensure that any new business/ renewal is commercially aligned and supports delivery of the stations P+L objectives.
  
  

Relationship Builder

• Successfully build and develop relationships and complete trust within the business, with particular emphasis on the Head of Department peer group and Business unit Heads, plus relevant central support functions (eg, Finance, HR, Operations Support and QHSE)
• Maintain close and effective business relationships with customers, trade unions and various control authorities such as Airport Management, and other regulatory bodies.
• Drive a customer centric culture through your teams, creating an environment that focuses on understanding our customers' needs and their changing business priorities to continually seek to create value and become a true partner of choice understanding the business impact.
  
  

Qualifications

ESSENTIAL SKILLS

• You will have the ability to accept and embrace change as a constant and unpredictable feature of your working environment.
• Can communicate clearly with your people to help them understand Swissport Western Europe direction.
• Be able to build positive and trusting relationships.
• Be open to different opinions and seek a collaborative approach.
• Embrace an ideas culture to enable teams to create an agile edge.
• Promote flexibility, adaptability and agility in order to enable contingency time.
• Demonstrate a sense of urgency and the desire to improve the delivery of services and a commitment to continuous improvement.
• Personal and professional integrity of the highest order
• Excellent organisational abilities, attention to detail, able to prioritise workloads and work effectively to deadlines in a fast-paced complex environment.
  
  

Qualifications And Competencies

• University degree or equivalent, advanced degree in related field or professional certifications are advantageous.
• Excellent working knowledge of business management principles and practices, financial concepts, and key drivers of profitability and operational performance delivery.
• A minimum of 3 years’ experience with significant P&L accountability and leadership of large teams.
• Fluent spoken and written English.
  
  

The list is not exhaustive and is not intended to restrict the scope of the job but clearly define a starting point and may vary depending on location and local customer requirements.