Director of Customer Service

Company Description

About Veolia North America

Veolia in North America is the top-ranked environmental company in the United States for three consecutive years, and the country’s largest private water operator and technology provider as well as hazardous waste and pollution treatment leader. It offers a full spectrum of water, waste, and energy management services, including water and wastewater treatment, commercial and hazardous waste collection and disposal, energy consulting and resource recovery.

Veolia helps commercial, industrial, healthcare, higher education and municipality customers throughout North America. Headquartered in Boston, Veolia has more than 10,000 employees working at more than 350 locations across North America.

Position

Purpose:

The Director, Customer Operations will support Veolia’s customer experience vision by providing leadership and direction for the Customer Operations team in their designated regulated utility division. The incumbent will provide leadership, guidance and subject matter expertise to effectively and efficiently deliver exceptional customer service with a focus on continuous improvement, identifying and implementing operational efficiencies and defining and delivering on SLAs.

Direct management of the customer service, contact center, billing, payments and collections activities for the designated regulated utility. The successful Director will continually engage in leading and inspiring internal and external teams in developing and sharing best practices.

Primary Duties/Responsibilities:

Management/Supervision

• Provide strong, dynamic leadership by setting expectations, mentoring, coaching, and guiding team members to drive performance across KPIs (employee, customer, and company).
• Establish and monitor annual performance goals for direct reports and ensure that all department employees receive a performance/development review at least once a year.
• Establish work procedures and processes that support company and departmental strategies, metrics, and standards.
• Prioritize, plan and execute customer operations activities and processes to ensure delivery of high-quality results.
• Provide guidance and performance monitoring to ensure team alignment with organizational objectives and performance targets.
• Apply change management processes and tools to support adoption of new programs, including the design, development, delivery, and management of communications.
• Perform workforce management (WFM) analyses, including staffing, contact volume, seasonality, AHT and call routing.
• Provide guidance and input both tactical and strategical into collection strategies.
• Establish and maintain a performance metrics including service level, call efficiency, abandonment rates, staffing utilization, attrition, and financial performance.
• Prepare, oversee, and be accountable for departmental annual operating budgets.

Key Account Management

• Develop and implement strategies for managing customer accounts and resolving payment issues.
• Prepare and oversee annual customer experience feedback programs and use findings to improve service in line with expectations.
• Ensure customer satisfaction while maintaining KPI levels within expected guidelines.
• Use data from complaints, inquiries, and feedback to improve standards and enhance communication with customers.
• Partner with Operations to deliver excellent customer experiences while driving process improvements.
• Communicate effectively with colleagues, internal/external customers, stakeholders, vendors/consultants, and business partners.

Regulations/Rules/Standard Operating Processes

• Ensure compliance with all regulatory agency (e.g., BPU), environmental, health, safety, and contractual requirements.
• Act as primary liaison to regulatory commission (BPU) for resolving customer complaints and issues.
• Prioritize, plan, and implement billing, payments, and collections, policies to ensure alignment with best-in-class standards.
• Develop, communicate, and enforce policies, procedures, and financial controls to ensure consistent and timely customer service responses.
• Continuously improve and document work processes via Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Ensure compliance with internal controls and other regulatory and contractual guidelines.

Department Improvements/Reports

• Identify process gaps affecting customer or business efficiencies, and implement solutions.
• Analyze billing, payment, receivables, and collection data to identify trends and improvement areas.
• Improve and innovate operations by monitoring performance, resolving risks, completing action plans, and managing process improvements.
• Improve contact center operations through performance monitoring, QA programs, risk mitigation, and system/process enhancements.
• Build business cases and lead projects to enhance departmental capabilities.
• Partner with peers across business units (utilities) to drive systemic improvements and standardization in delivering excellent employee and customer experiences.
• Work…