Customer Experience Team Manager
South Africa (Remote) | Full-Time | Permanent | Pet Care / D2C eCommerce
Placed by Hotsourced – connecting top South African talent with world-class global companies
Join a fast-growing UK pet-care company transforming cat health through fresh, high-quality nutrition. The business combines product innovation with a direct-to-consumer model and a dedicated Customer Experience function, creating meaningful relationships with a passionate community of cat parents.
This is an opportunity for an experienced Customer Experience people manager to lead a team of approximately 10 customer support specialists. You’ll take ownership of team performance, coaching, operational delivery and continuous improvement while helping build a high-performance, customer-first culture.
Company Description
Our client is an ambitious UK-based pet-care company on a mission to improve the lives of cats through superior nutrition. As Europe’s first fresh-cooked cat food business, they produce meals using 100% human-grade meat, gently cooked and frozen to preserve freshness.
The company is vertically integrated across R&D, manufacturing, sales and marketing and has already delivered around 35 million fresh meals to more than 200,000 cats across the UK. Its team of more than 130 people spans the UK, US and South Africa, including dedicated Customer Experience teams in London and South Africa.
Operating primarily through a direct-to-consumer model, the company places exceptional customer relationships at the heart of its growth. Its products are also available through a growing selection of major third-party retail and eCommerce platforms. The culture is energetic, ambitious and built around high standards, customer focus, collaboration and continuous improvement.
About The Role
As the Customer Experience Team Manager, you will be responsible for executing the strategy for the company’s end-to-end customer experience while directly managing a team of approximately 10 Customer Experience specialists.
You’ll take ownership of individual and team performance across productivity, quality, customer satisfaction and adherence KPIs. A significant part of your role will involve coaching and developing your team, managing performance, planning operational coverage and ensuring customer service standards and SLAs are consistently achieved.
You’ll also use customer insights, team feedback and performance data to identify opportunities for improvement. Working closely with senior management and peers, you’ll help streamline processes, improve efficiency and build a proactive, accountable and customer-first culture.
This is a fast-moving environment where priorities can change quickly and solutions may not always be ready-made. You’ll therefore need to be comfortable making decisions, creating structure and taking ownership of outcomes.
Responsibilities - What you’ll be doing:
- Team Performance & KPIs: Take full ownership of individual and collective team performance across productivity, quality, customer satisfaction and adherence KPIs. Identify performance gaps early and take appropriate action to improve results.
- Team Coaching & Development: Coach, motivate and develop team members through regular 1:1s, performance reviews, feedback and team sessions, supporting both immediate performance improvement and longer-term development.
- Operational Planning & Execution: Manage team rotas, daily tasking and operational coverage to ensure SLAs are met. Balance workload, capacity and changing priorities while proactively identifying and addressing risks.
- Hiring & Onboarding: Support and own the recruitment of Customer Experience team members, including interviewing, onboarding and early-stage performance management.
- Process Ownership & Improvement: Identify and deliver meaningful process improvements using data, customer insights and team feedback to reduce friction, improve efficiency and raise service quality.
- Quality & Performance Management: Use QA and performance data to maintain consistent standards, coach effectively and address underperformance quickly and fairly.
- Customer-First Culture: Build a high-performance culture rooted in customer focus, accountability and self-ownership while maintaining a supportive and positive team environment.
- Customer Experience Leadership: Inspire the team to deliver thoughtful, high-quality experiences across calls, email and social channels.
- Data & Insights: Analyse customer and team behaviour to identify trends and opportunities that can improve engagement, satisfaction and operational performance.
- Positive Change & Collaboration: Partner with senior management and colleagues to implement efficiencies, improvements and positive change across the wider Customer Experience function.
Requirements - What we’re looking for:
We think the right candidate will tick most of the following boxes:
- 1–2+ years of people management experience within Customer Experience, customer support or a comparable service environment, with direct accountability for team performance, quality and results.
- Proven experience managing productivity, quality, customer satisfaction, adherence and/or SLA-based performance metrics.
- Strong coaching and people-development skills, including experience conducting 1:1s, giving constructive feedback and managing performance.
- Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage rotas, operational coverage, workloads and competing priorities.
- A structured and decisive approach, with the ability to identify problems early and remain calm under pressure.
- A strong focus on service quality and consistency, with experience using QA and data to improve team performance.
- An analytical and process-oriented mindset, with the ability to identify trends, solve problems and implement meaningful improvements.
- Strong emotional intelligence and a genuinely customer-first approach, balancing empathy with accountability.
- Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, evolving environment where processes and priorities may change.
- Confidence using Customer Experience tools and systems to manage workloads, monitor performance and support team members.
- Strong collaboration skills and the ability to work effectively with senior management and cross-functional colleagues.
- Alignment with a culture centred around putting customers first, thinking big, maintaining high standards, perseverance and teamwork.
Preferred Skills - Nice to Have:
- Previous experience using Intercom or a similar Customer Experience platform.
- Experience working within a direct-to-consumer (D2C), eCommerce, subscription or high-growth start-up/scale-up environment.
- Experience hiring and onboarding customer support professionals.
- Experience owning or contributing to process-improvement initiatives.
- Familiarity with QA calibration, customer journey analysis and performance reporting.
Work Schedule
As the company provides 7-day customer support, this position includes weekend work on a rotating schedule. Days off in lieu are provided for weekend days worked.
The source JD does not specify exact daily working hours, so GMT and South African Standard Time hours have not been added rather than assuming a schedule.
Pay & Benefits - What we offer:
- Fully remote opportunity based in South Africa.
- Opportunity to manage and develop a dedicated Customer Experience team within an ambitious international business.
- Exposure to a fast-growing D2C operation with significant scope to influence processes and customer experience.
- A high-energy, collaborative environment that encourages ownership, ambitious thinking and continuous improvement.
- Meaningful responsibility from day one, with visible impact on customer experience and team performance.
- Opportunity to contribute to operational improvements and the continued development of the Customer Experience function.