Service Operations Team Leader

Company Information

Verisk Specialty Business Solutions (formerly Sequel Business Solutions) (VSBS) is a division of Verisk. Since 1993, we have established a reputation as a market leader in software for the global insurance industry. We provide streamlined, end-to-end management of insurance and reinsurance business for brokers, underwriters and intermediaries through the Sequel product suite. Our customers include Lloyd's and London Market specialists and major participants in the North American general insurance market.

To learn more about VSBS, visit https://verisksequel.com/.

Role Purpose

We place a premium on meeting our customers' high expectations of our products and services. Through contracted support services, Client Support Services plays a key role in delivering reliable, efficient and high-quality service to operationally live clients.

The Service Operations Team Leader is a working leadership role, accountable for the day-to-day performance and development of a Service Operations team while retaining sufficient operational expertise to provide practical direction, coaching and escalation support. The role combines people leadership, operational ownership and hands-on Service Operations capability.

The Team Leader ensures work is effectively prioritised and allocated, service levels and quality expectations are achieved, operational risks are recognised and escalated, and team members have the skills, knowledge and support needed to perform effectively. The role also drives greater standardisation, automation, data-led decision making and continuous improvement across Service Operations.

Measures of Success

• Service Requests are delivered within agreed service levels and operational targets.

• Aged, blocked and avoidably delayed work is reduced and actively controlled.

• Team output demonstrates consistent accuracy, quality and adherence to documented controls.

• Escalations and operational risks are identified early and managed effectively.

• Process documentation, knowledge coverage, cross-skilling and team resilience improve.

• Repeatable activities become more standardised, automated and efficient, with measurable reduction in avoidable manual effort.

• New activities transition successfully into Service Operations with appropriate readiness and ownership.

• Team capability, engagement and individual development improve.

• Continuous Improvement initiatives deliver sustained and demonstrable benefit.

• Clients and internal stakeholders experience responsive, reliable and professional service.

Role Scope and Accountability

The Service Operations Team Leader is expected to remain close enough to the operation to understand queue health, challenge processes, resolve escalations, coach Service Operators and actively improve the service. The role is distinguished from a Service Operator II by formal accountability for people, workload, quality, service performance and team development, while the Service Operations Manager retains overall management accountability for the broader Service Operations function.

In practical terms, the role is accountable to: run the operation, lead the people, control the service and improve the service.

Operational Team Leadership

• Lead the day-to-day operation of the Service Operations team and maintain appropriate coverage for the services within the team's responsibility.

• Monitor queues, demand, workload and priorities, ensuring work is assigned, progressed and completed according to priority, complexity, skills and available capacity.

• Maintain visibility of ageing, blocked, high-risk and high-priority work and intervene where appropriate.

• Act as the first leadership escalation point for complex Service Requests, operational issues and matters requiring additional coordination.

• Maintain sufficient operational knowledge to guide colleagues and, when required, undertake or oversee complex Service Operations activities.

• Ensure documented procedures, controls and standards are consistently followed, including during periods of increased demand or operational pressure.

Service Delivery and Client Outcomes

• Ensure Service Operations activities are delivered accurately, efficiently and in line with applicable service standards and client commitments.

• Monitor performance against client SLAs, operational targets and agreed priorities; identify potential service failures early and take corrective or escalation action.

• Recognise and manage negative client experiences and ensure decisions balance process efficiency with client impact.

• Work effectively with Service Delivery Management, Technical Support, Product, Development, Client Environment Management and other teams where cross-functional support is required.

• Contribute Service Operations expertise to client and internal stakeholder discussions when leadership or operational input is needed.

People Leadership and Development

• Provide clear day-to-day leadership, coaching and support to team members.

• Set clear objectives and expectations, conduct regular one-to-ones, and provide timely, constructive feedback.

• Complete appropriate line-management responsibilities, including objective setting, performance reviews and development planning.

• Identify training and skills-development needs and coach colleagues towards greater operational independence.

• Build knowledge depth, cross-skilling and resilience, reducing dependency on individual subject-matter experts.

• Support succession planning, career development, recruitment and structured onboarding where required.

• Recognise good performance and reinforce behaviours that support a collaborative, accountable and client-focused culture.

Service Operations Process Ownership

• Act as a subject-matter expert for Service Operations processes within the team's scope.

• Ensure procedures are clearly defined, documented, maintained, controlled and understood.

• Own or oversee the analysis, design and documentation of new Service Operations processes.

• Identify services and activities suitable for transition into Service Operations, establishing clear ownership, dependencies, controls and escalation paths.

• Maintain and improve relevant areas of the Service Operations Catalogue.

• Ensure process changes are communicated, trained and successfully embedded within the team.

• Challenge unclear, inefficient or unnecessarily complex processes and develop practical alternatives.

Continuous Improvement, Automation and Efficiency

• Create a strong Continuous Improvement culture and encourage team members to identify and implement improvements.

• Use service data, ticket trends, dashboards and operational experience to identify opportunities to improve quality, efficiency and client outcomes.

• Identify repetitive or high-volume activities suitable for standardisation, automation or self-service.

• Sponsor and coordinate improvement initiatives with appropriate technical and business stakeholders.

• Measure the effectiveness of improvements, confirm expected benefits and ensure changes are sustained.

Quality, Risk and Operational Governance

• Maintain appropriate quality standards and establish proportionate quality checks for complex or higher-risk activities.

• Review service performance and identify emerging trends, operational risks, recurring issues and control weaknesses.

• Ensure exceptions, errors, process failures and risks are recorded and escalated through the appropriate channels.

• Provide clear management information and operational reporting to Service Operations leadership and relevant stakeholders.

• Ensure actions arising from service reviews, incidents, audits and operational issues are owned and progressed to completion.

• Ensure client data is secure, appropriately handled and managed in accordance with Verisk policy and applicable requirements.

Service Transition and Operational Readiness

• Participate in the transition of new clients, services, functionality and operational activities into support.

• Confirm that activities transferring into Service Operations have suitable documentation, training, ownership, access, controls and support arrangements.

• Identify readiness gaps and operational risks before go-live and escalate them through the appropriate governance routes.

• Coordinate knowledge transfer and support the embedding and stabilisation of newly transitioned services.

Incident and Escalation

• Act as an escalation point for operational issues requiring Team Leader intervention.

• Support incident investigation, service recovery and coordination where Service Operations involvement is required.

• Coordinate Service Operations resources during significant service events when necessary.

• Ensure learning from incidents, escalations and service failures is translated into improvements to process, documentation, controls or training.

• Escalate matters beyond the team's authority or capability through appropriate support and management channels.

Resource and Capacity Management

• Understand current and anticipated demand and plan team coverage accordingly.

• Identify capacity, capability, resilience or single-point-of-failure risks and raise them with Service Operations management.

• Develop cross-skilling and flexible deployment of team members to improve operational resilience.

• Support recruitment, selection and onboarding activity when required.

Collaboration and Culture

• Promote a supportive, inclusive, collaborative and accountable working environment.

• Encourage ownership of problems through to appropriate resolution and promote effective knowledge sharing.

• Build strong relationships across Client Support Services and the wider organisation.

• Demonstrate professionalism, accountability, constructive challenge and client focus.

Essential

Experience

• Experience in IT service, application support, Service Operations or a comparable operational environment.

• Experience handling complex Service Requests or operational support activities.

• Experience coordinating and prioritising operational workloads against service targets.

• Experience coaching, mentoring, supervising or leading colleagues.

• Experience documenting, controlling and improving operational processes.

• Experience using IT Service Management processes and tooling.

• Demonstrable Continuous Improvement experience and effective collaboration with technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Skills

• Strong people leadership, coaching and feedback skills.

• Excellent organisation, prioritisation and workload-management capability in a busy operational environment.

• Strong attention to detail, analytical thinking and problem-solving skills.

• Ability to identify operational risk, make proportionate decisions and determine when escalation is required.

• Strong written process and documentation skills.

• Clear, confident communication with clients and internal stakeholders.

• Ability to use service data and management information to support decisions.

• Confidence to challenge inefficient processes and propose practical alternatives.

• Strong client-service mindset, personal accountability and ability to operate with appropriate autonomy.

Qualifications and knowledge

• ITIL 4 Foundation, or equivalent demonstrable understanding of IT Service Management principles.

• Understanding of Continuous Improvement methods and principles.

• Good working knowledge of Microsoft 365, SharePoint and relevant Service Management tooling.

• Understanding of service-level management, operational risk, quality control and escalation.

Desirable

• Previous formal Team Leader or line-management experience.

• Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt or an equivalent Continuous Improvement qualification.

• Experience identifying or implementing operational automation and self-service.

• Technical support background or experience working closely with engineering and product teams.

• Knowledge of SQL, scripting or automation technologies.

• Experience supporting SaaS or hosted software services.

• Knowledge of the insurance industry and London Market processes.

• Experience of service transition, operational acceptance or readiness assurance.

• Experience in a client-facing support organisation.