ApplyBoard Looking for Associate Director of Customer Experience – UK Market at Kitchener, Ontario, Canada Full Time

ApplyBoard simplifies the study abroad search, application, and acceptance process by connecting international students, recruitment partners, and educational institutions on one intuitive and personalized platform. ApplyBoard is a mission-driven, hyper-growth organization. It has been attracting dedicated individuals for more than eight years who are inspired every day to break down barriers to international education and take their careers to new heights at a company that will invest in their career growth. Our six core values are our compass in our mission to Educate the World and the foundation of our unique company culture. As an organization built on a foundation of diversity, it’s important that our team members are representative of the students from more than 140 countries that we support.

The Role:

The Director of Customer Experience for the UK market will be responsible for driving the enrollment targets of ApplyBoard in this market. The ideal candidate will possess a positive, engaging and goal-oriented management style to lead teams in multiple geographies; must be experienced in the UK education market with strong knowledge of the international student application process and all the necessary steps to maximize achieving enrolments; a track record of leading and scaling high performing operational teams including coaching, developing innovative processes, motivating, removing obstacles, and leveraging data points to ensure SLAs, quality metrics and CSAT / NPS are exceeded for schools, recruitment partners and direct students. The successful candidate will have experience managing B2B relationships, and multiple stakeholders in order to achieve an A+ customer service for internal and external customers.

The Opportunity:

• Build and execute the UK market CX and operational strategy to achieve the company targets for the market
• Collaborate with CX teams that support the application process journey including Learning and Enablement, Quality, Process Management and Partner Client Managers to provide a complete solution and industry best customer experience to all customers
• Must possess the ability to identify opportunities to maximize efficiency and improve customer service and use these insights along with data to support process, tools and product improvements
• Comfort with developing and managing KPI’s, KRA’s and other metrics to measure overall team and individual performances to identify opportunities to improve and maintain a healthy high performing scalable team
• Plan strategic team operations including headcount, KPI’s, KRA’s and targets for the next 12 months with a clear path to achieving those results
• Ensure the application journey output metrics are met and exceeded including quantity, turnaround times, quality and positive CSAT scores
• Lead cross functional company wide meetings with solid presentation skills and the ability to communicate clearly and foster an environment so that all stakeholders are bought in to achieve the desired result
• Report operational and company results in regular cadences including identifying areas of progress, highlighting challenges with proposed solutions and support required to be successful
• Incorporate and share best practices with other operational teams with the mindset of working as #OneTeam within the CX department and throughout the organization
• Acts as key stakeholder and consultant in customer experience initiatives across the company for the UK market, advising on prioritization and design and measuring outcomes

What you bring to the table:

• Strong UK Market education experience, more specifically with the application process for international students seeking education in the UK
• Familiar managing a team against a budget
• Strong KPI knowledge to measure and positively motivate the team
• Familiar with closely collaborating with Product and Development teams to improve the Customer Experience and operational efficiency of the team
• Must be comfortable with technology and able to quickly learn BI tools to make informed decisions and operationally manage the team on a daily basis
• Proven track record in building highly skilled and customer centric service teams
• Direct experience in establishing and achieving goals and targets tied to Customer Experience
• Preference for someone that is comfortable working with data and Excel / Google Sheets to make sense of raw data
• Experience working with educational institutions, recruitment partners, affiliates
• Has worked with global stakeholders and teams previously
• A roll-up-their-sleeves approach to the design, development, implementation and measure of customer experience
• Excellent critical-thinking and interpersonal skills that leads by example
• Demonstrated excellent verbal and written skills; the ability to speak to large groups and lead or facilitate techno-functional workshops
• Demonstrates empathy and is comfortable negotiating situations to work towards mutually beneficial solutions and outcomes
• Excellent multi-tasking skills with an ability to juggle multiple priorities
• Ownership and accountability to see tasks through as committed to full completion
• Curiosity and problem solving skills to think outside of the box
• True team player that goes beyond the call of duty supporting their own team but volunteers to help other teams inside and outside of the department
• Customer centric individual that puts the customer at the center of everything, while balancing the operational needs of the business

About ApplyBoard

ApplyBoard empowers students around the world to access the best education by simplifying the study abroad search, application, and acceptance process to more than 1,750 institutions across Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Ireland. Headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and with an additional operational office in Gurugram, India, ApplyBoard has helped more than 600,000 students from over 150 countries fulfill their study abroad dreams since 2015.

In 2022, Deloitte named ApplyBoard one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Canada for the fourth consecutive year, ranking #30 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and #170 on the 2022 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list. ApplyBoard ranked on LinkedIn’s 2022 Top Startups List in Canada in 2020, 2021, and 2022 and was recognized as CIX’s Innovator of the Year 2022 and the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2022 Ontario Winner. In 2023, ApplyBoard India was Great Place to Work® Institute (India) certified for outstanding employee experience and workplace culture.

Thank you for your interest in joining ApplyBoard on our mission to Educate the World. Please note that only qualified applicants that have been selected for an interview will be contacted.

ApplyBoard welcomes and encourages applications from people with disabilities. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.