Experience in the packaging industry preferred
The Customer Service & Merchandising Manager reports to the President and is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the Customer Service and Merchandising teams. This role allocates workflow, provides at-need coaching and development to ensure personalized, high-quality service, and implements best practice strategies that increase profitability, customer retention, and alignment of every team member with the mission.
Key Duties & Accountabilities
- Lead day-to-day operations within Customer Service and Purchasing managing daily activities, supervising staff, and allocating tasks to ensure timeliness, accuracy, quality, and performance standards
- Reallocate workflow with temporary assignments to expedite orders and maintain orderly workflow based on business and customer priorities
- Ensure Merchandisers communicate cost changes proactively to Sales and Customer Service so they can take necessary steps to protect/increase profit margins.
- Maximize profitability by pushing back on cost changes, and negotiating for the lowest "delivered" cost to include minimum order size for n/c freight etc.
- Coordinate with inventory control to determine and manage inventory needs.
- Ensure Customer Service Representatives are keeping Price Lists current and assessing GP$/UOM on orders to protect margin, alerting manager to potential issues
- Set an example by embracing the mission and leveraging best practices to deploy strategies focused toward that mission
- Develop, implement and contribute to the continuous improvement of customer service and merchandising written work instructions, service procedures, policies and standards, and operationalizing personalized service
- Provide at-need coaching and access to training resources to train new employees, and provide continuous coaching to elevate staff capabilities, and ability to service internal and external customers
- Control resources and utilize assets to achieve qualitative and quantitative targets
- Develop and track Customer Service and Merchandising KPI's, analyze statistics and compile accurate reports to elevate service quality, reduce service failures and contribute to protecting margin
- Take ownership of customer's issues and follow problems through to resolution