Customer Care Manager Europe

Role PurposeThe Customer Care Manager Europe (CCME) is responsible for the strategic leadership, governance and continuous development of the European Customer Care function across all Falk & Ross business units. The mission of the CCME is to ensure a consistently high-quality, customer-centric and scalable service experience across Europe by defining, implementing and enforcing clear standards, leadership principles and processes along the Order-to-Cash value chain, while maintaining strong customer proximity based on empathy, trust and reliability. The role acts as the single point of accountability for Customer Care excellence in Europe and represents the customer perspective internally towards Operations, Sales, Supply Chain, Finance and IT. The position reports directly to the Chief Operating Officer.Scope of the RoleThe role holds pan-European responsibility across multiple countries, business units and service set-ups. It includes direct leadership of 4–5 Customer Care Team Leads and indirect responsibility for 20+ Customer Care employees across Europe. The CCME owns governance for Order Management, Customer Inquiries, Claims and Returns Handling and works closely with Sales, Logistics, Supply Chain, Finance, IT and Digital teams. The role contributes actively to operational, digital and organisational transformation initiatives across the Falk & Ross Group.Key Responsibilities• Customer Care Strategy & GovernanceThe role defines and continuously develops the European Customer Care strategy in alignment with Falk & Ross' overall business and operations strategy. It establishes a clear target operating model for Customer Care across Europe, balancing standardisation and local requirements, and sets service principles, escalation frameworks and governance structures across countries and business units. The role owns Customer Care-related Order-to-Cash governance, ensuring clear roles, responsibilities and decision paths.• Leadership, Culture & Customer ProximityThe CCME leads, coaches and develops Customer Care leaders and teams across Europe and fosters a customer-centric leadership culture grounded in empathy, accountability and solution-oriented thinking. Customer proximity and service quality are safeguarded as core values despite scale, digitalisation and automation.The role acts as a role model in managing complex customer situations, escalations and critical service incidents.• Performance Orientation & Continuous ImprovementThe role drives a culture of measurable service excellence, transparency and continuous improvement. Customer insights, operational data and employee feedback are translated into targeted improvement initiatives. Service quality, efficiency and scalability are balanced in close alignment with Operations and Finance, supporting long-term customer retention and sustainable growth.• Process Excellence & Cross-Functional CollaborationThe CCME owns and continuously improves Customer Care-related processes within the Order-to-Cash framework. Close collaboration with Sales, Supply Chain, Logistics and Finance ensures the elimination of root causes and promotes end-to-end thinking beyond functional silos. The role supports operational stability while enabling growth and increasing organisational complexity.• Digitalisation, AI & TransformationThe role contributes actively to Falk & Ross' digital and AI-driven transformation within Customer Care. AI-enabled solutions such as automation, intelligent ticket handling, analytics and self-service are leveraged to enhance service quality and efficiency. Business requirements are translated into clear functional specifications in collaboration with IT and Digital teams, ensuring responsible, customer-centric use of AI while preserving human interaction where it adds value.• Voice of Customer & Stakeholder ManagementThe CCME acts as the internal advocate of the customer perspective across the organisation. Structured mechanisms are established to capture, analyse and act on customer feedback. The role partners with Sales in supporting key and strategic customers from a Customer Care perspective and communicates customer insights clearly and effectively to senior management and executive forums.Experience, Competencies & Professional BackgroundProven experience in leading international or European Customer Care or Customer Service organisations is required, combining strong people leadership with high customer orientation, empathy and customer proximity, including the ability to manage escalations, critical service situations and high-impact customer relationships.The role requires a strong strategic and analytical mindset, with the ability to translate vision into execution and a solid understanding of B2B service environments and Order to-Cash processes.Decisions are data-informed while maintaining a clear focus on service quality and the human aspect of customer interaction. Experience in digital transformation initiatives within Customer Care or service operations, including a practical understanding of AI-enabled service applications and their operational and customer impact, is essential.The role must be able to bridge business requirements, technology capabilities and customer expectations.Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills across operational and executive levels are required, along with the ability to operate effectively in multicultural and cross-country environments. Intercultural sensitivity and multilingual capability support trust-based customer relationships.A completed university degree in business administration, management, logistics, customer experience, communication or a related field is preferred.Alternatively, a comparable professional qualification combined with substantial leadership experience in Customer Care or service operations is considered equally valid.Continuous professional development in areas such as leadership, service excellence, digital transformation or AI-enabled operations is regarded as an advantage.Languages: Fluent English is mandatory. German is a strong advantage.Spanish and French are considered a plus