Customer Operations Manager

Customer Operations Manager

About Us

Red Kite is a modern, boutique holiday home management company operating across the Cotswolds and surrounding areas. We currently manage 140+ homes and are on an ambitious journey to scale to 500+ by 2030, while maintaining consistently high guest review standards.

We are a fast-paced, ever-evolving startup. Things move quickly, priorities shift regularly, and we continually build and refine processes as we grow. If you thrive in a dynamic environment, enjoy solving complex problems and want to help build something special from the ground up, this is the place for you.

The Role

Internally, this is an Operations Manager-level role leading Red Kite’s Guest Experience function. You will ensure guests receive fast, thoughtful and high-quality support before, during and after their stay.

You will directly manage a team of seven Guest Experience team members based across South Africa, Portugal and the Philippines, with the team expected to grow to approximately 11 by next summer. You will be responsible for team performance, staffing coverage, recruitment, onboarding, coaching and ensuring the function operates effectively across different countries and time zones.

This is a senior, hands-on leadership role. You will act as the escalation point for serious guest issues and complaints, making sound decisions on compensation, refunds, relocations and other complex resolutions within agreed guidelines.

A major focus will be improving how Red Kite uses AI and technology to support guests. Our target is for AI to handle 50% to 70% of guest messages by the end of the year. You will understand how the system works, improve it over time and ensure more complex issues are escalated quickly to the right person.

For most of our guests, this is their hard earned holiday, the break they have looked forward to all year, so getting their stay right is everything. We are smart with technology, but the guest experience always comes first. AI takes care of routine questions quickly and accurately, so the team’s time and energy go where they count, on the moments that genuinely need a person. You will help define what great customer service looks like as we grow.

You will also use data, guest feedback, calls and reviews to identify where performance needs to improve, then lead projects that strengthen guest communication, check-in experience, five-star review performance, response times and phone answer rates.

This role suits someone who can lead a growing customer support team, manage a high volume of complex issues and remain calm and effective when there is no obvious solution.

Responsibilities

Team Leadership and Operations

• Lead the Guest Experience function and directly manage a team of seven, with responsibility for performance, development, recruitment, onboarding and day-to-day support
• Own staffing coverage and rotas across multiple countries and time zones, responding quickly to sickness, absence and changes in team capacity
• Run regular one-to-ones, coaching and performance reviews, giving clear feedback and addressing underperformance where required
• Ensure the team delivers fast, accurate, friendly and professional communication across messaging, email, phone and live chat
• Act as the senior escalation point for serious guest complaints, complex in-stay issues and high-impact operational problems
• Make balanced decisions on compensation, refunds, relocations and other costly resolutions, while maintaining the relevant guidelines with agreement from the Head of Operations
• Review conversations, calls and service quality, ensuring handovers are clear, guest issues are followed through and service levels are met
• Oversee key guest-facing processes, including deposits, damage waivers, identity verification, reviews and compensation
• Work closely with Account Management, Maintenance, Housekeeping and other teams to resolve shared issues and deliver strong guest outcomes

Performance, Technology and Improvement

• Own key Guest Experience measures, including guest communication scores, check-in scores, five-star review percentage, phone answer rate and response times
• Help define which metrics best reflect guest experience and team performance, and ensure they are tracked consistently
• Analyse data, guest feedback, calls and operational information to identify themes, risks and priority areas for improvement
• Investigate selected negative reviews from an end-to-end guest experience perspective, reviewing communication, housekeeping, maintenance responses and owner communication to identify root causes
• Lead practical projects that improve service quality, reduce unresolved issues and strengthen performance against key metrics
• Own the ongoing performance of Red Kite’s guest messaging AI, with a target of 50% to 70% of messages being handled by AI by the end of the year
• Improve AI knowledge, procedures, escalation rules, quality assurance and tone of voice so straightforward issues are handled well and complex issues reach the team quickly
• Review and improve guest-facing communication, including automations, templates, guidebooks and other content
• Develop clear policies and procedures that can be followed consistently by both team members and AI systems
• Report clearly on team performance, capacity, risks and improvement work

Required

• Significant experience managing a customer support team of a comparable size
• Experience working in hospitality or a similarly high-volume, fast-paced and operationally complex environment
• Strong people leadership skills, including coaching, performance management, difficult conversations and working constructively with senior colleagues
• Experience managing escalations, complaints and complex customer issues through to resolution
• Strong judgement, resilience and confidence making balanced decisions involving guest satisfaction, cost and operational risk
• Experience using technology to improve customer support operations, including learning and developing AI-supported service systems
• Experience designing or improving policies, procedures and service standards
• Strong analytical skills, with the ability to turn data and feedback into clear priorities and improvement projects
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Highly organised and able to prioritise a large volume of competing issues
• Comfortable working independently, making decisions without constant direction and handling unfamiliar or high-pressure situations
• Positive, proactive and solutions-focused, with the ability to adapt quickly in a fast-growing startup environment

Desirable

• Experience managing teams across multiple countries or time zones
• Experience scaling customer support teams
• Experience implementing or improving AI customer service tools
• Experience developing procedures that can be followed by both people and automated systems
• Experience in technical support alongside general customer support
• Experience in short-term rentals, property management or travel
• Familiarity with tools such as Hostaway, Breezeway, Guidey or similar platforms
• Experience leading projects that improve customer service metrics
• Experience overseeing workforce planning, scheduling and team capacity

Working Pattern

• Four days per week, from 8:00 am to 5:30 pm, with a one-hour lunch break
• Our preferred working pattern is Wednesday to Saturday, although an alternative pattern including Sunday may be considered
• A maximum of eight scheduled weekend working days may be taken as annual