BPO Operations Manager
Keen · Cape Town
About Keen:
At Keen, we don't just deliver services — we embed ourselves into the heart of our clients' businesses. From digital marketing and creative to customer experience, we craft bold, high-performance digital experiences for global brands. Keen helps some of the most exciting U.S. and international brands scale smarter by embedding expert teams that drive results across marketing, creative, customer experience, and sales. We're not just another legacy BPO.
We're a partner in growth — and that's where you come in.
About the Role:
We're hiring an Operations Manager – Customer Experience to take ownership of operational performance across our global Customer Experience and Customer Service environments.
This is a hands-on senior leadership role for someone who can operate strategically while staying close to the day-to-day business. You'll be responsible for strengthening operational structure, developing leaders, improving performance, and working closely with clients to ensure teams consistently deliver against expectations.
You'll have significant ownership over how our operations evolve — from processes and performance frameworks to team structure, client delivery, and continuous improvement. We're looking for someone who doesn't simply manage an existing operation, but can identify opportunities, build solutions, and bring people with them.
What You'll Do:
- Own operational performance across our 24/7/365 Customer Experience and Customer Service teams, ensuring consistent delivery against client and business objectives
- Lead and develop frontline and management teams, building a strong leadership pipeline and creating clear paths for performance and growth
- Act as a senior client partner, building trusted relationships with stakeholders and taking ownership of operational discussions, escalations, and delivery
- Translate business goals into operational strategy, setting priorities and driving execution across multiple teams and client environments
- Own KPI and performance management, using data and operational insights to identify trends, solve problems, and improve results
- Build and optimise processes, systems, and ways of working that improve efficiency, quality, scalability, and consistency
- Lead operational improvement initiatives, identifying opportunities to strengthen workflows, reduce friction, and improve the customer and employee experience
- Partner cross-functionally with Finance, HR, Recruitment, and other internal teams to support forecasting, workforce planning, hiring, and operational growth
- Ensure operational compliance with client requirements, internal standards, and relevant regulatory expectations
- Support the development of our Salt River office environment and culture, helping create a high-performing and accountable in-office experience
- Coach and mentor managers and emerging leaders, building the capability required to scale the operation sustainably
- Take ownership of complex operational challenges, bringing structure and clear decision-making to high-pressure situations
Requirements
What we're Looking For:
- 8+ years of experience in operations leadership, ideally within BPO, Customer Experience, Customer Service, or a similar high-volume environment
- Proven experience leading large teams and multiple layers of leadership
- Experience building, restructuring, or scaling operations, rather than simply maintaining an established environment
- Strong understanding of CX operations, performance management, workforce planning, and operational KPIs
- Demonstrated experience managing senior client and stakeholder relationships
- Strong analytical ability with the confidence to use data to make operational decisions
- Experience developing Managers, Team Leaders, and frontline teams
- Strong understanding of CRM, ticketing, workforce management, and CX platforms such as Zendesk
- Comfortable managing teams of varying sizes, from smaller specialist teams through to 50+ agents
- Strong commercial awareness, including exposure to budgets, forecasting, staffing, and operational planning
- A strong sense of ownership, with the ability to operate independently and make sound decisions
- Excellent communication, collaboration, and change-management skills
- Experience working with international clients is advantageous
- Six Sigma, Lean, COPC, or compliance experience/certification is advantageous
Benefits
Why Join Keen?
Join a collaborative, high-performing team where your growth is a priority. We invest in our people through ongoing learning, career development, an annual Professional Development Budget, and Birthday Leave.
Compensation
- Competitive Base Salary
- Medical Aid
- Attendance & Timeliness Bonus
- Transport Allowance
- Monthly Performance Bonus
Global Support Environment
As we support clients across different time zones, Keen operates in a 24/7/365 environment. Team members should be comfortable working flexible schedules to support our clients and deliver an exceptional customer experience.