Service Desk Manager
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As Service Desk Manager (1st Line & Request Fulfilment), you will lead the team that sits at the front door of OCU's Technology function, supporting approximately 6,000 colleagues across multiple regions. This is a high-impact leadership role responsible for delivering outstanding customer experience, operational excellence, and continuous improvement across phone, portal, chat and self-service channels.
Reporting to the Service Operations Manager, you will own the end-to-end 1st Line operating model, ensuring colleagues receive fast, effective support while driving automation, self-service adoption and service quality improvements. You'll lead a multi-region team, optimise service performance through data-led decision making, and work closely with technology teams and service partners to enhance the overall user experience.
This is more than a traditional Service Desk management role. We're looking for a proactive leader who can build scalable processes, improve first-contact resolution, reduce customer effort, and create a high-performing, customer-focused culture. You'll play a key role in delivering OCU's ambition to become a world-class, award-winning Service Operations function.
- Lead 1st Line support and request fulfilment services across phone, portal, chat and walk-up channels.
- Drive service performance against key metrics including SLA, XLA, CSAT, first contact resolution and ticket quality.
- Own triage, routing and workload management processes to ensure efficient resolution and seamless escalation.
- Develop and deliver self-service, automation and shift-left initiatives that reduce demand and improve colleague experience.
- Manage and enhance the service catalogue, knowledge base and request fulfilment processes.
- Lead major incident communications and front-line service response activities.
- Drive continuous improvement through data analysis, customer feedback and service reviews.
- Build, coach and develop a high-performing multi-region team, creating clear career pathways and capability development programmes.
- Partner with Technology, Engineering, Security and managed service providers to improve end-to-end service delivery.
You will bring proven experience leading a Service Desk, 1st Line Support or Request Fulfilment function within a complex, multi-site or global enterprise environment. You are passionate about customer experience, operational excellence and team development, with a strong track record of improving service performance through automation, self-service and continuous improvement.
Essential Skills & Experience
Essential Skills & Experience
- Experience managing a Service Desk, 1st Line Support or Request Fulfilment team supporting large-scale enterprise environments (5,000+ users).
- Strong understanding of ITIL/ITSM practices across incident, request and knowledge management.
- Experience with enterprise ITSM platforms such as ServiceNow, Freshservice or Jira.
- Demonstrable success delivering automation, self-service and service improvement initiatives.
- Strong analytical skills with experience using service performance data to drive decision making.
- Experience operating multi-region or follow-the-sun support models.
- Proven people leadership, coaching and team development experience.
- Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
Desirable
- ITIL v4 Foundation or equivalent certification.
- Experience with service automation platforms such as Microsoft Copilot or Power Automate.
- Knowledge of ISO 27001, ISO 22301 or Cyber Essentials Plus.
- Experience with Lean, Six Sigma or other continuous improvement methodologies.
- Experience developing structured analyst training and career progression programmes.