The Operations Associate Director is responsible for driving profitable business results and operational excellence by creating and developing relationships with their customers.  This individual will serve as a single point of contact for upper management and leaders at our key customers.  Key areas of focus include:

• Uncovering/understanding client objectives, challenges and needs by performing regular client needs assessments
• Leveraging internal resources to enhance the customer experience
• Establishing/growing senior relationships with assigned customers
• Preventing and/or resolving escalated client issues
• Demonstrating thought leadership with customer by developing and presenting client industry/market research findings, trends, benchmarking and other pertinent information
• Developing a quarterly plan to translate customer objectives into an overarching strategy
• Actively participating in long range strategic planning for customer
• Leading senior level client meetings and attending regular client status meetings, as appropriate
• Establishing and maintaining a management framework/process that allows for visibility into company performance on assigned customers
• Proactive and reactive relationship management
• Consistent focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences
• Ability to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
• Modeling and promoting exemplary customer engagement practices 
• Understanding business concepts and using strategic processes to make good business decisions 
• Motivating, inspiring, and leading team to achieve results 
• Meeting with Operations team on a regular basis to ensure program is on track towards achieving customer goals
• Leading and mentoring junior Operations staff

Qualifications and Education Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree
• 7+ years business experience including 5+ years building and/or managing accounts/stores/regions, particularly within the retail industry]
• Multi-location retail experience preferred 
• Professional, relevant examples of solving tough customer issues
• Demonstrated experience managing and leading individuals and/or small teams
• Experience in a trade is a plus
• Experience in facilities industry is a plus

Preferred Skills

• Master at customer interaction and providing a high level of service
• Strong verbal and written communication skills, particularly via phone and email
• Ability to analyze and see patterns in data and information in order to create proactive solutions
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite, including strong Excel skills
• Ability to present to and communicate with multiple levels within the company and with the customer
• Demonstrated ability to provide instruction, training and guidance to others
• Ability to motivate and lead others
• Comfortable organizing and leading individual and group meetings
• Driven by numbers/measures and comfortable in environment with heavy emphasis on customer service and satisfaction metrics
• Effective problem-solving skills
• Ability to negotiate
• High integrity
• Flexibility, adaptability and able to juggle multiple projects and priorities in a fast-paced environment
• Solutions oriented
• Travel expected:  limited

Key Relationships and Partners

• Key Assigned Customer Contacts (District/Regional Level  Managers), Operations Managers/Associates, Affiliates, Support Team, Strategic Initiatives Team Operations Management,  Operations peers, Compliance Department

SMS Assist is an Equal Opportunity Employer  (EOE)