British Council Recruits Professional/Educational Examinations & Customer Service (Lagos) Manager

The British Council is looking for a suitably qualified and experienced individual to join the organization as Professional/Educational Examinations & Customer Service (Lagos) Manager

Job Title: Professional/Educational Examinations & Customer Service (Lagos) Manager

Location: Lagos

Purpose of job:
To support Examination Services in Nigeria in develpoing markets for and delivering Schools exams; to maintain them at the highest professional standards as set out in the British Council’s EQS (Examination Quality Standards), project outcomes, examinations boards and partners.

Context and Environment:
Nigeria Exams is the largest British Council exams business in the Sub Saharan Africa region. It administers exams in four subject areas: Schools, Professional/Vocational, Educational on behalf of UK institutions and IELTS. In 2013-14 we will deliver roughly 75,000 exams to 25,000 candidates. The team comprises 22 people and are based mainly in Lagos with 5 in Abuja and 4 in Port Harcourt.

This new role leads on business development of UK professional and educational exams in Nigeria. The post leads on the development of our computer based examinations offer. It is accountable for the delivery of high quality customer services at the Lagos office.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Customer Service: responsible for the delivery of high quality customer services at the Lagos office.
• Financial control, monitoring and reporting: to manage the professional and educational exams business to target by monitoring and reporting income and costs on a monthly basis.
• Business growth: to grow the business and set country business strategy with CEM/DCEM.
• Reliability: to ensure examinations are delivered securely according to board requirements.
• Quality: to deliver a high standard of customer service to our candidates as measured by our own Exams Quality Standards and inspection visits from exams boards.
• Leadership: to manage and motivate the professional and education exams and customer service teams to achieve challenging objectives

The Professional and Educational Exams Manager is responsible for developing relations with current and future stakeholders and clients in order to meet business targets.

Main duties:
Examination delivery

• Responsibility for the full cycle of operations of professional and educational examinations. To ensure that these examinations are delivered to examination board, partners’ and EQS standards. Occasionally to assist in delivery at peak times.
• Compliance: To manage inspection visits from examination boards as well as for carrying out regular inspections of examination venues themselves, monitoring security processes against standards set by the examination board and EQS. To conduct spot checks of venues and venue staff where necessary.
• To respond to and implement appropriately recommendations from exam boards, partners and EQS reviewers.
• To indentify areas for increased efficiency and security in examination delivery and prepare plans to implement these.

Business Development and Computer-Based Testing

• To investigate the provision of different forms of computer based testing appropriate for Nigeria; develop and implement a strategy for Nigeria.
• Planning for Growth: responsibility for increasing the number of professional and educational examinations as outlined in the Marketing Action Plan (MAP); working with CEM on the Professional and Educational exams section of the MAP and planning targets for future years.
• To build and maintain relationships with existing and potential clients in order to grow the business.
• To develop and manage a programme of visits to tuition providers, professional organisations and other potential partners and clients to meet business targets.
• To collect and analyse qualitative and quantitative marketing data in order to contribute to the marketing action plan and support business development.
• Seek and use customer feedback to improve service delivery.

Customer Service

• Development of services and systems that meet both customer and operational needs - Use the Customer Managment Framework efficiently to achieve CS goals for Lagos. Implement customer research, market analysis and feedback processes; analyse the data (including corporate ‘Scorecard’ data) to inform service quality development. Communicate this information regulalry to relevant teams.
• Effective and efficient management of the customer service resource - Ensure teams are appropriately and efficiently staffed to meet operational requirements; have the right balance of skills and experience, with appropriate levels of responsibility and have adequate information/knowledge to deliver the CS strategy. Make best use of existing customer service facilities, and advise management on improvements to these facilities and reception area.
• Financial and registration management - Manage accurate and efficient income collection in Lagos. Assist with implementing alternative forms of payment.
• Supporting the marketing and communications team – support the implementation and delivery of the exams marketing and communication strategies. To assist with writing copy for paper-based and digital promotional materials.

Venue Staff

• To oversee the recruitment, training and monitoring team for Professional and Educational exams venue staff for Nigeria.
• To ensure training of venue staff in Nigeria for professional and educational examinations is appropriate and takes into account feedback from partners and quality checks.

Budget Management

• To assist CEM in planning activity and then to assist on monitoring and managing income and expenditure to agreed targets. To report on these targets monthly.
• To identify areas for budget savings while retaining value for money.

Line Management

• To line manage up to 6 members of staff according to essential HR standards.

General Management

• To contribute to Nigeria Exams team objectives by attending and contributing to staff meetings.
• To substitute for management team members.

Requirement

• Education to degree level or equivalent. A business-related degree.
• A qualification in Customer Service.
• A qualification in examination delivery.
• Line management and/or leading a team.
• Developing networks of contacts.
• Monitoring service to quality standards and implementing improvements.
• Organising and delivering training events.
• Three year's work experience in a related field – exams delivery and/or customer service.
• Developing or managing IT solutions for distance learning and testing.

Application Closing Date
14th June, 2013

How to Apply
Please read through the Professional/Educational Examinations & Customer Service (Lagos) Manager role profile. Download and complete the British Council application form . To help you understand and complete the application form, read through the ‘How to complete the application’ document on the jobs page. Listed within the role profile document, you will find a number of listed ‘behaviours’ and ‘skills and knowledge’. Evidence against those criteria will need to be provided in your role application form. To help you understand those criteria, we have provided a ‘behaviours’ and ‘generic skills’ dictionary at the top of the jobs page.

Completed application forms should be sent to [email protected] no later than Friday 14June, 2013. Please ensure the subject of your mail is “Professional/Educational Examinations & Customer Service (Lagos) Manager”.

Only applications received on the British Council application form will be considered and only short-listed candidates will be contacted.