Progress Specialist

Purpose of the Role

The Continuous Improvement & Progress Specialist is responsible for driving operational excellence and sustained customer experience improvement across all Takealot Group support functions — Takealot.com, MrD (Mr Delivery), and Takealot Marketplace. The role combines a strategic mandate to lead end-to-end CI initiatives (process design, technology adoption, and cross-functional collaboration) with the hands-on operational discipline of continuous process refinement: SOP governance, ticket mining, knowledge management, and macro optimisation. Acting as both an advocate for customers and sellers and a catalyst for change across all brands and support teams, the role ensures that every improvement is measurable, sustainable, and firmly anchored in data and customer insight.

Key Responsibilities

Process Improvement & SOP Management

• Lead and manage continuous improvement initiatives across all Takealot Group support teams (Customer Support, Seller Support, and shared cross-brand functions), identifying and eliminating inefficiencies that impact agent productivity or customer/seller experience.
• Attend new-business project and BRS (Business Requirements Specification) meetings to capture process requirements and translate them into clear, actionable SOPs before go-live.
• Create, maintain, and conduct scheduled reviews (at minimum monthly) of SOPs across all contact queues and brands, ensuring accuracy, compliance, and alignment with current operational realities.
• Streamline Zendesk ticket classification, routing logic, and contact form structures across all brands to reduce misroutes, duplicate contacts, and unnecessary handling time.
• Identify root causes of high-TAT (Turn-Around-Time) workflows and implement targeted process changes that reduce resolution time and improve first-contact resolution.
• Proactively benchmark processes against industry best practice and recommend improvements that keep Takealot Group's support operations competitive and scalable.

Ticket Mining & Contact Driver Analysis

• Conduct regular (at minimum quarterly) deep-dive ticket mining across all brands and contact queues to surface the highest-volume, highest-impact contact drivers for customers and sellers/partners.
• Analyse contact trends to distinguish between addressable service failures (process gaps, communication issues, product bugs) and inherent demand — and prioritise improvement actions accordingly.
• Use findings from ticket mining to inform SOP updates, macro creation, Help Centre article improvements, and escalation pathways.
• Track recurring or emerging issues at a cross-brand level to identify systemic problems that require escalation to Product, Engineering, or senior leadership.
• Maintain a structured log of ticket mining outcomes and resulting actions to demonstrate progress and enable longitudinal comparison.

Knowledge Management & Macros

• Own and maintain the CS Knowledge Centre (internal portal), including scripts, agent tips, process guides, and escalation references — ensuring content across all brands is current, accurate, and easy to navigate.
• Create, review, and optimise Zendesk macros across all brands and support teams, retiring outdated macros and ensuring consistent tone, accuracy, and compliance with active policies.
• Conduct regular audits of Help Centre (customer-facing) articles and internal knowledge resources, updating content in line with process or policy changes.
• Manage the lifecycle of knowledge assets: creation → peer review → publication → scheduled review → archival, ensuring no stale content remains in active use.
• Collaborate with team leads and subject matter experts across brands to capture tacit knowledge and convert it into documented, searchable resources.

Training & Communication

• Design and deliver training programmes for CS agents across all brands and support teams when new or updated processes, tools, or policies are introduced.
• Train trainers and team leads on updated SOPs and operational changes, enabling scalable knowledge transfer without requiring direct involvement in every rollout.
• Develop clear, appropriately pitched training materials (written guides, quick-reference cards, presentations, and recorded walkthroughs) tailored to the audience — agents, team leads, or cross-functional stakeholders.
• Facilitate regular feedback sessions with support teams across all brands to surface process pain points, gather improvement suggestions, and close the loop on implemented changes.
• Serve as the communication bridge between CS operations and other business units (Sales, Commercial, Product, Marketing) for process-related changes that affect agents or customers.
• Manage bulk and proactive customer/seller communications during exceptional events, ensuring messaging is accurate, timely, and on-brand.

Technology & Innovation

• Evaluate and implement AI tools (including Toqan and Zendesk's agentic/AI capabilities) to improve agent efficiency, automate repetitive tasks, and enhance the customer and seller experience.
• Lead the adoption and configuration of new CS technologies — ensuring agents are trained, processes are updated, and outcomes are measured.
• Identify opportunities to automate or streamline contact handling, classification, and resolution through smart use of Zendesk features (triggers, automations, views, macros, AI triage).
• Monitor the performance of implemented technology solutions and iterate based on data — retiring or reconfiguring tools that are not delivering expected improvements.
• Stay current with developments in CS technology, AI, and CI methodologies, and bring relevant innovations to the attention of CS leadership.

Exceptional Event Management

• Coordinate the end-to-end response to exceptional events — including product recalls, significant pricing errors, platform outages, and any situation requiring bulk or reactive customer/seller communication.
• Develop and maintain playbooks for common exceptional event types so that response is fast, consistent, and does not rely on ad-hoc decision-making under pressure.
• Liaise with Brand, Marketing, and operational teams to draft and publish website banners, Help Centre notices, and proactive outreach communications during exceptional events.
• Lead post-event reviews to identify process gaps exposed by the event and implement improvements to reduce recurrence or improve future response times.
• Track the contact impact of exceptional events (volume uplift, CSAT impact, FCR impact) and report findings to CS leadership.

Cross-functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement

• Act as the primary CS liaison for systemic bugs and platform issues, working directly with Product and Engineering teams to log, track, and resolve problems that generate avoidable customer or seller contacts.
• Represent CS operational needs in cross-functional project meetings, ensuring that agent and customer-facing impacts are considered and planned for before changes go live.
• Build and maintain effective relationships with stakeholders across all Takealot Group brands — including Sales, Commercial, Fulfilment, Logistics, Marketing, and Tech — to enable collaborative problem-solving.
• Serve as an escalation point for complex or cross-brand operational queries from team leads, Sales, Commercial, and external partners.
• Contribute to strategic planning discussions by providing data-driven insight on CS operational performance, contact driver trends, and improvement opportunities.

Performance Measurement & Reporting

• Monitor and report on key performance metrics — including CSAT, FCR, AHT, and contact volume trends — across all brands and support teams, flagging deviations and recommending corrective actions.
• Track the impact of implemented CI initiatives, producing clear before-and-after data to demonstrate measurable improvement and inform future prioritisation.
• Produce regular reports and dashboards for CS leadership on process improvement progress, SOP review status, knowledge asset health, and technology performance.
• Maintain a structured CI project log that captures initiative status, owner, target metrics, and outcomes — enabling visibility for senior stakeholders.
• Support the CI & Performance Manager in preparing executive-level insight reports and presentations, contributing structured data, analysis, and recommendations.

Qualifications & Experience

• Degree or diploma in Business Management, Operations, Industrial Engineering, or a related field preferred; 5+ years of relevant CS, CI, or operations experience considered in lieu of a formal qualification.
• Proven track record of delivering projects that produce measurable improvements in operational efficiency and customer experience.
• Experience creating, managing, and auditing SOPs, training materials, and knowledge bases across multiple teams or business units.
• Familiarity with Zendesk (or an equivalent enterprise CS platform), Looker or similar BI/dashboarding tools, and AI-assisted tooling.
• Demonstrated ability to analyse data — from Zendesk reports, dashboards, or raw exports — to generate actionable insights.
• Experience working across multiple brands, product lines, or business units is strongly advantageous.

Skills & Competencies

• Analytical thinking: ability to evaluate complex, multi-source data sets, identify trends, and conduct root-cause analysis across diverse contact types and brands.
• Communication: clear, concise written and verbal communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders; experienced in training delivery and facilitating working sessions.
• Technical proficiency: Zendesk (administration and reporting), Looker, Google Suite (Docs, Sheets, Slides), and Excel/Sheets for data analysis; comfortable working with raw data exports.
• Project management: strong planning and prioritisation skills; able to manage multiple concurrent workstreams and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
• AI & technology adoption: ability to evaluate new tools critically, pilot them effectively, and embed them into team workflows with appropriate training and measurement.
• Interpersonal skills: cross-functional collaboration, relationship-building at all organisational levels, and constructive conflict resolution.
• Adaptability and resilience: thrives under pressure, adjusts quickly to change, and maintains quality output during high-volume or exceptional-event periods.
• Attention to detail: precise in documentation, data interpretation, and communication — zero tolerance for inaccuracies in customer-facing or operational content.

Performance Expectations

• Measurable, data-evidenced improvements in CSAT, FCR, and operational efficiency across all Takealot Group support teams within agreed timeframes.
• Timely delivery of new processes, SOPs, and tooling in advance of go-live dates for new business projects and operational changes.
• Maintained and continuously optimised knowledge resources — including macros, contact forms, Help Centre articles, and internal guides — across all brands, with no material instances of stale or inaccurate content.
• Effective, well-coordinated management of exceptional events: fast activation, clear communications, and a documented post-event review with action items.
• Regular, high-quality reporting to CS leadership on initiative impact, CI project status, and progress against improvement milestones.
• Strong cross-functional relationships that enable proactive problem resolution before issues escalate to leadership or affect customer/seller experience at scale.