Graduate Account Manager

Job content

Client Services / Stakeholder Engagement Cultivate strong, long-term relationships with clients by ensuring that they receive exceptional service from our team. Be the first point of contact for some of our clients, including schools and local authorities, resolving / referring issues that are raised and frequently communicating with clients by email, telephone and face to face. Record and follow up operational action points raised by clients, liaising with other Vectare departments to ensure that action points are completed and improvements are made where necessary, and then re-communicating updates to all stakeholders. Create daily and monthly KPI reports summarising operational performance data for presentation internally and externally, and support clients with ad hoc / ongoing requests for management information. Work with clients to assess their ongoing / developing technological needs, and liaise with the Technology Director / Lead Developer to ensure that these client requirements are incorporated into the appropriate stage of our technology development roadmap. Client Mobilisation Work with newly acquired clients and lead their onboarding onto the Vectare platform. Prepare, issue and collate returns of Client Service Agreements, ensuring that all clients have an accurate, up to date and signed Client Service Agreement at all times whilst making use of our services. Train client and subcontractor staff in the use of the Vectare software suite, promoting software features and benefits so that they are fully aware of what our systems are capable of. Record bespoke client requests made during mobilisation and work with various departments within the business to ensure that these requests are implemented, and then communicate updates back to the client Business Development Maintain an accurate record of all leads / potential clients, including potential services that they are interested in, periodically following up on these leads as appropriate. Use an agreed formula, alongside your own commercial knowledge, to generate quotations for bus, coach and minibus transport, and then proactively promote these quotes to potential leads. Work alongside the Commercial Manager and Commercial and Operations Director to prepare documentation for tendering exercises, developing bid writing and public sector engagement skills. Visit potential clients, and participate in virtual meetings, to present the benefits of Vectare as an organisation and raise our profile, to generate additional work. Proactively identify new business development opportunities via scanning of local and national press, social media and tendering portals. Management of Client Service Processes Maintain an accurate record of all existing clients, including services purchased. Handle customer enquiries by email, telephone and social media – keeping parents, students and schools up to date when disruption occurs. Monitor compliance with contract conditions and ensure that the standard of service delivery that we offer is optimised. Record and follow up operational action points identified during routine monitoring, liaising with other Vectare departments to ensure that action points are completed and improvements are made where necessary. Monitor Client Services operations and make suggestion for process enhancements / other changes to improve operational profitability across the business. We will ask for flexibility for you to do other work on an ad-hoc basis as business requirements change. You might find yourself planning a new bus route, training some coach drivers how to use our technology or promoting a school’s transport service at an open morning. Of course, we’ll provide you with full training before expecting you to complete any new duties, and you’ll be working closely with our management team and Directors, so there’s always somebody on hand to assist you. About You People are at the heart of our business and at Vectare, we only want the best people. Our small team works to the highest standards and we expect everybody to focus on high quality service delivery and attention to detail. We’re either looking for a graduate from a business, social science or engineering degree or a more experienced professional with a proven track record of client account management. Either way, you’ll be joining a small but rapidly growing business, working with the Directors and wider team on a day-to-day basis, and making a tangible and visible impact on our clients. You’ll need to be prepared to be accountable for the service that you are delivering; our client retention rate is 100% and you need to help ensure that that number never changes. To fit in and be successful at Vectare, you’ll need to be an enthusiastic individual who can confidently answer ‘yes’ to all these questions: ● Do I work well independently, and as part of a team? ● Am I a good communicator, in person, over the phone and in writing? ● Can I work on my own initiative, and use discretion and autonomy to solve problems proactively and compassionately? ● Am I innovative? Do I often come up with creative solutions to problems, rather than just implementing other people’s solutions? ● Have I got excellent attention to detail? ● Am I able to spot problems and notice when things aren’t quite right? Can I create solutions to these problems using my own initiative? ● Can I be flexible, calm under pressure and able to cope with a fast pace of change? ● Am I good at logistics, and capable of coordinating things? ● Am I able to manage multiple responsibilities at once by focusing on one task whilst keeping track of others? Whilst an interest in transport is desirable, it is not essential because most of the skills we require are not transport specific; we want confident, enthusiastic people, and you can learn about transport “on the job” if it is not an industry you have worked in before. To be considered for this position you must have a full, manual category B (car) driving license and the unrestricted right to live and work in the UK without sponsorship. You must hold a University degree in a relevant subject (wide range of fields accepted) at an Upper Second Class level or better. Our Culture and Management Structure At Vectare, we believe very strongly in valuing our staff, both as people and for the contribution that they can make to all levels of the business. This means that we’ll treat you with respect, and we’ll expect you to extend that same respect to everybody who you work with, at all levels of the business. Directors will frequently ask your opinion about high-level business decisions, and equally we’ll want and expect you to speak up if you think of something that we could be doing better. Feedback is an essential part of our culture, and as such we need you to feel confident about sharing your opinions with senior management – in an appropriate way and at an appropriate time, of course. Transport is not a nine to five industry, and our team are flexible and adapt to that; you should anticipate a degree of evening and weekend working alongside the occasional early start. We’re flexible on working hours however, and subject to prior agreement to ensure that our operational requirements are covered, we do allow staff to take time off during the core working day. We don’t keep track of this rigidly; rather, we expect everybody to work hard and pitch in when required in return for the flexibility we are happy to give you when things quieten down.