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Case Study – Customer Experience Director Recruitment
A leading UK online grocery and technology enabled logistics business was preparing for the retirement of a long standing Customer Services Director who had successfully stabilised and developed its customer operation.
The appointment was business critical, with responsibility for a large fully insourced customer service operation, a significant operating budget, customer experience strategy, operational performance, leadership development and the adoption of emerging AI technologies.
The challenge was not to repair an underperforming operation. The existing function was performing well.
Instead, the organisation needed a leader capable of taking the operation into its next phase of growth, combining people leadership, operational excellence, customer outcomes, customer retention, commercfiality, cultural stewardship and AI-enabled and technological transformation.
Why Douglas Jackson?
The organisation needed more than a search firm able to identify experienced Customer Experience leaders.
The brief required someone with an unusual combination of operational scale, strategic thinking, people leadership, commercial judgement and future-focused technology transformation capability.
The client later reflected that Douglas Jackson had:
“Found us a candidate with a distinct set of skills I didn’t think it would be possible to hire.”
A major part of the value came from looking beyond the most obvious profiles.
The search drew on Douglas Jackson’s established networks across Customer, Operations, Technology, Retail, Financial Services and Transformation, enabling access to talent the client said it “couldn’t really tap into” itself.
The Approach
A geographically specific search was conducted across Grocery, Retail, Technology, Telecommunications, Financial Services, Customer Operations and Digital Transformation.
Candidates were assessed not only against their current role, but against the organisation’s future requirements: operational scale, leadership maturity, transformation, cultural alignment, customer expertise, AI readiness and people focussed improvement approach.
Rather than presenting candidates purely against the written brief, Douglas Jackson provided richer context around each individual, their motivations, leadership style, transferable capability and why they might succeed in the organisation.
The client specifically highlighted this as a differentiator, saying the process gave them a much richer view of the successful candidate and helped them consider a profile they may not otherwise have identified.
The Outcome
Douglas Jackson delivered a highly targeted shortlist drawn from a range of sectors, giving the organisation access to leaders with different but highly relevant combinations of people leadership, customer, operations, transformation, AI and technology experience.
The strength of the process allowed the client to be highly selective rather than simply choosing the closest available match.
The successful individual brought what the client described as a “distinct set of skills” that they had not expected would be possible to hire.
The appointment provided the organisation with a leader capable of protecting what already worked well while helping shape the next phase of customer operations, people leadership and AI-enabled transformation.
The client subsequently commented:
“Douglas Jackson leveraged a network we couldn’t really tap into ourselves.”
and:
“I would work with Douglas Jackson again in a heartbeat.”
The successful candidate said
I wanted to say a proper thank you to you for all your help and support throughout the recruitment process. I really appreciated the time you spent with me, particularly around the specific topics and areas the team wanted to explore with me. I’m also really grateful that you took my feedback seriously along the way, it made such a difference to feel listened to and supported throughout the process.
What This Search Demonstrates
Customer Experience Leadership
Customer Operations
Digital & AI Transformation
Retail & Grocery
Technology enabled Logistics
Executive Assessment
Cross sector Talent Mapping
Leadership Succession
Candidate Market Engagement
Executive Search
Hiring a Customer Experience Director or Customer Operations Director?
Douglas Jackson works with organisations appointing senior leaders across Customer, Operations, Transformation and AI enabled service.
We help identify leaders who can protect what already works, improve performance and lead the next phase of operational and customer transformation.
Talk to us about your next senior customer or operations appointment →
