Assistant Manager Candidate - Customer Solutions Office, Travel & Mobility Business (C&M)

Description

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Business Overview

Rakuten Group's mission is "To empower people and society through innovation." Within this mission, Rakuten Travel stands as one of Japan's largest accommodation booking sites, offering diverse and appealing services that cater to a wide range of travel needs. The dynamic business development, leveraging Rakuten Group's strong customer base and technology to bring innovation to the travel industry, is a significant attraction.

Department Overview

Rakuten Travel aims to enrich lives through travel, offering diverse services from hotels to car rentals as Japan's largest travel booking site. Our Customer Solutions Department maximizes the customer experience for both travelers and Hotel partners.

We achieve this by managing inquiry operations and continuously improving our systems. We enhance "resolution productivity" (speed, quality, recurrence prevention) to uphold Rakuten Travel's service quality and customer satisfaction.

Position:

Why We Hire

The evolving travel market increases the complexity, speed, and quality demands of customer and Hotel inquiries. To enhance the travel experience, we aim for an operational system that continuously improves problem-solving productivity, focusing on recurrence prevention.

We seek a management professional to lead KPI design, productivity, quality, and talent development. This role will transform us into a value-creating organization, leveraging VOC to build trust with partners and drive business forward.

Attractiveness of Business/Organizational Phase
- We are transforming from mere inquiry handling to a "business promotion function" driven by Voice of Customer (VOC) to prevent recurrence. This phase offers significant room for improvement, directly impacting enhanced user experience and business growth.

Attractiveness of Autonomy & Organizational Culture
- You will lead end-to-end operations, from KPI/quality/productivity management to process and knowledge development. Our culture emphasizes data-driven and on-site decision-making, ensuring thorough execution.

Career Steps (Skills and Career Path)
- You will develop highly transferable operational management skills in areas like operation design/improvement, VOC analysis, and quality control. This experience offers potential for future career growth into cross-functional leadership roles, such as operations planning or quality assurance manager.

Differentiation from Competitors (Leveraging the Rakuten Group Ecosystem)
- Leveraging Rakuten's membership base, data, and diverse service integrations, you can implement support-driven improvements as a holistic "system." This offers the opportunity to enhance experiential value with the extensive reach and speed unique to a large-scale platform.

Position Details

You will manage and enhance problem-solving productivity (speed, quality, recurrence prevention) by driving both "on-site operation" and "system improvement" for inquiry handling. This involves collaborating with relevant departments to commit to root cause resolution.

Managing and improving
- KPI/operational quality (SLA, productivity metrics, quality scores, etc.)
- Structuring inquiries and analyzing root causes (VOC analysis, recurrence prevention, rule development)
- Designing escalation procedures and leading critical incident response (stakeholder coordination, promoting recurrence prevention measures)
- Improving business processes (standardization, knowledge base development, FAQ improvement)
- Planning and implementing productivity improvement measures (including tool implementation, automation, AI utilization)
- Promoting collaboration with related departments (Development, Sales, Compliance, etc.)

Work Environment

Organization Structure
- Overall Division: Approximately 600 members
- Customer Solutions Office (L3): 22 members
- Hotel's Operation Support Group (L4): 10 members
- Manager: 1 Vice Managers: 2
- Age Range: Broad, from 20s to 50s
- Ratio: New Graduates (40%)/Mid-career Hires (60%)

Background of Mid-Career Hires
- Sales experience in other industries
- Customer service experience in Hotels

Career Path Examples of Successful Mid-Career Hires
- Started as a team member, promoted to manager leading on-site operations and improvements.
- Joined in a sales role, then transferred to drive on-site improvements.

Mandatory Qualifications:

Required Skills/Experience
- Practical experience in customer support operations or improvement planning and promotion.
- Practical experience in managing and improving KPIs/operational quality (SLA, productivity metrics, quality scores, inquiry trends, etc.).

Desired Candidate Profile
- Someone who can genuinely empathize with customers, focusing on resolving issues and enhancing their experience.
- Possesses strong communication skills to smoothly collaborate, coordinate, and drive initiatives with stakeholders from diverse backgrounds, including internal departments and partner companies.
- Embraces change positively and is proactive in adopting new technologies and methods (e.g., AI utilization) to improve and transform business processes.
- Possesses integrity and reliability, persevering through challenges, and collaborating with others to see tasks through to completion.

Desired Qualifications:

- Experience working in customer support, a contact center, or the travel industry such as a Hotel or travel agency.