Head of Customer Service & Operations (m/f/d)

Role description

As Head of Customer Service & Operations, you own how our customers experience working with us, from the first sample request to the delivered order and set the standard for how we communicate: quick, accurate, transparent, and proactive. Reporting to our Global Commercial Director, you will directly lead our customer service team and account managers in Germany and set global best practices for your area. In your role you will have room to shape processes, tools, and team structures, to build a customer service function that sets the standard across our international sites.

Your Mission

Leadership & Organization

• Lead and develop our customer service specialists and account managers, with clear responsibilities, standards, and priorities for every customer touchpoint.
• Build a team culture of service excellence, where ownership, responsiveness, and proactive, personal communication with customers are the norm.
• Define a clear split of responsibilities between customer service, account management, and sales, so customers always know whom to contact.

Order & Sample Management

• Own the end-to-end order process, from order entry and confirmation to delivery dates, changes, and shipping documents.
• Ensure that sample requests are processed, tracked, and dispatched on time, in close collaboration with our sample production, flavour development and application teams.
• Make proactive communication our hallmark by informing customers about delays or changes before they have to ask.

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Act as the voice of the customer towards Production, Planning, Quality, and Logistics, including in regular planning meetings.
• Set up and maintain service level agreements with internal partners for order confirmations, sample lead times, and escalations.
• Coordinate complaint handling with Quality, from logging and investigation to closing the loop with the customer.

Performance & Continuous Improvement

• Define and track service KPIs such as customer satisfaction, response time, on-time-in-full delivery, sample lead time, order accuracy, and complaint resolution time.
• Identify recurring issues and improve processes, master data quality, and the use of our ERP and CRM systems to reduce errors and manual work.
• Share customer insights such as order patterns and recurring feedback with Sales and management to support commercial decisions.
• Own global best practices in customer service, defining standards, processes, and tools and rolling them out together with our teams in the UAE, Indonesia, and the US.

Minimum Qualifications

• University degree in business administration, supply chain management, food technology, or a comparable field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of experience in customer service, order management, or customer operations in a B2B manufacturing environment, including 3+ years leading a team.
• A proven track record of measurably improving service performance, for example in on-time-in-full delivery, response times, or customer satisfaction, and of making those improvements last.
• Deep understanding of the order-to-delivery and sample process, and the ability to align Sales, Planning, Production, Quality, and Logistics around the customer.
• A data-driven way of working, with strong command of ERP and CRM systems and of steering performance through clear KPIs.
• A leadership style that sets high standards, develops people, and builds trust with your team, with key customers, and at executive level.
• A structured, calm way of working with ever-changing priorities, and strong communication skills from customer to executive level.
• Ability to speak and write in German and English fluently and idiomatically.
• The ambition to make customer service a real competitive advantage for Arethia.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the flavour, fragrance, food ingredients, or specialty chemicals industry, including sample management, chemical regulations in logistics and product documentation such as specifications, certificates of analysis, and Material Safety Data Sheets.
• Experience transforming a customer service function, including organisation, processes, and service level agreements and rolling out standards and best practices across multiple sites or countries.

Why you'll love working here

• Exciting tasks in an internationally operating, growing family business with flat hierarchies
• Flexible working hours and a hybrid working model
• 4 weeks remote work from other EU countries
• 30 days paid vacation per year
• Salary bands for a fair corporate culture
• Monthly allowance of €50 for your BAV
• Annual 360° feedback loops with clear promotion criteria and an individual career path
• Responsibility from day one in a company that encourages personal responsibility and growth
• Relocation costs can be reimbursed on a pro rata basis
• Regular company events such as summer party, Christmas party
• Paid team dinners or activities for each team twice a year
• Free parking right outside the door
• Perks and benefits: JobRad, subsidized lunch, subsidy for the Deutschlandticket, free language courses and discounted memberships at several gyms and for the Wellpass
• Fresh fruit, free drinks and snacks in the office