Johannesburg: Service Quality & Customer Experience Manager

Location: Gauteng Regional Office, Lanseria, South Africa (hybrid with regular travel to regions and stores nationwide) Role Purpose To own the design, execution and continuous improvement of Cash Crusader’s fully internal national Mystery Shopper Programme across all corporate and franchised stores, while building and maintaining a robust, transparent employee and store performance ranking system. The role turns mystery shopper insights and customer-facing metrics into visible recognition of top performers and swift, fair intervention for consistent under-performers, driving a uniform, high-energy, customer-obsessed service culture nationwide. Key Responsibilities Mystery Shopper Programme Leadership Design and manage the complete in-house mystery shopper framework: visit frequency, scoring methodology, question sets, store coverage, shopper guidelines and reporting cadence. Recruit, train, schedule and performance-manage a small internal team of mystery shoppers. Ensure 100% national coverage (corporate and franchise stores) with statistically valid sample sizes per region and store tier. Continuously refine the programme based on business priorities, customer expectations and franchisee feedback. Performance Ranking & Recognition System Develop and maintain a fair, visible and real-time employee and store ranking dashboard that combines mystery shopper scores, product knowledge certification results, customer feedback and sales conversion metrics. Publish national, regional and individual leaderboards monthly. Design and execute recognition initiatives for top-ranked individuals and stores (“Store of the Month”, “Service Superstar” awards, bonus qualifiers, etc.). Intervention & Corrective Action Identify chronic low performers (individuals and stores) using clear, data-driven thresholds. Partner with the Training Manager and regional teams to create and monitor targeted improvement plans. Track progress and escalate persistent under-performance to the Head of Learning & Performance and the relevant franchisee/principal. Reporting & Insights Deliver concise, high-impact monthly mystery shopper and service quality reports. Translate raw data into actionable coaching insights for trainers and store managers. Collaboration Work with the Product Specialist / Training Content Developer to rapidly create targeted training interventions for recurring service failures. Partner with Operations, Buying and Marketing to keep service standards aligned with promotions, new product launches and brand campaigns. Qualifications & Experience Bachelor’s degree or diploma in marketing, business, retail management or related field. Minimum 5–8 years’ retail experience. With at least 3 years designing and running (or significantly improving) an in-house mystery shopper/customer experience programme in a multi-site or franchise environment (advantageous). Proven success building performance ranking and recognition systems that change behaviour. Advanced Excel and dashboard-building skills (Power BI / Tableau advantageous). Key Competencies & Personal Attributes Retail-obsessed with an instinctive feel for outstanding shop-floor service. Highly analytical with the ability to turn data into compelling stories and actions. Confident presenter who can command a room of franchisees and store managers. Firm but fair — comfortable addressing poor performance constructively. Strong stakeholder management and influence skills. Energetic, resilient and willing to travel frequently.