CS Vendor Manager

Wise • Austin, TX

3d • Onsite

About The Position

Wise is a global technology company focused on making money movement easier and more affordable worldwide. The Outsourcing Vendor Manager will be responsible for managing a key vendor providing services to Wise, ensuring they meet contractual obligations and performance standards. This role involves overseeing vendor performance, cost management, capacity planning, and ensuring the vendor adheres to hiring and ramp-up plans. The Vendor Manager will also drive improvements through business reviews and documentation, acting as a crucial link between Wise and its outsourcing partners to ensure excellent customer support.

Requirements

• Leading Coordinators Partnership & Alignment: Cultivate a collaborative partnership with the outsourcing coordinator, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities to achieve mutual team goals and objectives.
• Cross-Team Collaboration: Encourage OSC to work in cross-team collaborations with other vendor managers and coordinators to learn and utilise their knowledge to implement different strategies for their specific vendor.
• Growth & Autonomy: Support and coach OSC’s growth and self-development by providing space for autonomy to develop and execute plans that have a direct impact on vendor and lead performance.
• Project Oversight: Manage the quantity of projects achieved within set deadlines for the Coordinator, reflecting their proficiency in project management and ability to drive initiatives forward.
• Environment Building: Direct leading, building an inclusive and supportive environment that enables growth.
• Performance Culture: Provide effective feedback via regular 1-1s and biannual GrowWise cycles; create a high-performance environment with a merit-based compensation system.
• Team Rituals: Set the standard for team rituals by organising structured, documented, and delivery-oriented team meetings.
• Resource Management: Ensure the team is equipped with necessary tools, training, and support. Communicate role expectations clearly and ensure the team's skillset matches expected service delivery.
• Accountability: Support direct reports in creating personal goals to assure progression. Set a cadence of accountability through coaching where both lead and direct report are responsible for reaching set goals.
• Problem Solving: Maintain a good overview of the main challenges and repeat issues in Vendor Management; hold direct reports accountable for working towards solutions.
• Operational Support: Ensure the team's administrative needs are covered, and that approvals are assessed and responded to promptly.
• Tool Proficiency: Mastery of team management tools and related processes, including WorkDay, WebExpenses, TravelPerk, and Jira.
• Performance Oversight: Monitor and ensure that the vendor is performing according to expectations on a weekly/monthly basis. Ensure underperforming metrics have remediation plans set up by the coordinator, VM or vendor; review and provide feedback on vendor-initiated action plans.
• Business Reviews: Organise, schedule, and own Business Reviews; hold vendors accountable for performance reporting cadences.
• Relationship Viability: Assess the viability of vendor relationships in collaboration with leads based on performance data.
• Metric Education: Educate the vendor on the specifics of Wise metrics and the product offering to ensure appropriate service delivery.
• Strategy Alignment: Fully understand the Wise Servicing Strategy and how it relates to the specific VM team.
• Recruitment Calibration: Own the hiring calibration process; ensure vendor recruitment aligns with Wise's needs and provide feedback on the hiring process. Responsible for informing regional lead and head of OS if calibration success rate is below target in order to change the course of action for headcount allocation if necessary. Supports the coordinator in hiring calibrations, ultimately owning the process while providing growth for the coordinator
• Business Continuity: Initiate BCP as needed; ensure mitigation plans are communicated and implemented.
• Incident Management: Report and manage incidents effectively; contribute to resolution reviews and vendor response management.
• Governance & Policy: Is up to date with Third Party Policies and ensures that their vendor is managed in line with TPRM policies; maintain up-to-date documentation according to requirements.
• Audit & Risk: Assist on relevant audits; conduct site audits according to internal guidance; report risks and work on risk-reduction projects.
• Financial Management: Understand and follow the quarterly budgeting process; plan for service delivery costs and one-off expenses.
• Cost Tracking: Track vendor costs and follow the monthly billing/approval flow; execute monthly invoice reconciliation.
• Forecasting: Continually contribute to and improve the cost forecast to ensure ongoing accuracy.
• Relationship Building: Cultivate a collaborative partnership with Vendor, ensuring continuous communication and alignment on priorities to achieve mutual team goals and objectives.
• Capacity & Headcount: Ensure WFM headcount recommendations are built into ramp plans; manage support role staffing and training; making adjustments to agent staffing if necessary, and keeping the vendor accountable for delivering the headcount required; maintain proficiency in local labor laws for HC distribution.
• Understanding needs: Understand the Wise product offering, enabling to make decisions on what is appropriate service delivery for Wise.
• Access Management: Request and follow through on vendor platform accesses; mitigate access-related incidents and work with UT teams on fixes and addressing concerns.
• Workflow Adaptation: Stay abreast of changes in workflows, processes, and tools to mitigate negative impacts on performance.
• Tool Mastery: Understand contact handling tools (case routing logic) and workforce management tools (Calabrio) for capacity analysis. Capable of noticing inefficiencies in the tools and communicating findings to the relevant team. Capable of gathering data and assisting the relevant teams in finding fixes or workarounds.
• Service Delivery Gates (SDG): Plan and deliver requirements for SDGs; collaborate with leadership on growth holds or cancellations if targets are missed.
• Quality & Training: Stay on top of Check the Checker (CTC) results; hold QA teams accountable for developing initiatives that will support under performers; makes sure vendor is taking actions on QA analysts according to the guidance in the QA framework. Manages and ensures success of Certification needs for Trainers, and is aware of initiatives driven by Wise Training team and Vendor to help under-performers improve.
• Accountability: Having a well documented overview of all promises and delivery from their vendor, which is accessible for relevant parties. Has a good overview of repeat issues with status of delivery.
• Documentation Standards: Maintain rigorous standards by creating precise project pages in Confluence/Jira as a single source of truth.
• Initiative Ownership: Work on OKRs and own initiatives; use Jira to track tasks and timelines efficiently; provides timely feedback to the VM team and any internal stakeholders.
• Process Lifecycle: Own the bi-yearly update of process documentation; complete written retrospectives to quantify project impact.
• Contract Knowledge: Know the location and content of MSA, DPA, SOW, and Exit Strategies; identify operationally relevant items within contracts.
• Data and Reporting Quantitative Analysis: Use Wise BI tools for deep dives to identify root causes and make data-driven decisions; guide coordinators in data usage.
• Reporting Infrastructure: Work with reporting teams to ensure vendor access to data; identify missing KPIs and set up new reporting cadences.
• Operational Benchmarking: Compare internal and external team performance to find opportunities or differences; giving feedback and sharing insight to Wise on operational metrics.
• Stakeholder Management Internal Stakeholders Communication & Collaboration: Able to work with internal stakeholders effectively by serving the primary point of contact for communication, identifying areas for improvement, driving initiatives, and fostering collaboration between Wise and partner. Active cooperation with internal operational leadership to ensure vendor processes and expectations meet changing internal expectations while not compromising third party management integrity.
• Internal Leadership: Is able to lead any internal stakeholder meetings and conversations, aiming to align all vendors rather than only their specific focus.
• Relationship Building: Ability to build and maintain relationships and improve internal cooperation.
• WFM & Capacity Cooperation: Strong cooperation with the Wise WFM teams to ensure a consistent and stable capacity governance procedures are adhered to from Vendor Management side. Manage capacity by planning ramp up, working closely with WFM for shift and schedule requirements. Keeps the vendor accountable for adjusting the daily/weekly schedules requested by intraday team.
• Transparency: Capturing thorough records of every internal alignment and external vendor engagement, ensuring full transparency and accountability for all discussions.
• External Stakeholders Vendor Leadership Alignment: Work closely with vendor’s senior leadership to ensure effective implementation of action plans and continuous improvement initiatives for operations management.
• Vendor Stakeholder Management: Maintains strong relationships with the appropriate stakeholders from the vendor side through consistent strategy oriented communication and site presence.
• Ability to juggle work across timezones.
• Frequent travel to vendor sites located in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil.
• Possible global travel.

Nice To Haves

• Experience managing a vendor with approximately 300 agents.
• Experience working with a dedicated CS Coordinator reporting to the Vendor Manager.
• Experience in establishing clear communication governance in a global, cross-timezone environment.
• Experience driving change in Resolution Rate.
• Experience identifying opportunities for improvement in the Americas region and facilitating improvement.
• Experience in avoiding unconscious bias when providing feedback, conducting GrowWise reviews, and salary reviews.
• Experience creating and maintaining a supportive environment for a direct report.
• Experience ensuring a report is comfortable providing feedback and voicing their own perspectives.

Responsibilities

• Manage vendor performance according to contractual agreements and high standards.
• Oversee vendor cost, capacity, and hiring according to Wise's ramp plans and agent profiles.
• Conduct Business Review calls to address vendor performance, shortcomings, and improvement actions.
• Ensure vendor recruitment aligns with Wise's needs and calibrate the hiring process.
• Initiate Business Continuity Plans (BCP) as needed and ensure mitigation plans are communicated and implemented.
• Report and manage incidents effectively, contributing to resolution reviews and vendor response management.
• Ensure the vendor is managed in line with Third Party Risk Management (TPRM) policies.
• Assist on relevant audits and conduct site audits according to internal guidance.
• Understand and follow the quarterly budgeting process, planning for service delivery costs and one-off expenses.
• Track vendor costs, follow monthly billing/approval flows, and execute monthly invoice reconciliation.
• Continually contribute to and improve the cost forecast for accuracy.
• Ensure WFM headcount recommendations are built into ramp plans and manage support role staffing and training.
• Keep the vendor accountable for delivering the required headcount and maintaining proficiency in local labor laws for HC distribution.
• Understand the Wise product offering to make informed decisions on appropriate service delivery.
• Request and follow through on vendor platform accesses, mitigating access-related incidents.
• Stay abreast of changes in workflows, processes, and tools to mitigate negative impacts on performance.
• Understand contact handling and workforce management tools for capacity analysis and identify inefficiencies.
• Plan and deliver requirements for Service Delivery Gates (SDG), collaborating with leadership on growth holds or cancellations if targets are missed.
• Monitor Check the Checker (CTC) results and hold QA teams accountable for developing initiatives to support underperformers.
• Manage and ensure success of Certification needs for Trainers and be aware of initiatives to help under-performers improve.
• Maintain a documented overview of all promises and delivery from the vendor, accessible to relevant parties.
• Create precise project pages in Confluence/Jira as a single source of truth.
• Own initiatives and use Jira to track tasks and timelines efficiently.
• Own the bi-yearly update of process documentation and complete written retrospectives.
• Understand the location and content of MSA, DPA, SOW, and Exit Strategies.
• Use Wise BI tools for deep dives to identify root causes and make data-driven decisions.
• Work with reporting teams to ensure vendor access to data and identify missing KPIs.
• Compare internal and external team performance to find opportunities or differences.
• Serve as the primary point of contact for communication with internal stakeholders, identifying areas for improvement and fostering collaboration.
• Lead internal stakeholder meetings and conversations to align all vendors.
• Cooperate with Wise WFM teams to ensure consistent and stable capacity governance procedures.
• Manage capacity by planning ramp-up and working closely with WFM for shift and schedule requirements.
• Keep the vendor accountable for adjusting daily/weekly schedules requested by the intraday team.
• Capture thorough records of internal alignment and external vendor engagements for transparency.
• Work closely with vendor's senior leadership to ensure effective implementation of action plans and continuous improvement initiatives.
• Maintain strong relationships with vendor stakeholders through consistent strategy-oriented communication and site presence.

Benefits

• Competitive salary
• Opportunity to make a significant impact on customer support
• Work with a close-knit, impactful team
• Global team collaboration across multiple offices (Singapore, Tallinn, Budapest, Austin)
• Opportunity to work with a truly international team
• Inclusive and diverse work environment
• Respect, empowerment, and career progression opportunities

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Manager
• Education Level: No Education Listed