Customer Operations Manager

About Open

Open is a digital insurance distribution company on a mission to make it easy for everyone to get the best-priced insurance. We build the technology, regulatory infrastructure, and customer experience that enables some of the world's most trusted brands to offer insurance to their customers.

From Bupa and ahm to British Airways and Volkswagen, our partners rely on Open to deliver seamless embedded insurance journeys. We are growing fast, and at an inflection point as we scale our AI-first capabilities alongside our core embedded business.

Our Sunshine Coast team is a critical part of how we keep customers at the centre of everything we do. This is a team that punches above its weight, using smart tooling and a genuine service ethos to deliver experiences our partners are proud to put their brand on.

The role

We are looking for a Customer Operations Manager to lead our Sunshine Coast customer operations function. This is a senior leadership role for someone who brings strong operational discipline, and executional excellence to leading a multi-disciplinary team. Equally, someone who has a passion for innovation, and is energised by the opportunity to shape the future of AI-assisted customer experience.

This is not a role where AI is a nice-to-have. We are actively building a future where our customer operations team works in partnership with AI tools to deliver faster, more personalised, and more consistent experiences for the customers of Huddle, Bupa, ahm, and our other brand partners. The right person for this role will lead that transformation from the front.

You will report to the Chief Commercial & Insurance Officer AU and lead a function that spans customer success, quality assurance, and operational delivery. Your direct reports include a Team Manager who runs the day-to-day customer success team, a Senior QA Auditor, and an Operations Lead. You will be expected to run the function autonomously, owning its performance end-to-end and representing it confidently to internal and external stakeholders. This will include providing regular reporting to the Chief Commercial & Insurance Officer AU on KPIs, measuring SLAs versus targets, and proactively managing capacity and resourcing to maintain service excellence for a fast growing business.

What you’ll do

Function Leadership

You lead a three-team function and you will be accountable for its overall performance. Your direct reports are experienced professionals; you set direction, remove blockers, and hold them accountable for outcomes in their respective areas.

Set clear objectives for the Team Manager, Senior QA Auditor, and Operations Lead, with regular review and feedback cycles

Own the function's performance against service, quality, and operational metrics, and take accountability for improvement where needed

Identify and address risks to service delivery independently, escalating to the Chief Commercial & Insurance Officer AU only where the situation genuinely warrants it

Partner with People and Culture on hiring, remuneration, and capability development as needed

Foster a culture grounded in accountability, curiosity, and genuine care for customers

Customer Success Team (via Team Manager)

Your Team Manager is responsible for leading the frontline customer success team of 10 or more specialists across voice, chat, and email channels. Your role is to ensure the Team Manager has the support, direction, and resources they need to run that team effectively.

Hold the Team Manager accountable for team performance, including SLAs, NPS, AHT, First Response Times, Missed Call rates, and first-contact resolution across all supported brands

Support the Team Manager on complex escalations and decisions that fall outside their remit or require cross-functional involvement

Ensure the Team Manager is developing their own team's capability and is coaching for growth, not dependency

Oversee workforce planning at a function level, including capacity modelling for new business or seasonal demand changes

Push the Customer Success Team to adopt AI tools so they become AI first, and handle the complex and difficult customer interactions needing a human touch

Oversee that actionable insights from complaints are implemented efficiently and effectively

Quality Assurance (via Senior QA Auditor)

Your Senior QA Auditor owns the QA framework for the site. You set the standard for what good looks like and ensure QA outputs drive genuine improvement, not just compliance.

Ensure the QA framework covers all channels and brands, with regular calibration and feedback loops back to the Team Manager and frontline

Review QA performance trends and ensure systemic issues are being addressed, not just scored

Work with insurance operations and compliance teams to keep the function current on regulatory and product changes that affect QA criteria

Lead the adoption of automated QA tooling, ensuring it is calibrated to reflect what good looks like in practice and does not drift from the standards we want to uphold

Use automated QA data and insights to identify patterns in customer experience and drive targeted improvements, closing the loop between what we measure and how we get better

Operations and Tooling (via Operations Lead)

Your Operations Lead is responsible for the tools, knowledge base, and systems that the customer success team relies on. This includes customer communication platform configuration, macros, our knowledge base, and any operational workflows. They also act as the operational point of contact for our claims administration partner.

Ensure the Operations Lead maintains tooling and knowledge systems that are accurate, accessible, and fit for purpose

Own the relationship with our claims administration partner at a function level, ensuring issues are escalated promptly and resolved effectively

Our claims partner also uses platforms and systems that Open provides to handle claims on behalf of our customers; the Operations Lead is the day-to-day point of contact for keeping these systems running and for raising technical issues

Ensure our customers receive excellent claims experiences through our partner, and that the function has visibility of claims outcomes and any systemic issues

AI-First Operations

You will lead the adoption of AI tools across the function to improve efficiency, quality, and customer experience. This is not a support role in the AI journey; you will drive it.

Lead the identification, piloting, and embedding of AI-assisted workflows across the function, in partnership with the product and platform team

Be directly responsible for AI support measures including utilisation rate, first contact automated resolution rate, and AI interaction customer experience scores

Build the team's capability to work alongside AI, including coaching the Operations Lead and Team Manager on prompt-based tools, AI triage, and AI-assisted resolution

Act as the operational voice in AI product development, feeding frontline insights back into tool design and representing the function's needs in product discussions

Maintain a clear view of where AI is improving outcomes and where human judgment remains essential, and communicate that view to leadership

Distribution Partner Engagement

Partners like Bupa and ahm rely on Open to serve their customers well. You are the senior point of accountability for that relationship on behalf of the Sunshine Coast function, working closely with your Operations Lead to ensure partners are kept informed, training is maintained, and their expectations are met.

Represent the customer operations function in regular partner reporting and business reviews, bringing performance data and operational insights

Ensure each distribution partner has a clear, consistent point of contact within the function and that service-level commitments are understood and tracked

Operationally interface closely with our partners who require it, and be the close link they need to our customer operations team; ensure this relationship is actively managed and that they have the support they needs to operate effectively

Work with the Operations Lead to proactively surface insights, flag issues, and identify opportunities to improve the partner experience. This will include managing the communication of QA findings and related resolution thereof

What We Are Looking For

Experience and Skills

5 or more years of experience in customer operations or contact centre environments, with at least 3 years in a management role leading other managers or senior team members

Proven experience running multi-disciplinary teams and holding indirect reports accountable through direct reports

Strong grounding in workforce planning, capacity modelling, and service delivery metrics across multi-channel environments

Experience managing or overseeing quality assurance in a regulated customer service environment, particularly financial services or insurance

Demonstrated ability to analyse team and function performance independently, draw conclusions, and act on them without being directed to

Experience managing or contributing to external partner relationships, including service-level reporting and operational governance

Experience in a regulated environment is highly valued, particularly financial services or insurance

AI and Technology Orientation

Genuine curiosity about AI and a track record of leading the adoption of new tools to make work better

Hands-on experience with AI-assisted customer service tools, CRM automation, or similar platforms; mindset and engagement matters more than specific tool experience

Comfortable operating in environments where technology is evolving rapidly, and able to help others build confidence with new ways of working

Motivated to contribute to how AI tools are designed and deployed, not just to consume the output

Leadership and Culture

A clear, direct leadership style that sets high standards and holds people accountable through structured processes, not micromanagement

Comfortable making consequential decisions autonomously, whether that is an operational change, a people call, or a partner conversation

High standards for customer experience and a genuine belief that great service and operational efficiency are complementary, not in tension

Calm and structured under pressure, with the ability to make sound decisions when things move quickly

Collaborative and communicative, with the ability to work across functions and influence without authority

Role location

Based at our new Maroochydore CBD office, with up to one day per week working from home.

Why Open?

Our Sunshine Coast office is home to a team that genuinely likes working together. We invest in our people, are serious about being present with each other, and we are at an early enough stage of our AI journey that the person in this role will have real influence over how we get there.

What we offer

Highly competitive compensation, including share options – we believe in paying people what they’re worth and having everyone in our company share in our success

High levels of autonomy and trust so you can do your best work

Growth opportunities internally - as you grow, your role can too

Flexible working - we are about impact, not time at your desk.

We encourage freedom and responsibility, including the ability to work from anywhere

Bonus 5 days of leave - additional paid leave designed to support rest and wellbeing once standard leave has been utilised.

Paid company parental leave, supporting all parents as they balance career and family.

Personal development allowance - flexible annual benefit to support learning, wellbeing and personal growth.

More about us

We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn’t match every requirement - we’re looking for people who are curious, courageous, innovative, and motivated by impact.

If you want to help build the future of insurance, we’d love to hear from you.

Work Location: Hybrid remote in Maroochydore QLD