Duties & Responsibilities

The Service Relationship Manager (SRM)[1] establishes and maintains the relationship processes between one or more CERN service providers (responsible for a service) and their users and customers. He is responsible for managing the relationship and customer/user satisfaction, establishing efficient and effective communication mechanisms between the service provider and customer.

The purpose of this role should be improved user and customer satisfaction and delivery of value.

The SRM will set up regular communications with the customers/users to enable the service provider to understand the changing needs, priorities, and requirements of the customers/users and at the same time communicate the constraints, and problems faced by the service provider.

The SRM will organize regular performance reviews with the customer of services.

The communication mechanisms established with the customer should include ad-hoc meetings and informal meetings, in addition to formalized and documented meetings. These communications should build a relationship with the customer, identify changes in priorities and objectives and assure a high level of comprehension and communication back and forth between the customer and service provider for action on both sides.

The communication mechanisms should aid understanding of the environment in which the service operates including CERN constraints and needs, customer requirements and major changes.

He is involved in escalations as well serving as the point of contact for customer complaints.

The SRM communicates closely with the service owners and functional managers involved in the service delivery.

Tasks

The following tasks are the responsibility of the Service Relationship Manager:

• Organization of a formal customer service review meeting (all services should be covered once a year)
• Organization of ad hoc operational service review meetings (frequency depending on needs)
• Serving as a point of escalation (notification) for major incidents and service outages.
• Responsible for customer complaints process (recording, investigating, acting upon, reporting and closing service complaints).
• Setting up of customer satisfaction measures (satisfaction survey’s, analysing customer/user feedback)
• Monitoring of service metrics (overall performance, backlog trend, major incidents, service outages, etc..)
• Supporting negotiations of SLAs (Service Level Agreements), OLAs (Operational Level Agreements) and Contracts with third parties.
• Participating in continual improvement activities and facilitating the introduction of changes affecting the service (this includes suggestions for improvement for communication between third party contractors and users, alignment of processes with good practice, etc..)

Skills, Experience & Knowledge

For a successful fulfilment of this role the following skill set is recommended:

• Knowledge about service structures as well as technical and functional dependencies
• Communication skills and service-orientation to ensure long-term customer satisfaction and good relationship between service and customer organizations
• Experience in dealing with managers, technicians and scientists on all levels of the organization
• Organization and communication skills to ensure continual coordination of internal and external staff responsible for service provision

Assignment

The Service Relationship Manager role should exist for all services with a significant customer base. A person can be Service Relationship Manager of more than one service.