Overview:
About RM
At RM, we are focused on delivering technology and resources to the education sector, supporting schools, teachers and earners, enabling the improvement of education outcomes worldwide. We work across the industry from pre-school to higher education and professional qualifications, our customers include schools, examination boards, central governments and other professional institutions. We have a clear purpose to enrich the lives of learners worldwide.
At RM Results we are experts in online exam testing and marking and the management and analysis of educational data. We work with government ministries, exam boards and professional awarding bodies for high stakes assessment such as GCSEs, A Levels and professional qualifications. Each year, our software is used globally to carry out hundreds of thousands of on-screen tests and to mark millions of paper-based scripts. For over a decade we’ve been partnering with the world’s leading awarding bodies to deliver intuitive, secure and reliable e-marking solutions. Every year more than a million people around the world get the marks they deserve thanks to RM.
The Assessment Service Consultant is responsible for the organisation and delivery of the operational services for one or more customers, as a member of the Assessment Service Management Team. It is a customer facing role and will require liaising with both operational counterparts within customer and supplier organisations, and when appropriate senior customer and supplier stakeholders.
The role is focused on successfully owning and managing the delivery of the operational services for live examinations. The Assessment Service Consultant is responsible for the delivery of an examination session or service from planning through to full reconciliation of all exam responses before results issue, to ensure the marks always go to the correct candidate. Therefore, the role comes with a significant level of responsibility in these high stakes services.
The role will involve managing the service to our customers in a matrix managed environment, co-ordinating activities across a number of functions and teams, managing the reporting required and delivering the service to contractual commitments. For example, the Assessment Service Consultant will have an operational relationship with their customers and manage the reports and operational service for them, even though the commercial aspects are owned by the Customer Relationship Manager. Similarly, the Assessment Service Consultant will need to ensure all supplier tasks are completed in accordance with agreed service levels and timescales and when appropriate escalating to the Supplier Management team.
You will work closely with our Customer Relationship Managers to constantly evolve and improve the service we provide, to achieve this you will need both a process and customer/supplier orientated background.
Responsibilities:
Delivery
- Responsible for the delivery of the eAssessment / eMarking service from planning through to reconciliation to closure including input into service-based risk management.
- Managing targeted testing for your customer(s), internal RM service readiness planning and ensuring customer readiness plans are complete.
- You will be responsible for managing the service, with key milestones clearly identified and progress tracked.
- Using matrix management, you will need to influence resources outside of your immediate team.
- Support the system users by overseeing the escalation of queries, via investigation and interaction with internal teams or third-party suppliers.
- Oversee the delivery of a consistently high-quality service ensuring all activities that are required are completed within the agreed timelines (e.g. quality checks, reconciliation activities, incident tickets, service requests).
- Be the first point of operational contact with the customer. This will involve ad hoc requests, updates, and initial escalations, as well as contribution to the internal risk and issues register. Deliver a high level of customer care, providing regular updates and resolving any issues in a timely fashion.
- Responsible for the performance of your customer’s service against operational level agreements and contractual service level agreements and act on under-performance. Provide regular feedback to the internal customer team and assist in the production of and review the operational SLA report for your customer.
Service Improvement
- Analyse performance to identify CSI opportunities.
- Responsible for internal process improvement activities for your customer(s) and / or team (continual improvement) and contribute to strategic improvement activities.
- Deliver the internal Continual Improvement processes for your customer(s). This should include input from all teams (i.e. Helpdesk, Assessment Service Delivery, Application Support, Solution Architects, Technical Operations & Customer Relationship Managers).
- Contribute to new service introductions across Operations to ensure best practice across customers.
- Be responsible for the maintenance and delivery of the Continual Service Improvement Plan for your customer(s), liaising with the wider operations teams, Customer Relationship Managers, Solution Architect and Development teams when appropriate.
Experience:
This role will have exposure to one or more of the Assessment division’s customers at an operational level. This is a key role enabling the operational delivery of the service. Central to ensuring the operational delivery of the service is building effective relationships with stakeholders internally within RM and with customers and third-party suppliers.
Internal Relationships
- Customer Relationship Manager – responsible for ensuring the contract commitments are delivered to their customer
- Functional Managers (Operations and Suppliers) - responsible for delivering the service
- Functional Teams – Helpdesk, Technical Operations, Application Support, Supplier Team in the delivery of the service
- Project Managers and Solution Architects – in the delivery of projects and solution development
External
- Customers – own the relationship with the operational counterparts, for example Marking Manager or E-marking Manager
- Third Party Suppliers & Partners - own the relationship with operational counterparts, for example Service Delivery Manager
Experience
- Experienced in a customer facing delivery role
- Experienced in the delivery of large-scale operations and time critical services
- Experience of working with and reporting on KPIs, SLAs and OLAs
- Ability to be self-reliant, work under presser and prioritise workloads
Behaviours/Skills
- Experience in a customer facing delivery role
- Experienced in the delivery of large-scale operations and time critical services
- Ability to be self-reliant, work under presser and prioritise workloads
- Demonstrable ability to deliver results meeting KPIs, SLAs and OLAs
- Ability to maintain quality output whilst demonstrating flexibility to changing demands and priorities in a high paced environment
- Demonstrable ability to identify and deliver improvements to products and / or services
- Ability to make informed decisions that directly affects business performance. Displaying good judgement in balancing the needs of the customer and RM
- Excellent written and verbal communication with strong active listening and influencing skills
- Develops reliable professional customer relationships and positions themselves as the operational day to day contact for their customer.
- Demonstrates a commitment to delivering their customer needs.
Knowledge
- Knowledge of service or project management methodologies (e.g. ITIL, PRINCE) would be an advantage
- Industry experience of using MS Excel (vlookups and pivot tables)
- Knowledge of working in a business to business environment
- An appreciation of how a complex operation is managed.
What’s in it for you?
At RM we recently introduced My Work Blend at RM which provides office-based colleagues with multi location and hybrid working options to suit them. As well as your office base, you can spend a proportion of your time working at other locations that suit your role and your life, including home, other offices, customer sites, distribution centres or on the move. We encourage you to discuss arrangements for this role with your potential line manager during the recruitment process. We expect how we make best use of hybrid working may continue to adapt as we adjust to our new ways of working.
At RM we are committed to making the recruitment process as inclusive as possible for everyone. Should you require additional support with your application or through the interview process, please contact us at recruitment at rm dot com.
As well as a competitive salary and our core benefits package which includes private medical healthcare, life assurance and a Group Personal Pension Plan with higher contribution levels available, some roles are also eligible for a performance-related bonus.
There are lots of voluntary benefits too. You could buy additional annual leave, join our dental plan, sign for a health assessment, or take part in our cycle to work scheme. You could even earn yourself an extra bonus for successfully recommending a friend or family member for a position within RM.