Guest Experience Lead - Greater London - onefinestay

Description

onefinestay is about passionate people delivering exceptional stays for our guests around the world and creating a homeowner community. We started with one booking in 2010 and now we're part of global brands Accor and The Exclusive Collective. We're in 30 destinations with a carefully curated collection of nearly 3,000 homes, villas and chalets. With each memorable stay, we deliver a level of personal service and professional hospitality unmatched in the luxury private rental industry.

We're global. We look for people with drive, service-first approach and an entrepreneurial spirit. We want everyone to have big ideas and to play their part in shaping the future of onefinestay. In return we've created a strong culture where everyone is recognised for their contribution to our success.

Role purpose

We are looking for an outstanding Guest Experience Team Leader to join our guest-facing team, ensuring guests have an unforgettable stay while supporting the team. You will supervise the team responsible for our guests once they have booked their stay with us. The team assists guests through their pre-stay, in-stay and post-stay journey. The focus is on planning through the pre-stay stage, providing home information, arrival schedule, and gathering any additional information to improve their experience. Supporting guests throughout their stay, troubleshooting issues, and efficiently resolving home breakdowns and other issues that may arise, our goal is to provide hands-on, seamless service. The team remains available to wrap up any post-stay topics.

As the Team Lead, you will support the team in handling guest complaints and disputes and serve as the first point of escalation. Working closely with other team leads and managers in our Supply and Direct Operations Team to efficiently handle any issues in a timely manner.

The team's core motivation is guest satisfaction. The goal is to support the guest throughout their onefinestay journey, creating experiences that make their stay unforgettable. There will also be opportunities to sell a wide range of additional services to elevate their experience. We currently have an outstanding NPS record, and in your role, you will be responsible for maintaining our NPS & CSAT performance and for Duty Management, including DM shifts.

Duties and responsibilities

• Oversee the day-to-day team workload and ensure all guests have a dedicated onefinestay point of contact upon booking confirmation, including managing rotas and shift planning.
• Serving as the team's primary point of contact and assisting guests with troubleshooting issues as they arise.
• Act as the team's first escalation point to ensure timely, commercially efficient, issue resolution.
• Providing regular, constructive feedback on the performance of team members.
• Take ownership of the recruitment, training, and performance of new team members, with the support of the General Manager.
• Work on and manage projects within the team and in collaboration with other teams, both market-specific and global, to drive innovation and improve service standards and delivery.
• Ensure your team manages all guest communications, including email, phone, text, and WhatsApp.
• Acting as the internal contact point between guests, operational suppliers and contractors to fix any issues that might arise during a guest's stay, including our Supply and Direct Operations Teams, also guiding your team on the best ways to do this.
• Drive additional services to increase market revenue and improve overall business revenue growth.
• Assist guests, your team and accounting with payment processing and ensure all outstanding payments are collected in a timely manner.
• Guide and assist guests with trip planning, and create experiences that make their stay unforgettable.
• In some cases, ad hoc sourcing of partners and suppliers to help facilitate guest requests.
• Collaborate with other market team colleagues and leaders, as well as some support functions, to support any guest queries, ensuring your team is taking care of our guests at all times.
• You will understand the need to work on weekends & bank holidays.
• We are open 365 days a year, with some out-of-hours and weekend requirements needed to support the business.

Skills and experience

• 2+ years of experience in people management is preferred. You must demonstrate your ability to lead and motivate a team.
• Excellent written & verbal communication skills, interpersonal skills, and proficiency in other languages will be valued.
• Sales experience is preferred but not essential; you will have a good commercial mindset.
• Enthusiastic, energetic and responsive: you thrive in a fast-paced environment and communicate confidently internally and externally.
• Able to work in multiple systems and CRM/PMS systems.
• A people person at heart, great at building relationships and communicating with a diverse client base.
• Excellent organisational skills and able to manage your own workload autonomously.
• Ambitious and results-driven by a love of delivering top-quality customer service
• Sound judgement and decision-making skills, even under pressure.
• Hospitality experience preferred - ideally in hotel and F&B, or retail.
• Mature approach and with a high level of emotional intelligence: warm, naturally sociable and confident. Able to build a rapport with a diverse group of sophisticated guests.