Sales and Service Manager

About us

Gate Gourmet, a gategroup company, is the world's largest independent provider of catering and provisioning services for the airline industry. For the past 70 years, we have served over 250 carriers in more than 30 countries. Gate Gourmet combines culinary expertise with the highest standards of food safety and production to deliver delicious, healthy, and affordable meals to over 270 million travelers around the globe.

Job Summary

This position is responsible for overseeing all aspects of account management and Sales & Service functions, including communication with the airline head office and local airport office where the operational unit is located.

Main Duties and Responsibilities:

• Ensures compliance with all customer and airline service requirements by maintaining performance on customers as specified in the contract.
• Responsible for developing and maintaining a good, professional working relationship with both the customer kitchen Management & staff, and Corporate headquarter team members, establishing a clear line of communication at all levels.
• Monitors communications between the Account Services Group including pricing, billing and menu design specification, and Corporate Culinary departments and the customer.
• Liaises with unit Account Manager to provide account-specific training to Unit personnel as required. Ensures that all kitchen personnel are trained on all type of customer aircraft and have current loading diagrams and configurations.
• Maintains prompt and effective communications with customers and operations staff to resolve issues.
• Monitors unit performance and takes a proactive position in monitoring customer quality service standards, facility health and sanitations standards, billing accuracy, and product inventories are maintained at the highest level by the operating unit. Conducts hygiene & performance follow up reviews with kitchen management & staff, while ensuring prompt turnaround response to the customers.
• Serves as the primary contact for all day to day operational communications working with each designated kitchen Account Manager as well as Account Services Group; communicates with the customer as assigned with the ability to develop business relationships which allow for root cause issue resolution.
• Acts as the single point of contact with the airline and should be available on call to respond to customer phone calls, e-mails, and telex inquiries.
• Works with the assigned Corporate and kitchen Chefs to ensure proper menu specifications and directions are followed.
• Works with the designated kitchen Account Manager to ensure all inventories for equipment and liquor meet customer requirements and are reported in the airline systems on time and accurately each month.
• Responds to airline comments or complaints in a timely manner with a 48 hour period from the time the comment/complaint was received.
• Arranges customer visits including meal presentations at the Operations unit. Assists Sales & Service Director with customer meal presentation and RFP kick-offs calls and strategy sessions.
• Participates in weekly conference calls with the Director, Sales & Service to discuss sales issues.
• Prepares for and delivers regular reviews/reports with the internal and external customers about the activities and results of the project team.
• Serves as the “voice of the customer” within the project team and gategroup
• Champions improvement initiatives on behalf of the project team
• Responds to customer requests
• Works with gategroup colleagues to identify and implement best practices.
• Ensures processes and procedures are in place to fulfill all gategroup performance and delivery obligations.
• Ensures proper communication and training in such processes and procedures for the project or delivery teams.
• Develops excellent business relationships with all customer contacts and identify opportunities to grow gategroup business
• Liaises with the gategroup colleagues on all significant account issues
• Develops along with Operations, standard processes to ensure customer deliverables requirements are met

Qualifications

Education:

• Bachelor’s Degree or 4 years of equivalent work experience in Sales & Service.

Work Experience:

• Minimum 5 years of experience in Sales, airline and/or airline catering required
• Previous project management experience preferred
• Experience in a food related industry is preferred with exposure to multi-ethnic cuisines.
• Experience working with international clients is advantageous to the position.
• A background in revenue management and/or pricing is preferred but not mandatory.

Job Skills:

• Strong organization and/or project management skills
• Account management
• Large scale catering operations or logistics, airline catering experience preferred
• Sales and/or customer service experience
• Able to shift roles and responsibilities as business needs change.
• Able to work effectively in a team environment.
• Able to find innovative ways to solve problems

Language / Communication Skills:

• Excellent verbal and written skills, ability to present proposals and performance data, comfortable interfacing with senior executives. Fluency in a foreign language is beneficial to the position, however not mandatory.

Job Dimensions

Geographic Responsibility: North America

Type of Employment: full-time

Exemption Classification: Exempt

Travel %: Willing to travel domestically and internationally as required

Internal Relationships: Operations, corporate counterparts

External Relationships: Customers, vendors

Work Environment / Requirements of the Job:

• Extended work hours
• High degree of confidentiality
• Working knowledge of kitchen operations
• Domestic and International customer experience in an operational setting
• Combination of office and field (kitchen/CPU/supplier) work

Gategroup Competencies Required to be Successful in the Job:

• Thinking – Information Search and analysis & problem resolution skills
• Engaging – Understanding others, Team Leadership and Developing People
• Inspiring – Influencing and building relationships, Motivating and Inspiring, Communicating effectively
• Achieving – Delivering business results under pressure, Championing Performance Improvement and Customer Focus

Demonstrated Values to be Successful in the Position

Employees at gategroup are expected to live our Values of Excellence, Integrity, Passion and Accountability. To demonstrate these Values, we expect to observe the following from everyone:

• We treat each other with respect and we act with integrity
• We communicate and keep each other informed
• We put our heads together to problem solve and deliver excellence as a team
• We have passion for our work and we pay attention to the little details
• We foster an environment of accountability, take responsibility for our actions and learn from our mistakes
• We do what we say we will do, when we say we are going to do it
• We care about our coworkers, always taking an opportunity to make someone’s day better

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by the individual(s) assigned to this position. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all duties, responsibilities, and skills required. Management reserves the right to modify, add, or remove duties and to assign other duties as necessary. In addition, reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

gategroup is an equal opportunity employer committed to workforce diversity. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, disability status or other category under applicable law.

For further information regarding Equal Employment Opportunity, copy and paste the following URL into your web browser: http://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/eeopost.pdf.