Service Recovery Manager – ITIL NEW

Methods Business and Digital Technology Limited

The Service Recovery Manager provides focused operational oversight across Managed Services to ensure customer-impacting issues are identified, owned, challenged and progressed before they become escalations. The role works across Service Delivery Managers, Queue Managers, Team Leads, technical teams and resolver groups to drive recovery activity, maintain visibility of operational risk and ensure commitments are followed through to completion. The Service Recovery Manager does not replace the Service Delivery Manager, Queue Manager, Team Lead or ticket owner. The role exists to strengthen operational discipline, improve accountability and bridge the gap between ticket management activity and customer outcomes.

Accountabilities:

• Provide dedicated oversight of service recovery activity across agreed customer services and operational areas.
• Maintain visibility of customer concerns, operational risks, aged tickets, paused SLAs, resolver group backlogs and tickets with no meaningful progress.
• Ensure at-risk tickets and recovery actions have clear ownership, agreed next steps and appropriate update points.
• Drive accountability across operational teams where activity is not progressing or ownership is unclear.
• Coordinate recovery activity across Service Delivery Managers, Queue Managers, Team Leads, technical teams and resolver groups.
• Support escalation prevention by identifying customer-impacting risks before they become formal escalations.
• Support customer confidence recovery by ensuring known concerns are visible, actively managed and tracked through to completion.
• Review the effectiveness of operational controls, including queue management, aged ticket processes, customer communication expectations and escalation routes.
• Identify recurring themes, ownership gaps, operational bottlenecks and process execution issues that may affect customer outcomes.
• Provide concise reporting to operational leadership on recovery progress, blockers, risks and areas requiring decision or support.
• Support the development and maintenance of service recovery plans for customers or services requiring focused operational improvement.
• Contribute to post-recovery reviews by identifying lessons learned, control improvements and actions required to prevent recurrence.

Responsibilities:

• Review service health information to identify tickets, services or customer concerns requiring recovery focus.
• Monitor open tickets with no meaningful update, paused SLAs, aged tickets, resolver group backlogs, customer-chased tickets and known escalation risks.
• Maintain an at-risk ticket view, customer concern register, recovery action log and escalation risk register where required.
• Work with ticket owners, Queue Managers and Team Leads to confirm blockers, ownership, next actions and expected update points.
• Challenge lack of progress constructively and ensure recovery actions are driven through to completion.
• Coordinate activity across teams where tickets move between resolver groups, require multi-team input or have unclear ownership.
• Work with SDMs to ensure customer concerns, upcoming customer meetings, known dissatisfaction themes and recovery priorities are understood and actively managed.
• Support SDMs by maintaining visibility of recovery progress and ensuring customer commitments are tracked and followed through.
• Escalate unresolved blockers, repeated ownership gaps, non-response or customer-impacting risks to the appropriate operational owner or leadership route.
• Support resolver group reviews to understand why work is not progressing, where decisions are required and where ownership needs to be clarified.
• Identify recurring operational themes, including repeated delays, unclear ownership, inconsistent updates, dependency issues and process adherence concerns.
• Support the creation and maintenance of customer or service recovery plans, ensuring actions, owners, due dates, risks and outcomes are clearly recorded.
• Provide regular recovery updates covering red items, amber items, completed actions, blockers and areas requiring leadership attention.
• Review customer-impacting incidents or escalations after recovery activity to identify lessons learned and control improvements.
• Promote a culture of ownership, follow-through and proactive service recovery across Managed Services.
• Any other duties as and when required commensurate with organisational position.

Essential Requirements

• Experience working in Managed Services, Service Desk, Service Delivery or operational support environments.
• Strong understanding of service management, ticket ownership, escalation management and customer communication expectations.
• Experience working with ITSM or ticketing processes, including aged tickets, paused SLAs, resolver groups and escalation routes.
• Ability to identify customer-impacting service risks before they become formal escalations.
• Strong organisational skills, including the ability to track actions, owners, due dates, decisions and progress clearly.
• Confidence challenging operational teams constructively and professionally where ownership or progress is unclear.
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to work effectively with SDMs, Queue Managers, Team Leads, technical teams and leadership.
• Ability to coordinate activity across multiple teams without removing accountability from assigned owners.
• Customer-focused approach with an understanding of the importance of proactive communication, ownership and follow-through.
• Ability to produce clear, concise and practical reporting on service recovery progress, risks, blockers and required actions.
• Ability to identify recurring themes, operational bottlenecks and process execution issues.
• Demonstrate flexibility and adaptability to meet the needs of demanding workloads.

Desirable Requirements

• ITIL awareness or certification, preferably ITIL v4.
• Experience supporting service recovery, service improvement, customer escalation or customer confidence recovery activity.
• Experience working in an MSP environment.
• Experience using ITSM tools such as ServiceNow, Halo, Hornbill, Freshservice, Zendesk or similar.
• Experience maintaining service recovery trackers, risk registers, action logs, customer concern registers or escalation registers.
• Experience working with SLA governance, resolver group performance, aged ticket reviews and customer-chased tickets.
• Experience supporting or coordinating customer/service recovery plans.
• Experience reviewing operational controls and identifying where processes are not delivering the expected customer outcome.
• Experience supporting post-incident, post-escalation or post-recovery reviews.
• Strong analytical skills with the ability to identify patterns, trends and control gaps from operational data.
• Experience supporting Service Delivery Managers or operational leadership with service health reporting.
• Experience working with customers, suppliers or third parties in a service management context.
• A strong continuous improvement mindset and ability to recommend practical corrective actions.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office suite, particularly Excel, Word and PowerPoint.