Asst Manager - UI Customer Service (Partnership)

About Unilever International

Unilever International is Unilever’s White Space Arm of Unilever and a decacorn in-making. UI has scaled 10x since its launch in 2012 and with a turnover of 1.4 billion € in 2024 it is one of the fastest growing and most profitable sizable businesses of Unilever. UI caters to the last billion consumers in underserved markets, consumer segments, and channels across 200+ countries and all Unilever categories. As intrapreneurs we deploy an agile innovation model that enables more than 1 launch per day. We introduce Unilever’s brands into white space geographies like Korea, Pacific Islands, Mongolia, and spearhead launches of iconic brands like Dove, Vaseline, Knorr, Surf, TRESemme into big markets like U.S, China, Europe, & Asia.

Crafting product innovations for niches like Corporate Partnership serving Hospitality & Travel retail, marketing to institutional partners like the United Nations, and seeding Unilever brands to overseas diaspora who crave for a taste of their familiar home brands. As well as premium product segments, on-trend formats and D2C innovations globally. We navigate complex and dynamic global regulatory landscapes to ensure product compliance and EHS assurance across Personal Care, Beauty & Wellbeing, Homecare, Nutrition & Ice Creams.

Singapore is our global hub leading strategy, marketing thinking, seeding plans, and alignment with the global categories and supply chain. We have a global presence with UI hubs all over the world. R&D is primarily spread across India (Mumbai & Bangalore) & Korea with some resources present globally.

Business Title: Assistant manager UI Customer Service Location: Mumbai HO

The Assistant Manager - Customer Service is responsible for delivering end-to-end customer service excellence for the Partnerships business, ensuring seamless order fulfilment, demand visibility, supply coordination, and customer communication. The role serves as the key interface between customers and internal supply chain teams to proactively manage service risks, resolve operational issues, and ensure timely execution of customer requirements.

Working closely with Customer Development, Planning, Logistics, Finance, and Sourcing Units, the role drives service performance, stakeholder alignment, and continuous improvement initiatives. Success is measured through strong customer service delivery, effective issue resolution, process discipline, and adoption of digital tools that improve visibility, responsiveness, and operational efficiency.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Customer Service Operations

• Manage end-to-end order-to-delivery execution for assigned customers and business portfolios.

• Ensure timely order processing, allocation, dispatch coordination, invoicing and customer communication.

• Track open orders, order ageing and execution exceptions to ensure timely closure.

• Coordinate with internal teams to resolve service issues impacting customer delivery commitments.

• Maintain clear communication with customers and business teams on order status, service risks and recovery actions.

2. Forecasting & Demand Visibility

• Work with customers and commercial teams to obtain forecast visibility and demand updates.

• Translate customer requirements into actionable inputs for planning and supply reviews.

• Track demand changes, surge requirements and service risks, and highlight early warning signals to stakeholders.

• Support regular demand-supply reviews by sharing order status, forecast visibility and execution constraints.

3. Supply Coordination & Availability Management

• Coordinate with supply planning, sourcing units, warehouses and logistics teams to support product availability.

• Monitor stock availability and supply risks against customer orders and expected demand.

• Proactively highlight capacity, production, documentation or shipment readiness gaps that may impact service.

• Support prioritisation and allocation discussions during constrained supply situations.

4. Order Fulfilment, Dispatch & Documentation

• Ensure seamless coordination from order receipt to dispatch, invoicing and documentation completion.

• Work with logistics, warehouse and depot teams to align dispatch plans with customer requirements.

• Monitor dispatch adherence, delivery performance and pending documentation.

• Coordinate closure of short lead-time orders, urgent requirements and customer-specific execution needs.

5. Customer Issue Resolution & Claims Management

• Act as the first point of contact for customer service queries and service-related escalations.

• Manage customer complaints, delivery failures, claims, returns and refusal cases with relevant stakeholders.

• Drive root cause analysis for recurring service losses and support corrective action plans.

• Ensure timely closure of customer issues with clear ownership and communication.

6. Cross-Functional Coordination

• Partner with Customer Development, Planning, Logistics, Finance, Procurement, Sourcing Units and external partners to deliver service objectives.

• Support new customer onboarding, portfolio changes, launch readiness and transition activities from a customer service perspective.

• Drive basic operating rhythm with stakeholders to review service performance, risks, actions and recovery plans.

• Ensure alignment across functions to balance service, cost, inventory and execution priorities.

7. Performance Management & Continuous Improvement

• Track customer service KPIs including service level, fill rate, OTIF, order ageing, claims and issue closure.

• Analyse service losses and identify opportunities to improve reliability, responsiveness and productivity.

• Support process simplification, master data hygiene and standard ways of working across customer service operations.

• Drive adoption of dashboards, MIS and digital tools to improve visibility and execution discipline.

Experience Required:

• The ideal candidate will bring 4-7 years of experience in Customer Service, Supply Chain Operations, Logistics, Demand Planning, Supply Planning or related functions.

• Hands-on experience in order management, customer communication, fulfilment tracking and service issue resolution is essential.

• Prior exposure to FMCG, multi-customer operations, export customers, complex supply networks or external service partners will be an added advantage.

• The candidate should have a strong understanding of end-to-end order fulfilment processes, including order processing, allocation, dispatch coordination, invoicing, documentation and customer claim resolution.

• Experience in working with cross-functional teams and managing service escalations in a dynamic business environment is preferred.

Qualification & Skills Required:

• Graduate degree in any discipline is required. Engineering, Business, Operations or Supply Chain Management qualification will be preferred.

• Strong customer service mindset with good understanding of order-to-delivery processes.

• Strong organisational, analytical and problem-solving skills.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills with ability to coordinate across functions.

• Ability to manage multiple priorities, follow up rigorously and close issues with clear ownership.

• Working knowledge of SAP, Excel, Power BI or other customer service reporting tools will be an added advantage.

• Continuous improvement mindset with willingness to support process simplification and digital adoption.

Key KPIs:

• Customer service level / fill rate and OTIF performance.

• Order ageing, order cycle time and dispatch adherence.

• Forecast visibility and demand-supply alignment quality.

• Supply risk closure and recovery plan adherence.

• Customer claims, complaints and service issue closure timeline.

• Master data hygiene, process compliance and dashboard / digital tool adoption.

Our commitment to Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Unilever embraces diversity and encourages applicants from all walks of life! This means giving full and fair consideration to all applicants and continuing development of all employees regardless of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage and civil partnership, and pregnancy and maternity.

Note: _"All official offers from Unilever are issued only via our Applicant Tracking System (ATS). Offers from individuals or unofficial sources may be fraudulent—please verify before proceeding."