Director, Trade Reservations & Guest Services
Job Summary
As Director of Trade Reservations, you will oversee the entire trade call center operation and ancillary services for the USA, with potential global oversight. We seek a leader to manage and develop a high-performing reservations team, ensuring seamless operations, exceptional customer service, and strategic growth in trade reservations.
About the Role
This role is pivotal in developing and maintaining relationships with travel trade partners, optimizing reservation processes, and driving sales performance to meet the luxury and experience standards expected by Crystal Cruises guests and travel partners.
Essential Job Duties
Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing reservations team.
Create and develop a leading team of reservation agents to achieve sales targets and service travel agent bookings.
Develop, vet, and distribute processes, procedures, talk tracks, conversion tools, KPIs, and metrics related to contact center performances, and ensure all service components are managed and met.
Support and manage sales activities in accordance with board provided targets and expectations.
Set performance goals and conduct regular reviews.
Responsible for recruiting, hiring, and training including but not limited to reservation consultants, resolutions desk, reservations admin, and other support related roles.
Works closely with Heads of Trade Sales and Consumer Sales to ensure cross-functional collaboration is maintained a key importance within our organization for excellence.
Collaborates with the sales team to support strategic agency relationships.
Analyzes booking trends, conversion rates, cancellation patterns, and market performance to identify opportunities for increased sales effectiveness.
Maintains and monitors reservation workflows, call queues, service levels, booking accuracy, and processing times to ensure optimal operational performance.
Develops and implements operational procedures that increase efficiency, reduce errors, and improve the advisor booking experience.
Competencies
Education: Bachelor’s degree required or equivalent experience.
Experience: 5+ years of leadership experience managing and developing high-performing cruise reservations or contact center teams, with a demonstrated track record of coaching entry-level reservation consultants, driving employee engagement, and overseeing workforce planning, performance management, quality assurance, training, and succession planning initiatives.
Proven success leading contact center teams, including the development of service standards, operational procedures, performance metrics, and accountability frameworks that enhance the travel advisor and guest experience while driving booking conversion, revenue growth, and operational efficiency.
Advanced experience utilizing contact center metrics and reporting, including service levels, abandonment rates, average handle time, occupancy, schedule adherence, booking conversion, quality scores, first-contact resolution, and customer satisfaction measures.
Skills/Qualifications
Proficiency in Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs.
Highly detailed-oriented with strong organizational and follow-up skills.
Strong leadership presence with proven ability to recruit, develop, motivate, and retain high-performing teams in a fast-paced contact center environment.
Advanced analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to interpret complex data sets, identify business trends, and make data-driven recommendations.
Strong understanding of contact center best practices, workforce planning methodologies, quality assurance programs, and customer experience management.