Visitor Services Supervisor – Visitor Experience

The National Trust for Scotland is passionate about Scotland’s heritage making a difference to what makes Scotland so special. We are looking for an experienced customer focused supervisor to join us at our fantastic property, Haddo House.

The ideal candidate must be passionate about supporting one of the Trust’s iconic properties to deliver an excellent visitor experience.

Situated in wonderful parklands, Haddo House is an iconic historical landmark that has been part of the National Trust for Scotland since 1979. Built by William Adam in 1732, Haddo appeals to a wide variety of visitors. 

Spread over four floors, it boasts impressive interiors with an incredibly rich & fascinating history. Visitor facilities are focused on the large multi-use courtyard which houses the retail and catering areas. There is a large garden, concert hall and another building, all offering flexible spaces for theatre performances, events, conferences and weddings.

JOB PURPOSE 

This is an exciting supervisory role within the team that manages Haddo House & Garden. Haddo House is also part of a wider Haddo partnership, with Haddo Estate & Aberdeenshire Council and a variety of user groups focusing mainly on the arts, including a choral society, arts festival and children theatre.  

Engaging visitor experiences and excellent customer services are core to any visit to Haddo House and as Scotland’s largest conservation membership charity, every penny we make supports our work, protecting the nation’s natural and cultural heritage.  

All Visitor Services Supervisors at Trust properties play a pivotal role ensuring that the management objectives are achieved through excellent customer service and are very often the “face” of the Trust to visitors and suppliers. For this role, the main focus is to identify and develop commercial opportunities with priority given to retail and travel trade, while also seeking to increase income through existing and new outstanding visitor experiences. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Visitor experience

• Manage the day-to-day operation of the property and environs to ensure excellent customer/visitor experience
• Develop and promote new products and offers to enhance member and visitor enjoyment, telling the property’s stories and driving visitor numbers, including our Heart of Haddo family experience. 
• Develop and promote the Travel Trade offer at Haddo.  
• Explore and develop new commercial opportunities across the site with all departments at Haddo 
• Create a culture of ‘exceptional service, every time’, leading by example with the warm welcome you give
• Act as one of the property group’s duty manager team, responsible for ensuring a safe and smooth visitor operation, addressing issues, and opening/closing up the buildings
• Help achieve targets for the completion of visitor surveys to understand more about our visitors.

Retail & Admissions

• Build a strong understanding of the customer base to support the central team in developing the product offer
• Work with the team to ensure sales targets are met.
• Support the team to ensure Membership sales on target 
• Lead the team’s merchandising and stock management. 
• Support a health & safety culture, ensuring compliance with all mandatory requirements. 
• Account for cost-effective stock management, ordering, storage and wastage control.
• Understand and adhere to the sale of alcohol legislation. 
• Property Management 
• Work closely with the Visitor Services Manager to ensure Health & Safety procedures, emergency procedures, and environmental procedures are adhered to. 
• Work within the budget constraints set for the Property. 

Finance performance

• Work closely with the Visitor Services Manager to support with achieving annual budgets and cost control.
• Responsible for day-to-day financial administration at the property, including cash/till reconciliation, day-end and week-end reports and reconciliation, completion of the banking processes, and updating trackers.
• Supervise safe and secure till operations, perform end-of-day income reconciliation as a duty manager and conduct end of month and year financial procedures.

People management

• Support the Visitor Services Manager to ensure visitor experience, retail, collection care and housekeeping rotas and holiday allocation meets business needs and staff budgets
• Support volunteer management – including holding volunteer open days 
• Enable the team to operate safely to minimise risk of incidents or accidents and take responsibility for emergency procedures
• Collaborate with teams across the site including functions, events, gardens and catering to achieve the wider objectives of the property.
• Work closely with specialist advisory colleagues with the North East Regional Team and National Team. 

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS, EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE

Qualifications & knowledge

• NVQ3/BTEC/City & Guilds/HND/Degree or equivalent experience

Desirable:

• Current First Aid certification (or willingness to train and use)
• Valid SQA Licensing Qualification e.g. Scottish Personal License Holder's Certificate and Personal License (or willingness to train)

This role is one for which the duties, responsibilities or accountabilities of the role require you to undertake a criminal records check, specifically a Basic Disclosure.

Experience

Essential

• Staff supervisory experience in a visitor attraction, heritage, hospitality or retail, or a similar customer-facing environment 
• Excellent visitor/customer service experience
• Operational supervisory experience including responding to incidents or emergencies.
• Experience of driving sales or income generation, including working to targets
• Experience of working collaboratively with multiple teams to deliver shared objectives
• Experience of handling cash, tills and routine financial administration
• Strong organisational, administrative and time-management skills with the ability to prioritise and re-prioritise workload to meet changing demands
• Clear and confident communication skills (written and spoken)
• Competent IT skills including Microsoft Office 

Desirable

• A formal qualification in Hospitality, Tourism or Retail;
• A genuine understanding of and belief in, the work of the National Trust for Scotland;
• Experience of working with volunteers
• Experience of working in an operations role in the visitor/heritage industry 

Click apply now to apply and for more details