United Feeds, part of Dale Farm the UKs largest farmer-owned dairy cooperative manufactures blended and compound feeds for dairy, beef, and sheep, with production facilities in Belfast and Dungannon. Alongside feed, we provide innovative nutritional solutions, on-farm advisory services, and selected farm inputs including fertiliser, calf milk replacer, and forage inoculant direct to farms and merchants.

Dale Farm is owned by 1,300 UK farmers. We supply a wide range of dairy products, including cheese, butter, dairy spreads, fresh milk and ice cream to consumers and as food ingredients into the UK, Irish and international markets.

Core to our success is our people, and we now have an exciting opportunity for a Customer Services Team Lead based at our Belfast site.

We are seeking an experienced and highly organised Customer Services Team Lead to manage and develop a small customer service team within a fast-paced animal feed manufacturing business. This role is responsible for ensuring customer orders are processed accurately and efficiently, coordinating with production and logistics teams, and driving continuous improvements in order management processes.

Reporting to the Business Improvement Manager, the successful candidate will drive service excellence through proactive customer engagement, play a critical role in balancing customer expectations with manufacturing and delivery capacity, helping to improve delivery windows/service levels while reducing operational inefficiencies caused by urgent and last-minute order requests.

Key Responsibilities

Team Leadership & Management

• Lead, motivate and develop a team of 3 Customer Services staff.
• Manage team performance through regular coaching, training and development.
• Set clear objectives and ensure service standards are consistently achieved.
• Monitor workloads and allocate resources effectively to meet business demands.
• Foster a culture of continuous improvement and customer focus.

Customer Order Management

• Oversee the end-to-end customer order process from receipt through to delivery.
• Ensure all customer orders are entered accurately and processed within agreed timescales.
• Drive improvements in order planning and customer communication to reduce urgent and emergency orders.
• Promote adherence to agreed order lead times and extended delivery windows when operationally beneficial.
• Escalate potential supply or delivery issues proactively to relevant stakeholders.

Systems & Data Management

• Act as the key user for customer order management systems and associated integrations.
• Utilise Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC), Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Power BI to monitor performance, analyse trends and support decision-making.
• Compare and validate data across multiple customer order integrations and platforms to ensure consistency and data integrity.
• Investigate and resolve discrepancies between systems, ensuring all applications contain accurate and aligned information.
• Produce service reports using Excel and Power BI.

Production & Logistics Coordination

• Work closely with Mill Management, Production Planning and Logistics teams to ensure customer orders can be fulfilled efficiently.
• Review incoming demand against production and delivery capacity.
• Identify bottlenecks and constraints when order acceptance exceeds manufacturing and/or transport capability.
• Provide timely recommendations and escalation to management where capacity issues are identified.
• Support cross-functional planning activities to optimise production schedules and delivery performance.

Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities to improve customer service processes, order accuracy and operational efficiency.
• Analyse ordering behaviours and implement initiatives to improve forecast accuracy and order planning.
• Support business improvement projects relating to systems, processes and customer experience.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures and customer service best practices.

Key Skills & Experience

Essential Criteria

• Proven experience leading or supervising a customer service, customer operations or order management team.
• Experience working within a manufacturing, production, logistics or supply chain environment.
• Advanced working knowledge of Microsoft Excel including reporting, analysis and data validation.
• Experience managing customer order processing and order fulfilment activities.
• Strong understanding of systems integrations and the ability to compare data across multiple applications to verify accuracy and consistency.
• Excellent communication, problem-solving and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong analytical mindset with attention to detail.

Desirable Criteria

• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central (BC).
• Experience using Microsoft Power BI or equivalent for reporting and performance monitoring.
• Experience within the animal feed, agricultural, food manufacturing or FMCG sectors.
• Knowledge of transport planning and supply chain operations.
• Demonstrable experience working collaboratively with production, operations and logistics functions.
• Experience leading continuous improvement initiatives.
• Understanding of ERP systems and electronic customer ordering platforms.

To learn more about the company and to apply for this position please visit:

We are an Equal Opportunities Employer

Only applications from EU Nationals or those with a valid permit to work in the UK will be accepted

No unsolicited CVs from Agencies.

WHJS1_NI

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