Need help changing our job title!

[Sleepyfergus]

Looking for some help here, thought the collective minds of MN could hopefully come up with some ideas?

I work in a department of approx 30, and we're spread out across locations across the world. The main hubs are London, Houston & Singapore, but lots of smaller offices elsewhere too. Our dept has expanded fairly quickly over the years (in line with the company in general) and our job role has changed from when I first joined the company, to present day.

The department name is 'Client Services', and a few of us are having issues with this name for several reasons:-

(1) It doesn?t lend itself to a job title. We work FOR Client Services, but I'm not 'A Client Services'. I suppose you could tag something like 'administrator' on the back of it, but that becomes a bit of a mouthful
(2) The connotations from this name are that we work in a call centre, which we don't. I'm not denigrating anyone that works in a call centre, but our job role differs from that of a generic call centre, more details below?
(3) Internally, we are perceived as 'back office', and there is a degree of misunderstanding about what we do. Of course, we need to concentrate separately on that, to try and educate our colleagues as to what we do, where we add value, how we can work together etc, but we feel that again, our name automatically puts us on a back foot.

To sum up what we do?.we each have a portfolio of clients that we work with, alongside an Account Manager. We provide data to our clients and our contracts are subscription based. The majority of the products are accessed online via our website. We deal with contracts, entitlement of the products (through a series of computer systems) and client aftercare (a small element of training, managing the relationship, encouraging usage of the products etc). Over the years we have increasingly become involved in a lot of project work (such as product enhancement and the impact it has on entitlement) and recently been heavily involved with the changeover and deployment of a new CRM system.

We've mentioned before to our line managers and bosses that we feel our name doesn?t accurately reflect what we do, and they nod their heads and make all the right noises, but nothing changes. I know that to make this happen we need to be more pushy and provide a list of alternative names. So that?s where I hope MN can help ? perhaps someone out there has a similar sounding job role but with a different title? Or any ideas in general would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Witchesbrewandbiscuits]

client services kinda sums the roles up but maybe job titles could be changed to client manager, client officer, project manager etc. maybe the dept could be renamed client management. it def doesnt portray call centre to me.

[tribpot]

Can you elaborate on what the back office tag means for your perception in the organisation? Does it imply you're not involved in work that directly generates income for the company?

[Blankiefan]

How about "Commercial Operations" instead of Client Services. You'll have similar issues with role titles tho - how about Commercial Operations Executive? Commercial Ops Manager?

[StickyProblem]

What do management call the measure of how many customers stay with the company? Find whatever the important word is and use that, whether it's churn, retention, renewal etc.

Customer Retention Manager/Client Retention Manager
Customer Success Manager (enterprise social companies use this)
Service Usage Manager (if "usage" of the services is measured and seen as important)
Churn Prevention Manager (weird :) )
Customer Value Manager (customers need to get value from your services otherwise they won't renew)

[Sleepyfergus]

Thanks for your replies so far.

Tribpot ? we've been called back office by some of the sales & account managers. They seem to think we 'just' key the contract and set up the entitlement (which yes, we do). They don't seem to get that we also talk to the clients, create a relationship with them, increase usage (which can create revenue) and can directly affect and effect the renewal process.

Blankiefan/ Sticky ? thanks for your input. 'Rentention' and 'Renewal' are big buzz words here so could def be incorporated into something. Also liking Customer Value Manager. Not sure about Churn right enough (conjours up images of milk maids and cows)!!

I not trying to make us out to be something we're not, it's just time for a change that more accurately reflects what we do

[driftwoodsands]

Data Division? Client Care? Or put them together and become DDCC or CCDD! Core Client and Data Centre??? Inclusive Management Centre? What do I know? Can you tell I don't work in this sort of environment?!!