Chris Linthwaite | Head of Service Operations

About

Operations leader.
Problem solver.
Team builder.

"'Good enough' is never good enough."

I run the parts of a business that customers feel first: service desks, logistics, warehousing, onboarding, customer success. My career is a pattern of walking into under-built or broken functions and leaving behind departments with clear processes, trained teams and measurable outcomes. A single overwhelmed engineer and a 400-ticket backlog at CSL. A department frozen since COVID furlough at Carillion. A customs team with zero process and zero experience at Gist.

At CSL Integration I report weekly to the two Co-Owners, with direct input into leadership strategy. I also run the sales and account-management side of the portfolio: client quoting, onboarding, renewals and upsell conversations. The portfolio has grown from 40 clients and £295K to 55 clients and £600K. The team has grown from 1 to 4, backed by a 14-strong UK and EU sub-contractor network under three formal SLA agreements in France, Belgium/Netherlands and Greece.

I have managed fully remote and hybrid teams, plus sub-contractors across European time zones. My approach is simple. Get an honest read of what is actually broken, fix it where it is urgent, then build the process that makes the fix stick. I coach in every 1:1, escalation and incident debrief, because the aim is a team that keeps performing without me.

Impact

Career highlights

The numbers behind the work.

55 → 10 days
Cut average case length at Carillion by rebuilding the department from the ground up: re-entering all contract and technical data, rewriting the SOPs, and setting up automated flags that caught SLA risk before it breached. SLA compliance lifted toward a 95% target and CSAT into the 70–80% range.

£30–40K recovered
Recovered an estimated £30–40K in contract and licence renewals missed while tickets sat open. Cleared a 400-ticket backlog by hand over the first three to six months at CSL, then replaced ConnectWise with ServiceNow through a full RFI/RFP vendor selection.

£295K → £600K
Doubled the CSL portfolio in value (40 clients to 55) while running the sales and account-management side directly: quoting, onboarding, renewals and upsell. Now running at 97% SLA compliance and a 10-day average case length.

1 → 4, plus 14
Grew the CSL team from 1 to 4 and built a 14-strong UK and EU sub-contractor network under 3 formal SLA agreements in France, Belgium/Netherlands and Greece.

£500K a year
Recovered an estimated £500K annually in refunds at AVI-SPL that had been left too late to claim. Took ownership of the returns log and built a returns inbox, an Excel tracker and a physical returns area to keep it visible.

24/7 customs, 4 → 8
Helped stand up a 24/7 customs team at Gist for M&S's Ireland/France food contract. Scaled my team from 4 to 8 direct reports (up to 42 department-wide at peak) and planned shift cover ahead of the Christmas peak.

Experience

Where I've done the work

Five times sent in to stand up a department from nothing, or to rebuild one that had fallen behind.

May 2023 – Present

Head of Service Operations & Customer Solutions

CSL Integration · Kingston / Remote

Arrived to find 1 junior engineer, a 400-ticket backlog against a normal running volume of about 40, and a ConnectWise system no one else knew how to use
Report weekly to the two Co-Owners with direct input into leadership strategy. Run the sales and account-management side directly: quoting, onboarding, renewals and upsell
Cleared the backlog by hand, then ran a full RFI/RFP vendor selection that replaced ConnectWise with ServiceNow, rebuilt the contractor intake form and set a single closure standard business-wide. Recovered an estimated £30–40K in missed renewals
Doubled the portfolio from 40 clients / £295K to 55 clients / £600K. Grew the team from 1 to 4 (2 project coordinators, a service engineer, a senior engineer) and built a 14-strong sub-contractor network under 3 SLA agreements
Currently at 97% SLA compliance, a 10-day average case length, 30% resolved remotely and 50% fixed on first visit

Sep 2022 – May 2023

Service Delivery Manager

Carillion Communications · Remote / Maidenhead

Took over a team of 3 running on outdated information, after the business moved to ConnectWise during COVID furlough with no one left who knew how to use it. Reported to the Owner/MD every two weeks
Cut average case length from 55 to 10 days and lifted SLA compliance toward a 95% target by re-entering all contract and technical data, rewriting the SOPs and setting up automated SLA risk flags
Restored full contract compliance by clearing a backlog of overdue Preventative Maintenance Visits. Lifted CSAT into the 70–80% range and cut renewal friction and churn with daily, weekly and monthly progress reporting
Grew the team to 8 direct reports (2 customer support, 2 schedulers, 4 engineers) plus 8 indirect install engineers, managing the largest revenue portfolio of my career: £1M across about 60 clients

Jan 2021 – Aug 2022

Customs Admin Manager

Gist · Basingstoke

Joined a brand-new team with no established process and no customs experience, stood up to deliver 24/7 customs clearance for M&S's exclusive Ireland/France food contract
Co-led one of four rotating shift teams, scaling from 4 to 8 direct reports (up to 42 department-wide at peak)
Cut the number of lorries held at depot or stuck at the border with shared-inbox categorisation for clear case ownership, a shared knowledge workbook for new customs rulings, and shift handover briefings so all four teams learned each process on the same day
Built a workforce plan from lorry and load volumes gathered directly from depots, modelling shift resourcing in Excel, so cover was ahead of the M&S Christmas peak

Jul 2019 – Jan 2021

Warehouse & Logistics Manager

AVI-SPL · Farnborough

Headhunted by my manager from proAV into a newly created role, stepping into a warehouse that had gone over a year without a manager. Returns had fallen far enough behind that high-value items were going unreturned
Led a 4–6 person warehouse team through the full employee lifecycle, and covered as informal lead for the 3-person procurement team in the manager and director's absence
Recovered an estimated £500K annually in refunds previously left too late to claim, with a dedicated returns inbox, an Excel tracker (stage / next action / value) and a physical returns area

Feb 2018 – Jul 2019

Customer Service Agent

proAV · Egham

Joined a well-integrated 8-person team and was handed the company's highest-profile client once the team hit capacity
Kept the account on track without adding headcount, with a weekly client-facing call and a weekly internal alignment call
Ran an average case length of 7–8 days against a 10-day target (team average was 18–24)

Sep 2015 – Feb 2018

Conference Operator, Team Leader

Yorktel · Basingstoke

First UK hire as the company moved 24/7 global conferencing coverage from its US office to a new UK function, arriving to no UK team and US-designed shift patterns that did not meet UK employment law
Trained in person with a US colleague, wrote the UK training documentation from scratch, and interviewed and trained the first batch of UK operators, shaping shifts and breaks to stay compliant
Held the team KPI of no more than 3 operator errors a year (the only operator to record zero errors and 100% accuracy), supporting clients from junior admins up to Nestlé's CEO and SLT

Nov 2013 – Sep 2015

Service Delivery Engineer