Shopify CX & Ecommerce Operations Lead — Australian Surf/Streetwear Brand (Founding Hire)

GRVLN — FOUNDING CX & ECOMMERCE OPERATIONS LEAD

Start your application with: GRVLN CX

WHO WE ARE

We are GRVLN (Graveylane) — an Australian surf, swimwear and underground streetwear brand out of Sydney's Northern Beaches. ----------

Our thing is long, old-school-inspired performance boardshorts, plus women's swim and streetwear. The brand sits where surf, skate, graffiti, punk, rave and fashion overlap. It is not a dropshipping store and it is not a faceless catalogue — there are two of us, Blake and Dylan, we design the product, we shoot the content, and we have done nearly AUD $300,000 in about nine months while running the business badly on purpose because there was no one else to run it.

That is the honest pitch. The brand works. The operations do not yet. We are building a real team to fix that, and you would be the first person on it.

WHY THIS ROLE EXISTS

Right now customer email s and Instagram messages land on the two founders. That means a customer who is three weeks into a delayed order waits for one of us to finish a photoshoot before anyone answers them. It is bad for the customer and it is the single biggest thing stopping us from growing.

You are being hired to take customer experience off us completely and run it properly.

This is not a ticket-closing job. You will own the customer-facing side of the business: the inbox, the investigations, the registers, the follow-through, and eventually the training and quality control of the CX people we hire after you.

WHAT YOU WILL ACTUALLY OWN

• Our customer service inbox ---------- — you run it, not us
• Reviewing AI-generated draft replies, correcting them, and sending only what is accurate
• Instagram customer-service escalations that come through from ManyChat
• Investigating Shopify orders properly — line items, fulfilment status, tracking, notes, history
• Checking order status across Shopify, carrier tracking and our 3PL (Williams) systems
• Coordinating with our 3PL on missing, short-shipped and stuck orders
• WISMO ("where is my order") enquiries — the bulk of the volume
• Approved returns, exchanges and refunds
• Faulty, damaged, incorrect and missing-item cases, including photo evidence
• Address changes and cancellations before dispatch
• Preorders and backorders — knowing what is actually coming and when
• Maintaining the list of customers owed a product we did not have in stock, and making sure they are contacted the day it lands
• Returns register and exceptions register — accurate, current, no gaps
• Triaging the queue by urgency and by longest wait, every single day
• Escalating serious complaints, chargebacks, threats, and anything legal or privacy-related to us immediately
• Logging every AI mistake and every missing SOP so the system gets better instead of repeating itself
• Improving the reply templates and the CX knowledge base
• A short daily report and a real weekly report

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE (this is how you will be measured)

• Urgent cases are spotted the same day they arrive
• Routine enquiries answered inside the agreed service level
• The oldest unresolved customer wait gets shorter week after week
• Zero fabricated order information — ever
• Zero unauthorised refunds or promises
• Exception registers are accurate enough that we trust them without checking
• AI errors logged daily
• Repeat enquiries turn into SOP improvements, not repeat work
• Founder involvement in CX decreases every week
• Customers get replies that are warm, brief and correct

WHAT YOU MUST HAVE

• Real Shopify admin experience — orders, fulfilments, refunds, customer records
• Ecommerce customer service over email , at volume
• Order investigation experience — you can find out what actually happened to a parcel
• Returns and exchanges experience
• Tracking and fulfilment understanding
• Experience working with a warehouse, supplier or 3PL
• Excellent written English — natural, warm, brief. Not stiff, not corporate, not "Dear valued customer"
• Good judgement under pressure with angry people
• Spreadsheet and register accuracy — you do not lose things
• Comfortable using Claude or ChatGPT as a drafting tool while independently verifying every fact before it goes out
• Ability to write in an Australian brand voice: relaxed, direct, human

NICE TO HAVE

• Fashion, apparel, surf, skate or streetwear brand experience
• Gorgias, Zendesk, Re:amaze, Tidio or similar helpdesk
• ManyChat
• Meta Business Suite
• Airtable
• Slack
• 3PL / WMS software
• Experience training or QA-ing other support staff

TOOLS YOU WILL USE

Shopify · Google Workspace · a helpdesk · ManyChat · Meta Business Suite · Google Sheets · Airtable · Slack · our 3PL's portal · Claude / ChatGPT

WHAT WE DO NOT WANT YOU TO DO

You will not invent policy, promise compensation, or issue high-value refunds on your own. Those come to us. Everything else, we want you to d ---------- and move.

SCHEDULE

• Full-time, 5 days per week, after the paid trial
• At least 4 hours overlapping 9am–5pm Sydney time
• Reliable internet, and an actual backup plan for internet and power
• Be honest with us about your existing clients and commitments — we would rather know

PAY

• PHP 50,000 per month to start
• PHP 60,000 per month from the 90-day review, based on documented outcomes — not on time served
• 13th-month pay
• Further increases as you take on training and supervising additional CX operators
• If you arrive with verified 3PL/WMS experience and evidence you have supervised support staff before, tell us and we will talk about starting higher

HOW WE HIRE

1. Application (see below)
2. A paid practical test — about 75 minutes, paid PHP 1,500 on submission whether or not you get the role. We do not ask for free work.
3. A 20-minute interview
4. 14-day paid probation at full pro-rata salary. We use TimeProof during probation only, and we tell you that up front. After probation we measure your scorecard, not your mouse.
5. 30-day performance review, 90-day pay review

WHERE THIS GOES

This is the first hire in GRVLN's operations team, not a seat in an existing one. The person who does this well trains and quality-controls the next CX operators and becomes our Operations Lead. The SOPs you write will be how this department works for years. We are looking for someone who wants that, not someone waiting to be told what to do next.

Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Every role is open to all qualified applicants and we select on the published scorecard only.

WHAT WE ACTUALLY OFFER

• A real, growing Australian brand with real products and real customers
• Direct work with the two founders
• Long-term work — we are building a team, not filling a gap
• Clear expectations, real feedback, and credit when you do good work
• AI is part of the job, but your judgement and your verification are the point
• Paid tests are paid. We do not ask for speculative work.
• We would rather you tell us you made a mistake than hide it. Honesty here is a job requirement.

WE WILL REJECT, IMMEDIATELY

• Generic copy-paste applications
• Obvious unedited AI applications — we read a lot of them, we can tell, and it is an instant no
• Applications that do not start with GRVLN CX
• Anyone who thinks AI output can be sent to a customer without checking it
• Anyone whose first instinct is a discount or a partial refund before investigating
• Anyone who cannot explain how they would investigate an unfulfilled order
• Anyone who needs a founder to prioritise every task for them
• Claims of experience with nothing to back them up

TO APPLY

Start your message with: GRVLN CX

Then answer the scenario (this is the part we actually read):

"A customer writes: 'Where the hell is my order? I ordered three weeks ago and nobody has replied. If it isn't coming, refund me immediately.' In no more than five sentences, write your response, and then list the exact systems or records you would check before d ---------- what happens next."

And tell us:

1. Your current employment
2. Any existing clients or commitments
3. Your weekly availability
4. Your expected monthly salary in PHP
5. Your availability in Sydney time
6. Your Shopify experience — what you actually did in the admin
7. Your 3PL / WMS experience, if any
8. Which AI tools you use and how you check their output
9. Your internet speed
10. Your backup internet and power arrangement

Short, specific and honest beats long and polished. We read every application that starts with the code.