Guest Experience Manager (New York City Metropolitan Area)

At NAYA, we’re on an exciting journey - growing fast, sharing authentic, fresh, and nutritious Middle Eastern flavors, and building a team that grows with us.

You will love working at NAYA

We believe great people deserve great rewards. NAYA offers a comprehensive and people-focused benefits package designed to support you at work and beyond, including:

• Competitive pay to recognize your impact
• Annual competitive bonus plan
• 401(k) with match
• Paid Vacation time
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance to keep you healthy and thriving
• Flexible Spending and Commuter benefits to make your life easier
• Employee discounts and free NAYA meals — because we believe in enjoying what we serve
• Employee Assistance, Pay on Demand, Pet Insurance, Identity Theft Protection, and much more!

At NAYA, you’ll find more than a job — you’ll find a community that values you, supports your goals, and celebrates your success.

About the Role

At NAYA, our mission is to build genuine connections through the Middle Eastern flavors that nourish and inspire us. Those connections continue after a guest leaves the restaurant. We’re looking for a Guest Experience Manager to lead how we listen, respond, and learn across every guest support channel.

Based in our Support Center, this person will lead a team of Guest Experience Specialists and manage day-to-day guest support across our restaurants and digital channels. They will ensure guests receive timely, thoughtful responses, turn feedback into useful insights, and work closely with Operations Services, Technology, and Training to put what guests tell us into action.

The right person brings empathy to individual conversations, understands restaurant operations, and can spot patterns that point to a larger opportunity.

How You’ll Impact

• Build a consistent guest support function that can scale with NAYA’s growth.
• Lead and develop a team of Guest Experience Specialists.
• Strengthen guest trust and loyalty through thoughtful communication and recovery.
• Give restaurant and Support Center teams clear, timely insight into what guests are experiencing.
• Help turn guest feedback into improvements in service, training, operations, and technology.

What You’ll Do

Lead Guest Support

• Manage guest support across email, phone, surveys, social media, third-party platforms, and other feedback channels.
• Lead the day-to-day work of two Guest Support Specialists, including workload planning, coaching, quality review, and performance feedback.
• Establish clear response standards, workflows, escalation paths, and service level goals.
• Monitor open issues and follow through with internal partners to ensure guests receive a resolution.
• Identify barriers to timely, effective support and work with the appropriate teams to address them.

Guide Guest Communication and Recovery

• Ensure guest responses are timely, accurate, empathetic, and consistent with NAYA’s voice and values.
• Develop response guidance and recovery practices that help the team care for each guest while making sound, consistent decisions.
• Handle sensitive or complex escalations, partnering with restaurant and Support Center leaders when needed.
• Track recovery outcomes, including offer redemption and guest response, and test ways to improve effectiveness.
• Keep guest-facing information current as menus, promotions, restaurant operations, and ordering options change.

Turn Guest Feedback Into Action

• Partner closely with Operations Services to identify recurring restaurant issues, share specific guest feedback, and support practical solutions.
• Work with Technology to surface ordering and digital experience issues, help prioritize fixes, and confirm that changes resolve the guest problem.
• Collaborate with Training to turn guest feedback into immediate coaching opportunities, updated training materials, and clear guidance for restaurant teams.
• Bring urgent or repeated issues to the right partners quickly so teams can act before more guests are affected.
• Follow up on actions taken and assess whether they improved the guest experience.

Report on Trends and Results

• Prepare weekly reports highlighting emerging issues, urgent themes, team performance, and actions needed.
• Deliver weekly and monthly reports on guest feedback trends, response and resolution measures, recovery outcomes, and progress on recurring issues.
• Present quarterly insights that identify broader patterns, root causes, and recommendations for improving the guest journey.
• Analyze feedback related to restaurant service, food quality, ordering, limited-time offerings, marketing promotions, and new initiatives.
• Build and maintain dashboards that give leaders a clear view of guest experience performance.

Build Systems and Processes

• Help develop NAYA’s contact center approach, including channel coverage, hours of operation, escalation processes, and recovery guidelines.
• Contribute to the selection and implementation of CRM and guest support tools, including workflows, documentation, and team adoption.
• Manage and improve guest feedback and reputation management platforms.
• Maintain accurate, organized records of guest interactions so information can be used for follow-up, reporting, and improvement.
• Look for ways to simplify work for the support team and create a more consistent experience for guests.

What You Bring

• Three years of experience in guest experience, customer support, hospitality, or restaurant operations; experience in a multi-unit or growing business is a plus.
• Experience with CRM, guest feedback, support, or reputation management tools.
• Experience leading, coaching, and developing a team.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the judgment to handle sensitive situations and adapt your tone to the guest and the issue.
• The ability to analyze feedback, explain trends clearly, and recommend practical next steps.
• Strong organization and follow-through, especially when several teams are involved in resolving an issue.
• An understanding of restaurant operations and the ability to build trust with restaurant leaders.
• Comfort building processes while staying close to the day-to-day work.

How You Show Up

You lead with Generosity and Authenticity, making guests feel heard and giving your team the support they need to succeed. You practice Teamwork with restaurant and Support Center partners, bring Curiosity to the patterns behind guest feedback, and show Consistency in how you follow through. You are Positive, Confident, and Humble enough to resolve a difficult situation, learn from it, and help NAYA’s processes evolve.

NAYA is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We do not discriminate based on race, color, creed, religion, gender (including gender identity or expression), pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, marital status, domestic violence, sexual violence or stalking victim status, ancestry, national origin, alienage or citizenship, age, disability, military or veteran status, genetic information or predisposing genetic characteristic, or other protected status.

Employment Eligibility Verification - NAYA participates in the federal E-Verify program. If you are offered employment, we will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States. Please note that we do not use E-Verify to pre-screen job applicants, and we begin the verification process only after you accept an official offer of employment.