Operational Customer & Complaints Programme Lead

Thames Water is undergoing significant transformation as part of the turnaround of our business. This role specifically supports activities to drive a step change in our operational complaints and wider customer performance.

This role is an important part of helping to improve our performance, responsible for leading projects and programmes to understand ways to improve how we handle complaints across all our operational communication channels and work with business
stakeholders to change processes, ways of working, systems and customer journeys.

You will be responsible for coordinating and reporting on the progress we are making regarding our customer measure of experience (C-Mex) improvement plan and key customer improvement activity across Asset Operations & Capital Delivery.

What you’ll be doing as the Operational Customer & Complaints Programme Lead

• Manage a programme team to deliver high-performance and high-quality customer service to our operational household customers.
• You will manage change within a dynamic operational environment and build a continuous improvement and transformation culture.
• Collaborative interaction with key stakeholders within operational complaints management, customer contact, and individuals leading customer improvement activity.
• Development and progress reporting of a customer measure of experience (C-Mex) improvement plan ensuring that progress is visible and sustained.
• Engage with operations customer contact, operations case management, complaints handling teams, planning and scheduling teams, field operations teams, management and leadership teams.
• There may also be the opportunity to engage with external stakeholders (for example to learn from other organisations) on customer complaints and C-Mex.
• This role will involve the need to analyse complaints and customer contact processes, procedures, systems and customer journeys and recommend improvements.
• Interpretation of customer data, particularly root cause analysis, customer journeys, and customer experience.
• Producing effective outputs to support project governance and communications.

This is a hybrid working role with a base location of either Kemble Court, Green Park,
Reading (close to M4 Junction 11) or our head office in central Reading. (close to Reading train station)

Working hours are 36 hours per week, Monday to Friday.

What you should bring to the role

• You will have worked at a management level within customer service or customer complaints and have experience developing process improvements.
• Experience in steering regulatory customer improvement (ideally C-Mex or equivalent).
• Ideally, this experience has been within an operational business such as the water industry, other utilities, telecommunications or large-scale construction.
• Previous continuous improvement, in service, transformation and project change experience.
• Ability to use data and insight to inform focus areas for improvement.
• A proactive and solutions-focused approach to activities.
• Ability to build cohesive relationships and influence key, high-level internal and external stakeholders.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to challenge stakeholders constructively for positive customer resolutions.
• Be IT confident with experience in using key applications such as SAP (CRM) and Salesforce. (Work Management)

What’s in it for you?

• Competitive salary up to £60,000 per annum depending on previous experience.
• 26 days holiday per year increasing to 30 with the length of service. (Plus bank holidays)
• Contributory pension – Defined Contribution - Maximum of 12% -2x employee contribution.
• Personal Medical Assessments – Open to all once a year
• Access to many benefits to help you take care of your and your family’s health and well-being, and your finances – from annual health MOTs and access to physiotherapy and counselling to Cycle to Work schemes, shopping vouchers and life assurance.

Find out more about our benefits and perks

Who are we?

We’re the UK’s largest water and wastewater company, with more than 16 million customers relying on us every day to supply water for their taps and toilets. We want to build a better future for all, helping our customers, communities, people and the planet to thrive. It’s a big job and we’ve got a long way to go, so we need help from passionate and skilled people, committed to making a difference and getting us to where we want to be in the years and decades to come.

Learn more about our purpose and values

Working at Thames Water

Thames Water is a unique, rewarding and diverse place to work, where every day you can make a difference, yet no day is the same. As part of our family, you’ll enjoy fast-tracked career opportunities, flexible working arrangements and excellent benefits.
Whether you’re interested in a role in one of our call centres or science labs, we’re looking for people like you with real passion and a burning desire to make things better.

So, if you’re looking for a sustainable and successful career where you can make a daily difference to millions of people’s lives while helping to protect the world of water for future generations, we’ll be here to support you every step of the way. Together, we can build a better future for our customers, our region and our planet.

The real purpose, real support, real opportunities. Come and join the Thames Water family. Why choose us? Learn more.

Our overarching aim is to ensure that Thames Water is a great, diverse and inclusive place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and offer extra support for those who need it throughout the recruitment process. We aim to remove any real or perceived barriers to success, so if you need assistance, we’re here to help and support you.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you’ll have the opportunity to sign up to support our customers on the frontline as an ambassador. Full training will be given for what is undoubtedly an incredibly rewarding experience. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about our business, meet colleagues and earn some extra money along the way.

Disclaimer: due to the high volume of applications we receive, we may close the advert earlier than the advertised date, so we encourage you to apply as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.