Operations 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 of 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
• Wider benefits scheme including our benefits hub, which is packed full of offers and information to save you money and support your wellbeing.

Who are we?

At Thames Water, our purpose is crystal clear - to deliver life’s essential service so our customers, communities and planet can thrive. Water is life’s great leveller. Every living thing needs it, every single day. From people to plants, birds to bees, farms to factories, we all need it to thrive, and we are committed to taking care of it for us all.

But keeping water flowing is becoming harder. From scorching summers to wetter winters, extreme weather affects everything from our pipes to our local rivers. We need to keep millions more kettles boiling, public services operating, washing machines spinning, showers running and more, so every drop is more precious than ever. Are you ready to play your part?

Working at Thames Water

At Thames Water, we recognise that people are at the heart of our business. To help us succeed in providing life's essential service, we need a range of skills and capabilities, representative of society throughout our business.

We seek to attract and retain a cultural mix of people who can offer different but complementary attitudes, values, talents, and knowledge. We understand the importance of appreciating and harnessing the unique skills, experiences, backgrounds, and differences that each individual brings.

Our over-arching diversity and inclusion aim is to ensure Thames Water is a diverse and inclusive place to work. We encourage applications from everyone and offer extra support for those who need it throughout the recruitment process. Find out more about working at Thames Water.

When a crisis happens, we all rally around to support our customers. As part of Team Thames, you will 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 is also a fantastic 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.