Head of Customer Services

As our new Head of Customer Service, you will be managing and enhancing operational customer service delivery across the company, including during critical and emergency situations.

This vital role focuses on ensuring high customer satisfaction, improving service and cost efficiency, and leading a team to meet the company's customer service vision, objectives and commitments. 

You will foster a strong culture of continuous improvement, playing a key role in shaping the customer experience, handling complex customer issues, reviewing and improving processes and implementing initiatives that align with the company's vision and goals.

You will be required to travel to a variety of customer teams across the Wessex Water region.   

What you'll do

You will:

• maintain leading customer satisfaction performance, ensuring that service delivery, including in our call centre, customer relations, customer care, feedback, case handling and scheduling teams, meets or exceeds customers' expectations and aligns with our strategy
• seek and drive efficiency and effectiveness throughout areas of responsibility, including cost optimisation and savings, while maintaining sector-leading performance
• identify and address any pain points in customer journeys and promote a culture of continuous improvement, reviewing and improving processes to enhance the customer experience
• manage the effective resolution of customer complaints, including complex or escalated complaints, ensuring they are handled efficiently, to the customer's satisfaction
• support our Priority Services customers, including during emergencies and incidents such as loss of water supply
• carry out root cause analysis of any low-scoring feedback received across multiple channels from customers, responding to those with the aim to ‘service recover' any negative sentiment
• use feedback data to identify trends, opportunities and improvements in day-to-day operations
• manage our operational scheduling functions in and out of hours, ensuring the right resource attends the right work at the right location by its due date, keeping customers informed of progress and arranging appointments where required
• lead our customer service response during large events/incidents or emergencies, ensuring timely and effective communication with customers
• maintain contingency plans to ensure the business continuity of customer services during unplanned events
• develop, monitor and report on key performance indicators for customer services and scheduling to ensure relevant targets are met and exceeded
• ensure compliance with company policies and all statutory and regulatory obligations, including the customer-focused licence condition, complaint handling, Guaranteed Standards Scheme and Priority Services
• drive innovation, identifying and implementing opportunities to improve customer service delivery through new approaches and technology
• lead and inspire people to deliver exceptional results by setting clear performance goals, monitoring progress, and providing constructive feedback, while ensuring training needs are addressed, and robust succession planning is in place.

What you'll need

In this pivotal role, we are looking for:

• experience at a leadership level in a customer-related role
• a good understanding and experience in the water industry and incident management is preferable
• strong customer ethos and experience of managing diverse and dispersed customer teams and projects to deliver outstanding customer service
• proven track record in managing processes at scale and driving continuous improvement to customer service, reducing cost and improving efficiency
• a good understanding of the regulatory principles, legislation and political implications for customers
• good commercial acumen, experienced at managing budgets of this scale
• a strong interest in the professional/personal development of others and inspiring them to thrive
• excellent communication (verbal, written, presentation) and negotiation skills, able to articulate their views well and convincingly to a preferred course of action
• able to think strategically and implement change
• able to build rapport and strong collaborative working relationships both internally and externally
• strong IT literacy.

What you'll receive

• A combined pension contribution of up to 20%.
• Career progression and professional development opportunities.
• 25 days' holiday rising to 28 with length of service.
• The opportunity to sell up to five days of holiday every year.
• The opportunity to buy up to ten days of holiday each year (subject to conditions).
• A healthcare package that allows you to claim back healthcare costs.
• Life assurance of up to eight times your salary.
• The opportunity to lease a new electric car through salary sacrifice (subject to conditions).
• Cashback and discounts from more than 3,000 retailers.
• One paid volunteering day each year.
• Enhanced family leave and pay arrangements.
• Access to an interactive health and wellbeing platform.
• Support from trained mental health first aiders.
• A £1,000 referral fee if you recommend someone who is successfully recruited by us. 

Who we are

YTL UK is part of the international YTL Group based in Kuala Lumpur. The UK companies include:

• Wessex Water – one of the top-performing water and sewerage companies in England and Wales, serving 2.9 million people across the South West
• YTL Developments – a major UK developer currently redeveloping a 350-acre former airfield into an award-winning, exciting mix of houses, apartments, schools, commercial space, restaurants and hotels, to make a truly sustainable new community
• YTL Construction UK – a top 20 UK contractor providing fully integrated services to infrastructure, residential, commercial, industry, energy and environmental sectors
• YTL Arena – the development and operation of an entertainment complex that includes a 20,000 capacity arena, conferencing and exhibition space
• plus a number of other retail, environmental and specialist businesses.

Our people tell us that YTL UK is a great place to work, which is why so many of them stay with us! You will have a unique opportunity to develop and progress your career within such a diverse group.

We are passionate about diversity and inclusion – with that in mind, all applicants are welcome. We are delighted to have signed the Armed Forces Covenant and are a Disability Confident Employer.

If you require reasonable adjustments to be made during the recruitment process, please inform a member of our Recruitment team.