Job Purpose
Provide leadership and performance management to the field based customer team.
Responsible for ensuring the timely and effective resolution of all customer appointments, issues and complaints. This is to be achieved through area based customer teams responsible for providing resolution to customer issues in a safe and increasingly efficient way, through customer focused leadership and direct performance management.
To ensure that the customer experience is proactively managed and issue resolution is communicated. This will also involve working collaboratively with teams within the ICC and Retail to identify and champion continuous improvements and problem solve.
Job Accountabilities
* Responsible for managing customer complaints and escalations to a satisfactory resolution, retaining a positive company reputation with local stakeholders and third parties and are in line with United Utilities (UU) operational policies and practices, and lead safe working environment in UU.
* Directly manages a team of Water Customer Technicians within a defined geographical area of our water network.
* To undertake specific projects or initiatives requiring line management leadership as directed by the Water Network Delivery Manager.
* Monitor and effectively manage performance of the customer team on safety, service, quality, efficiency and customer service measures via regular field visits (including visiting customers).
* Ensure the customer team is meeting the needs of its internal customers, including the Network, Leakage Optimisation and Network Performance teams, Water Services teams and Capital Delivery teams. Key to this will be building strong geographical relationships.
* Responsible for managing resource availability to ensure delivery against customer SLAs, this may include managing adherence to schedules and monitoring customer teams work banks and work collaboratively with the ICC teams.
* Responsible for the geographical area budget for both Opex and Capex, setting the budget, forecasting spend while maximising opportunities to control costs and maintain the effectiveness of our people, partners and performance, including approval of overtime and expenses, and the appropriate capitalisation of costs.
* Manage and control over promotion of partner work volumes by monitoring work promotion from the Customer team.
* Provide customer support to Customer teams and the wider business during operational incidents and events to safeguard performance against Outcome Delivery Incentives (ODI) and serviceability measures.
* Responsible for investigating and providing prompt, effective and satisfactory resolution to customer complaints, escalations and feedback via rant and rave, by responding within SLA, liaising directly with unsatisfied customers to understand issues and agree resolution, and ensuring GSS and discretionary payments are processed where service failures have occurred.
* Manage through discretion a local compensation budget.
* Provide input to formal compensation claims and instances of 3rd party damage. Negotiating UU’s liability for consequential damage.
* Positive stakeholder management including local authorities and local political representatives, e.g. when responding to escalated complaints or Consumer Council for Water (CCW) referrals.
* Responsible for all HR activities relating to the management of their team, including regular 1-2-1s, team briefs and performance reviews, owning the teams succession plan, identification of essential training, managing sickness, absence, health and safety, and, when appropriate, disciplinary matters.
* Ensure the health and safety of employees and promote safe working practices with our partners by meeting all relevant safety standards, with the delivery and compliance with the Health and Safety Manager’s Guide.
* Attend any post incident/event reviews and approve the Post Incident Report.
* Responsible for ensuring the Water Network team meet regulatory commitments, post incident actions and Airline actions.
Knowledge and Skills
* Significant team leadership experience in a utility and/or mobile workforce environment
* Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
* Excellent influencing and negotiating skills with a strong customer focus.
* Good problem solving skills.
* Ability to improve customer, safety and productivity performance, evidenced by past results.
* The ability to motivate a team and deliver high performance across a 24/7 service is fundamental to this role.
* High competency level in motivation and coaching, in addition to the ability to manage underperformance.
* Confident, self-motivated and capable of operating independently.
* High standard of verbal and written communication skills.
* Computer literate – able to interpret and act upon performance and operational data.
* Budget planning and management.
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