Head of Customer Experience

Interim Head of Customer Experience Job Ref: Cheshire 5257632 Pay Rate: £38.31 per hour PAYE Hours per week: 37 Monday – Friday, normal working hours Role Length: This opening assignment is for 2-3 months City: Crewe, Cheshire The post holder will lead, manage and commission customer operations to enable the Council to meet its strategic objectives as outlined in the Corporate Plan. Key Responsibilities:

• Provide leadership, direction, and motivation to the Customer Experience Team and to front line staff across the Council.
• Lead the design, development, and delivery of the Council’s Customer Experience strategy.
• Work across all Council services and with partners to identify and address customer needs and wants and drive customer satisfaction across the Council balancing this with the priorities and financial restraints of the Council.
• Lead the transformation and re-design of all Council services, working with Directorates and services to create seamless customer journeys, promoting the benefits of digital developments, seeking out new opportunities, challenging existing practices, learning from the experience of others and trialling innovative solutions.
• Lead on the design and delivery of a revised target operating model for the delivery of customer service across the Council, ensuring these drives standards of customer service, improved resolution and customer satisfaction and delivers efficiencies.
• Lead and commission developments in support of the Council’s approach to digital customer services. Ensure these maximise the benefits of digital, address the needs of the Council, its residents and businesses.
• Support the Council’s Digital Inclusion agenda ensuring equality of access and service for all customers. Work with community-based services both within and outside the Council to provide assisted digital support to customers and challenge services where operating practices create barriers to digitally excluded residents.
• Develop policies, procedures and best practice guidance on customer experience and customer service delivery, embedding these across all Directorates, monitoring performance against these and driving improvements to the Councils overall service delivery, customer satisfaction and reputation.
• Lead the Councils Complaints and correspondence service, improving the recognition and management of correspondence and complaints across all Directorates, ensuring full compliance with procedures and Local Government Ombudsman directives and ensuring complaints and correspondence are used as a lever to drive service improvements.
• Embed a positive customer experience culture across the Council and with partners, championing a customer-centric approach, promoting innovation, driving improvements, and challenging poor practice.
• Act as the customer advocate operationally and strategically utilising and promoting customer insight data to ensure the voice of the customer is heard in all decision making.

Qualifications:

1. Degree or equivalent professional qualification.
2. Relevant professional qualification in Contact Centre or customer services management.

Skills & Experience:

1. Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
2. Experience and consistent achievement at a senior management level in an organisation of comparable scope and complexity pursuing a transformational agenda involving cultural, technological and service design transformation.
3. Extensive experience at a senior level within a Customer Service environment with previous experience of designing and delivering strategic customer service change across an organisation.
4. Strategic understanding and expert knowledge of relevant legislation, national policy, best practice and emerging strategies in relation to customer experience, revenues and benefits.
5. Sound understanding of the Digital landscape within the customer environment and how this can be maximised to enhance the customer experience.
6. Excellent financial skills and the ability to manage and monitor high value budgets and revenue collections.
7. Experience of leading, motivating and managing services with multi-disciplinary teams to achieve significant, sustainable improvements and positive outcomes through internal and external partnerships.
8. Knowledge of Council services, their service proposition and their impact on local residents and businesses.
9. Ability to provide visible and supportive leadership, empowering, motivating and developing staff and fostering a positive organisational culture, focusing on delivering improved outcomes for service users.
10. Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).