Complaints Manager

A day in the life

Your role as our Complaints Manager at ManyPets is to oversee a team of Complaints Handlers and our Complaints Team Leader, ensuring that they meet Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and performance standards through outcome-focused management. You are ultimately responsible for the management and resolution of customer complaints in a timely and effective manner. You'll also act the point of escalation for customers experiencing issues with our products or services, requiring a calm and empathetic approach to understand their concerns.

Day to day, you’ll provide support in identifying performance and potential problems, conducting root cause analyses, and removing barriers to success. Your accountability extends to ensuring regulatory and service standards are met while managing our resources effectively through active performance management routines. You'll take ownership of forecasting demand to ensure the right resources are in place to achieve Service Level Agreements (SLAs) across department functions, applying a commercial focus to all deliverables.

You'll lead and manage your team, ensuring that behaviours align with company values and performance is achieved through setting clear objectives. You'll act as the primary communication channel between Complaints Handlers and the Team Leader.

Core deliverables

• Performance Management: Oversee target achievement, productivity analysis, resource management, and commercial expense management to ensure overall contract performance.
• Setting stretch goals: Challenge direct reports to elevate performance through goal setting, performance reviews, and career planning, fostering high-performance teams.
• Developing team managers. Lead and develop team managers to achieve targets and meet customer requirements effectively.
• Resource management: Take ownership of forecasting resource demand to meet SLAs, applying a commercial focus to resource allocation.
• Building relationships: Establish trust with stakeholders through personal integrity and understand their business objectives. Achieve a balance of service delivery and commercial outcomes.
• Implementing new initiatives: Introduce new initiatives and best practices to keep teams engaged, motivated, and rewarded. Drive continuous improvement in business processes, team management, and overall performance to enhance customer service and manage costs.

Skills and competencies

Performance Management

• Use management information to analyse performance in key result areas across departmental KPIs.
• Liaise with the Financial Ombudsman Service and send files as necessary while working with the Operations leadership to action decisions and share any learnings with the wider business.
• Guide and coach Complaints and Claims Handlers to resolve new and potential complaints at the earliest opportunity, providing more in-depth training where necessary.
• Understand financial targets and the impact of costs and waste on the bottom line.
• Set targeted actions to improve performance levels in line with business objectives.
• Utilise quality and quantity measures to ensure competence and compliance within the team.
• Review team delivery against objectives, hold regular one-on-ones with direct reports, and measure performance consistently across the department.
• Continuously maintain quality, regulatory, and procedural documentation, and SOP.
• Responsible for your team’s compliance to company polices and regulatory requirements with a particular focus on FCA DISP rules, Vulnerable Customers and Treating Customers Fairly.

Setting stretch goals

• Regularly maintain a balanced set of measures to enable the setting of ambitious/stretch targets.
• Manage department workloads and stakeholders effectively for high performance.
• Offer daily and weekly feedback on individual performance, coach individual team members in task completion and personal skills development.
• Understand the relationships between measures and their impact on customers and internal stakeholders, continuously raising performance standards.
• Ensure a regular (monthly) "feedback loop" is completed - providing constructive guidance to the team and recognising high standards of service.

Implementing new initiatives

• Regularly assess existing systems and controls to enhance service delivery, streamline processes, and mitigate business risks through targeted actions.
• Identify end-to-end process improvements that don't meet stakeholder expectations, addressing costly or non-compliant processes to enhance performance.
• Think creatively to deliver operational excellence, providing support to Team Managers in identifying problem areas, conducting root cause analysis, and removing obstacles to achieve objectives.
• Oversee and monitor impact of new onboarding and training plans to ensure quick integration into the business and achieve good learning and performance outcomes.

Developing team managers

• Develop high-performance teams through one-on-one sessions, goal setting, performance reviews, and career planning.
• Collaborate with Team Managers to set objectives aimed at improving efficiency, effectiveness, utilisation, quality, service standards, and costs.
• Actively engage with Team Managers to provide support and ensure plans are achieved through active performance management routines.
• Build a strong team of managers, bringing them together frequently to drive best practices and raise standards through insights from management information and interaction to anticipate client concerns and identify solutions.
• Proactively seek opportunities to enhance personal skills and performance, while also developing the talent and capabilities of Team Leaders and direct reports.

Resource management

• Accurately calculate department resource requirements based on actual and predicted work volumes, implementing continuous improvement solutions to enhance accuracy and optimise costs.
• Lead recruitment activities for the team, making decisions on individuals to ensure the team has sufficient staff with the required capability to fulfil its responsibilities.
• Act as point-person for your team to directly handle complex complaints.

Building relationships

• Share concise information with stakeholders to facilitate fact-based decision-making in problem-solving, barrier removal, and action setting.
• Communicate and engage with Team Managers and their teams, coaching individuals to improve performance through performance management systems and one-on-one sessions.
• Clearly communicate business and team objectives to the department, gaining commitment to targets and plans.
• Share successes and learning opportunities to develop and motivate the department.

What success looks like

• You deliver business objectives through setting effective personal and team goals.
• You meet your own targets and have consistent performance against agreed metrics.
• You have a deep understanding of the ethos and practical application of TCF principles and knowledge of Vulnerable Customer regulation.
• You inspire, support, and develop others to achieve outstanding performance. You are seen as a highly effective, motivating leader.
• You provide clear direction and keep everyone informed about developments and how decisions will impact them.
• You foster an open work environment focused on improvement - using situational leadership, you develop others through feedback and address poor performance.
• You respect colleagues, recognising that the sum of individual efforts can exceed individual contributions.
• You're not afraid to make choices and decisions that benefit the organisation, even if they're unpopular.
• You have the ability to listen, express, and articulate information effectively. You communicate key company messages in an open and straightforward way. You also describe how future success will be measured.
• You contribute through awareness of the market/industry dynamics. You take a long-term view of building sustainable results, controlling team resources and associated costs/budgets.
• You strive to create the best possible experience for customers and key internal stakeholders.
• You're constantly seeking to improve business processes through analysis, problem-solving, and change initiatives. You encourage others to keep stretching themselves to work towards higher standards.
• You get the job done in an efficient way through effective time, task, and financial management. You prioritise tasks and allocate resources wisely to achieve good outcomes.
• You actively look to improve your awareness of regulatory changes or process improvements.

Smell good?

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