Customer Relations (Complaints) and Quality Assurance Manager

A home is the essential foundation for a good quality of life, so what we do every day really matters to the wellbeing of our communities.  Here at Origin, we trace our roots back almost 100 years, building and managing high quality homes as well as providing support services and housing for those who are most vulnerable in London and Hertfordshire.  We work to provide safe, decent affordable homes and support for individuals and communities.

Focused on our residents, our driving ambition is to provide services that make people’s lives easier, and homes and communities they can be proud to live in.  We are ‘not for profit’ and reinvest all our surpluses back into our varied and vibrant neighbourhoods.

The role – Customer Relations (Complaints) and Quality Assurance Manager

As our Customer Relations (Complaints) and Quality Assurance Manager you’ll take direct ownership and oversee the performance of our centralised Customer Relations Team who manage customer complaints.

The successful candidate will be a highly skilled and experienced complaints manager who leads their team in a dynamic and responsive way that focuses on delivering excellent customer service and resolving complaints, whilst building trusted and valued relationships with customers. The manager will also take the lead on how we learn from complaints so that we’re reducing the root causes of complaints at source.

What you’ll do

You will:

• Lead a team of Customer Relations (Complaints) Officers to respond to complaints in a responsive, dynamic and effective way in line with the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code and internal SLA’s.
• Coach and develop a high performing team that has high levels of customer satisfaction and genuine customer centricity.
• Produce reports and data that ensures the business have good oversight of complaints.
• Drive continual service improvement by identifying and sharing lessons learnt from complaints to the wider business.
• Deliver training to your team to improve the quality of investigations and communication whilst building a continuous improvement culture within the team.

Skills and experience we'd like you to have

We’re looking for someone who is:

• An experienced, authentic manager who is a natural at working in a dynamic, fast paced and highly responsive way and with a high level of resilience.
• Has proven experience of leading a customer complaints function 
• Experienced at coaching, providing feedback, motivating, and developing a high performing team.
• Possesses good report writing skills and excellent data literacy with experience in using data and insight to drive service improvements and customer satisfaction.  
• Demonstrates strong communication skills with an excellent ability to produce comprehensive written resolution outcome letters and providing feedback to others to enhance theirs as well as deal with escalated customer complaints with empathy and build relationships with residents and stakeholders.

Our Values

Our core values are at the heart of how we work

• Take the lead
• Create energy
• Build trust
• Be generous
• Stay grounded
• Remember the little things

We're committed to the wellbeing of our people and in creating an environment that promotes diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Our benefits to you

• Origin’s ways of working make it easier for you to balance work and home life.  You will benefit from flexible working which offers you the opportunity to work from where you are most effective, with the technology and equipment you need, as well as access to flexible space for collaborative working.
• A generous 25-day holiday allowance plus bank holidays, that increases with time, with the opportunity to buy and sell leave
• 2 additional ‘giving something back’ volunteer days
• A pension scheme with contributions from 4% - 8% of your salary
• Family leave, compassionate leave and enhanced maternity pay
• Simply Health cash plan providing money back when you spend on health appointments including physiotherapy, dental and opticians
• Interest free loans to help spread the cost of a season ticket or another big purchase
• Annual staff conference, team away days and annual team meal allowance
• Access to Perk Box for fantastic savings on everyday purchases and much more
• Free employee assistance programme
• Opportunities to join staff network groups
• Refer a friend bonus

We’re also committed to ensuring that our people have access to an excellent range of learning and development opportunities including our induction programme, course sponsorship, leadership development, mentoring and talent schemes along with professional membership if it’s a requirement to your role.

Tell us your story

We are looking forward to learning about you. Please help us get to know you by sending your latest CV and covering letter detailing how your skills and experience meet the job description for Customer Relations (Complaints) & Quality Assurance Manager, outlined above.

Closing date for applications: Monday 16 October 2023

Interviews and written assessment will be held: Friday 27 October 2023, in person at our office at Eversholt Street, London.

Please note that suitable candidates will be invited to interview throughout the application window and therefore the vacancy may close at short notice. However, all candidates will be advised of the outcome of their application and therefore interested candidates are encouraged to apply at their earliest convenience.