B&Q
Executive Complaints Team Lead
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Overview
Permanent
From £36,000-£40,000 + Pension + PMI + ShareSave + 6.6 weeks holiday + Hybrid Working (1 day per week in the office)
Southampton, Store Support Office
We believe anyone can improve their home to make life better. From our Southampton Store Support office (SSO) we equip our stores, our people, and our whole business with everything it takes to help our millions of customers create a home they’ll love. Join us as an Executive Complaints Team Lead and you’ll be a big part of this.
Role Purpose:
The Executive Complaints Team Lead is responsible for the day-to-day leadership, coaching and performance management of the Executive Complaints Advisor team, ensuring complaints are handled fairly, consistently and efficiently. The role sits between frontline complaint handling and complaints function leadership. It provides the operational leadership layer that enables Advisors to deliver excellent customer outcomes through effective case guidance, workload management, quality assurance and colleague development. The role will personally support or manage a limited number of high-profile, sensitive or complex complaints where required, but its primary accountability is team performance, capability, quality and first-line escalation rather than overall complaints strategy, policy ownership or functional governance.
What's the job?
Team leadership and colleague development
- Lead, coach and develop Executive Complaints Advisors, creating a confident, consistent and customer-focused team.
- Run regular 1:1s, team huddles, performance conversations and development reviews.
- Support recruitment, onboarding, skills development and knowledge sharing across the team.
- Manage attendance, wellbeing, engagement and day-to-day colleague performance in line with B&Q expectations.
- Build a supportive but accountable team environment where complex complaints are handled with empathy, pace and sound judgement.
Operational workload management
- Allocate, prioritise and balance complaint workloads across Advisors.
- Monitor queue health, ageing cases, customer commitments and service level risks.
- Ensure complaints are progressed within agreed timeframes and that customer follow-up commitments are met.
- Maintain effective operational coverage across the team, flagging resourcing or capacity risks to the Complaints Manager.
- Act as the first point of leadership support for Advisors when cases become blocked, urgent or sensitive.
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Quality, consistency and decision support
- Carry out regular case reviews, quality checks and coaching interventions.
- Ensure complaint outcomes are fair, consistent, well documented and aligned to B&Q policy and delegated authority.
- Provide decision support on complex complaint scenarios, customer remedies and case handling approach.
- Approve complaint outcomes or remedy proposals within agreed authority levels.
- Identify gaps in process, knowledge, judgement or documentation and take action to improve team consistency.
Escalated complaint handling
- Support Advisors with executive, media, legal-risk, discrimination, vulnerability or highly sensitive complaint scenarios.
- Personally manage a small number of complex or high-profile complaints where leadership ownership is required.
- Escalate cases that exceed authority, risk or complexity thresholds to the Complaints Manager or Complaints Specialists as appropriate.
- Ensure sensitive complaints are handled with care, accuracy and a clear audit trail.
Insight and continuous improvement
- Identify recurring complaint themes, root causes and operational failure points from team activity.
- Share practical insight with the Complaints Manager to support complaint prevention and business improvement.
- Support local process improvement activities that improve resolution quality, reduce rework or improve customer experience.
- Contribute to team reporting, quality commentary and lessons learned activity.
What we need:
- Experience leading, coaching or supporting colleagues in a customer-focused environment.
- Background in complaints, customer resolution, contact centre or retail customer service.
- Experience handling complex, sensitive or escalated customer complaints.
- Confident using case management systems to track, manage and document customer cases.
- Strong people leadership and coaching skills, with the ability to support colleague development.
- Excellent written communication skills, with the ability to produce clear, accurate and empathetic customer responses.
- Ability to influence stakeholders and work collaboratively across teams to resolve customer issues.
- Strong workload planning and prioritisation skills, with the ability to manage competing demands.
- Experience assessing quality, consistency and customer outcomes.
- Sound judgement and problem-solving skills, with the ability to make fair and balanced decisions.
- Customer-first mindset, with a calm, empathetic and accountable approach.
- Commercial awareness and the ability to balance customer needs with business considerations.
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What's in it for me?
At B&Q, we're building more than great homes – we're building great careers.
When you join us, you'll be part of a supportive, inclusive business where your ideas matter, your development is invested in, and your wellbeing is genuinely important.
Here's what you can expect:
🏡 Flexible & Hybrid Working - Work in a way that helps you perform at your best, balancing business needs with personal commitments.
📈 Career Growth & Development - Access learning, development and career opportunities across one of the UK's leading retail organisations.
💰 Competitive Reward Package - A competitive salary, pension and a range of financial benefits.
🛒 Colleague Discounts - Enjoy discounts across B&Q and the wider Kingfisher Group.
❤️ Health & Wellbeing Support - Access wellbeing resources, health support and employee assistance programmes designed to help you thrive.
🌴 Time Away From Work - Generous holiday entitlement and family-friendly policies that support life both inside and outside work.
🤝 A Place Where You Belong - We're committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued, respected and empowered to be themselves.
🌍 Make a Difference - The work you do will have a direct impact on our customers, colleagues and business.
Eligibility To Work
Please note that B&Q does not currently offer visa sponsorship for this role. Applicants must have the right to work in the UK at the time of application and throughout their employment.
Accessibility & Disability Confident
At B&Q, we're committed to creating an inclusive recruitment experience for everyone.
If you require any additional support or reasonable adjustments to help you complete your application or throughout the recruitment process, please let us know.
If you would like to be considered under the Disability Confident Scheme, please contact us at recruitment@b-and-q.co.uk. If you meet the minimum criteria for the role, we'll consider your application in line with our Disability Confident commitments.
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