Complaints Experience Lead

Coventry Building Society; Manchester; Hybrid; GBP 70,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Holiday 28 days

Annual discretionary bonus

Pension

Private medical

Maternity/Paternity leave

Life assurance

Job summary

Coventry Building Society is seeking a Complaints Experience Lead to join our Complaints Centre of Excellence, shaping how we handle complaints and advocate for customers across the Group. The role sits in the Complaints Leadership Team and drives improvements from trends, regulatory changes and customer insight.

Based in the UK with hybrid working between Manchester and Coventry, travel to both locations is required.

Qualifications

• Significant experience in complaints within a regulated financial services environment.
• Expert knowledge of FCA complaints handling requirements, DISP and Consumer Duty.
• Experience with Financial Ombudsman Service processes, decisions and expectations.
• Experience leading, coaching colleagues.
• Ability to interpret complaint data, customer insight and regulatory developments to drive improvements.
• Strong initiative and capability to own issues and drive resolution and improvements.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical complaints leadership and guidance across teams.
• Champion best practice in complaint handling and customer outcomes.
• Support resolution of complex and high-profile complaints with expert judgement.
• Drive continuous improvement using customer insight and regulatory changes.
• Promote customer advocacy and service recovery across the Group.

Skills

Complaint leadership

Regulatory knowledge

Stakeholder management

Data analysis

Customer advocacy

Job description

We have the exciting opportunity for a Complaints Experience Lead to join our Complaints Centre of Excellence, playing an important role in shaping the future of complaint handling and customer advocacy across the Group.

Our Complaints Centre of Excellence brings together the organisation's complaint handling expertise, ensuring complaints are resolved fairly, consistently and in line with regulatory expectations, while using customer feedback and insight to drive meaningful change. We recognise that every complaint represents an opportunity to learn, improve and strengthen customer trust. Through expert handling, high-quality interactions and fair outcomes, we aim to turn moments of dissatisfaction into opportunities to build loyalty, advocacy, confidence in our brand and improve our products and services.

This role will sit within our Complaints Leadership Team and support the ongoing development of the Group's complaint handling strategy, ensuring lessons learned from complaint trends, customer insight, regulatory change and Financial Ombudsman Service decisions are translated into meaningful action.

The successful candidate will use complaint data, root cause analysis and wider customer intelligence to identify opportunities for improvement across our service, products and processes. The role holder will provide technical complaints leadership & guidance, champion best practice and support colleagues to deliver consistently fair outcomes and exceptional customer experiences. They’ll ensure our complaint approaches remain aligned to regulatory requirements as well as evolving industry and customer expectations. Working across the Group, the role holder will foster a culture of continuous improvement, helping teams learn, adapt and enhance effectiveness at every stage of a complaint.

The role holder will also support the resolution of complex, sensitive and high-profile complaints and providing expert judgement to deliver the right outcomes for customers and the business. They will champion customer advocacy, vulnerability and service recovery, ensuring complaints are not only resolved effectively but are used to drive lasting improvements in customer outcomes, operational performance and organisational capability. We're looking for a true ambassador of good customer outcomes and complaint handling excellence to join us in powering good with every pound.

This role can operate from either our Head Offices in Manchester or Binley, Coventry but as a Group role, travel to both locations will be required and a team-led hybrid working arrangement is in place with at least 2 days in the office required.

• 28 days holiday a year plus bank holidays and a holiday buy/sell scheme
• Annual discretionary bonus scheme
• Personal pension with enhanced contributions
• Private medical and health screenings
• Maternity, paternity and shared parental leave
• Life assurance (6 times annual salary)

We reserve the right to close this advert early if we receive a high volume of suitable applications.

We're looking for someone who thrives on solving difficult problems, challenging conventional thinking and turning customer feedback into tangible improvements that make a real difference.

For this role its essential you have:

• Significant experience in complaints, customer outcomes, complaint quality or complaints leadership roles within a regulated financial services environment.
• Expert knowledge of FCA complaint handling requirements, DISP and Consumer Duty.
• Extensive knowledge of Financial Ombudsman Service processes, decisions and expectations.
• Experience of leading, motivating and coaching colleagues.
• Strong understanding of vulnerability, customer advocacy and customer outcome frameworks.
• Experience of persuading and influencing senior stakeholders.
• Experience of taking ownership of high-profile complaints.
• Proven ability to interpret complaint data, customer insight and regulatory developments to drive business improvement.
• Strong initiative and capability to own issues and drive resolution, ensuring opportunities to improve are identified and translated into meaningful change and improvements.
• Experience of risk management and ensuring effective controls.

Experience in these areas would be helpful:

• Complaint handling transformation or operating model change.
• Developing policy, assurance or professional standards frameworks.
• Experience leading cross-functional improvement initiatives.

In 2025, Coventry Building Society purchased The Co-operative Bank. Bringing together our purpose-led building society with the UK’s original ethical bank was the start of an exciting journey.

Trusted by over four million people, we’re a mutually owned business free from shareholders, and with our combined experience of almost 300 years, our ethics and dedication will continue to guide us. Together, we have shared values and an ethical approach towards our members, customers and colleagues.

We’re officially recognised as a ‘Great Place to Work’ and our benefits go beyond basic pay, with a discretionary bonus scheme, a culture of reward and recognition and comprehensive support for wellbeing.

We’re serious about equality, of race, age, faith, disability, and sexual orientation and we celebrate diversity. By working together, we know you’ll build more than just a career with us.

Flexibility and why it matters

We understand the need for flexibility, so wherever possible, we’ll consider alternative working patterns. Have a chat with us before you apply to see what the possibilities are for this role.

Proud to be a Disability Confident Committed Employer

We’re proud to offer an interview or assessment to every disabled applicant who meet the minimum criteria for our vacancies. As part of the application process, disabled applicants can opt in for the Disability Confident Interview Scheme. If there are ever occasions where it is not practicable to interview all candidates that meet the essential criteria, such as when we receive a high number of applications, we commit to interviewing disabled candidates who best meet the minimum essential and desirable criteria.