Manager Customer Relations

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi; Palmerston North; On-site; NZD 158,000 - 176,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working arrangements

5 weeks annual leave

Income Protection and Critical Illness

Job summary

NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi seeks a strategic Manager Customer Relations to lead enterprise complaints management and shape a centralized operating model across the organisation. You will synthesize complaints data with customer feedback and risk information to set priorities and drive organisation-wide improvement.

You will work with senior leaders to embed consistent, customer-centred practices, deliver credible outcomes, and strengthen governance.

Qualifications

• Significant leadership experience in complaints management or customer-focused environments.
• Ability to translate customer and complaints insight into priorities and action.
• Experience building enterprise operating models, governance and assurance.
• Proven capability to lead teams through significant change with impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead NZTA's Customer Relations (Complaints) function, setting strategic direction and ensuring high-quality services.
• Develop a coordinated, centralised complaints management approach with governance and reporting.
• Provide strategic reporting on performance, emerging themes, and risks to senior leaders.
• Drive continuous improvement and smarter ways of working across the organisation.
• Lead teams through change while maintaining service quality and morale.

Skills

Leadership experience

Analytical capability

Strategic judgement

Stakeholder influence

Change management

People leadership

Customer experience

Regulatory context

Job description

Te Whiwhinga mahi | The opportunity

As Manager Customer Relations, you will provide enterprise-level leadership of NZTA’s complaints management approach, shaping and implementing a coordinated and increasingly centralised model across the organisation. You will set strategic direction, strengthen governance and accountability, and work with senior leaders to embed consistent, transparent, and customer-centred complaint practices across diverse business areas. Drawing on a high degree of insight and analysis, you will bring together complaint data, customer feedback, operational performance, and emerging risk information to identify systemic themes and translate them into clear priorities, strategic advice, and organisation-wide improvement action. This is a highly influential role, focused on building enterprise capability, lifting service performance, and ensuring customer insight drives better decisions, continuous improvement, and organisational learning.

Palmerston North is preferred but we will consider Wellington, Hamilton or Auckland.

Key Responsibilities Include

• Lead NZTA's Customer Relations (Complaints) function, setting strategic direction, leading people and performance, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality complaint management and resolution services.
• Drive the development and implementation of a coordinated and increasingly centralised complaints management approach across NZTA, establishing consistent processes, standards, reporting, and governance. Lead the growth and maturation of the Customer Relations function to support the staged transition of complaint management activities into a centralised operating model.
• Ensure timely, fair, and effective resolution of customer complaints, including complex, sensitive, high-profile, Ombudsman, and Ministerial escalations, in accordance with legislative requirements, organisational policies, and customer service standards.
• Champion NZTA's Customer Service Standards across the organisation, using complaints insights, guidance, and performance information to promote consistent customer-focused behaviours, strengthen accountability, and improve service quality and customer outcomes.
• Provide strategic advice and reporting to senior leaders on complaint performance, customer concerns, emerging themes, and organisational risks to support informed decision-making and prioritisation.
• Driving continuous improvement, smarter ways of working, and efficient use of resources
• Leading teams through frequent change while maintaining service quality and morale

You will find out more about the role here

We are seeking to appoint at a salary between $158,022 – $175,580, commensurate with skills and experience.

Ko koe tēnei | About you

You’re a strategic leader who can shape an enterprise-wide complaints management approach while ensuring the function continues to deliver credible, high-quality outcomes. You bring the judgement, organisational awareness, and influence to set direction in a complex environment, work through ambiguity, and translate customer and complaints intelligence into clear priorities and sustained improvement.

You’ll Bring

• Significant leadership experience in complaints management, customer experience, service improvement, regulatory services, or another complex, customer‑facing environment.
• Demonstrated success developing and implementing enterprise operating models, frameworks, governance, standards, and assurance arrangements that create greater consistency, transparency, and accountability.
• A high degree of analytical capability, with experience integrating complaint data, customer feedback, operational performance, and risk information to identify systemic issues, emerging trends, and improvement opportunities.
• Strong strategic judgement and the ability to convert complex insight into clear advice, decisions, priorities, and measurable organisation‑wide action.
• Credibility and influence with senior leaders and diverse stakeholders, including the ability to constructively challenge, build alignment, and secure commitment across organisational boundaries.
• Experience leading complex, sensitive, or high‑profile complaint matters and operating confidently within legislative, regulatory, Ombudsman, and Ministerial contexts.
• Proven capability to build organisational maturity and capability, embedding consistent complaint practices and strengthening the use of customer insight for continuous improvement and organisational learning.
• Inclusive people leadership experience, with the ability to grow a high‑performing specialist function and lead teams through significant operating‑model and organisational change.

You will also demonstrate knowledge of, or a willingness to gain an understanding of Te Ao Māori, tikanga, te reo Māori, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi as it applies in the public service.

Mō mātou | About us

Te Mahau – Customer and Services delivers essential transactional products and services that support the effective operation of New Zealand’s land transport system. Our Customer Channels team operates at scale, blending operational excellence with data‑led decision‑making to deliver reliable, customer‑first experiences wherever and whenever people engage with NZTA.

Ka whiwhi koe i te aha | What you’ll get in return

At NZTA, you’ll be part of an organisation that makes a visible difference every day. We offer:

• A competitive salary and benefits package
• Flexible working arrangements (role dependent)
• 5 weeks annual leave, plus Income Protection and Critical Illness Insurance
• The opportunity to lead a nationally significant operation that directly impacts millions of New Zealanders

Rā Katinga | Applications close:

1 October 2026

For further information, email: [e-mail]

To be considered for this position you must have a legal right to live and work in New Zealand.

Waka Kotahi is an equal opportunity employer (EOE). We recognise the importance of diversity and inclusion and are committed to providing a working environment that embraces these values. Please let us know if you need any support or have any access requirements that will help you through the recruitment process.