Head of Customer Care

We are partnered with a 5* PLC housebuilder to appoint a Head of Customer Care who will lead the national Customer Care function, with a particular focus on the remediation of legacy projects across the Group. This business unit is setting the benchmark for fire safety, operating with a highly experienced, well-established and collaborative team that is driving the Group’s approach to remedial works and customer safety. The Head Office for this team is in London, but with projects across the UK, a lot of the team work remotely with regular trips into London. Due to the complexity of this role, we can only consider candidates with experience from a construction background.

Reporting to the Managing Director, the post-holder will act as the Business Unit's Customer Champion, leading the Customer Care function and ensuring a consistent, high-quality customer experience with particular emphasis on post-occupation service. The successful candidate will embed a culture that genuinely listens to customers and ensures responses are timely, effective and appropriately personalised.

Responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Ensure full SHE compliance across the Customer Care function, with safety as the top priority.
• Act as the Division’s customer advocate and brand ambassador for our client, protecting reputation and ensuring a responsive, responsible service.
• Lead, develop and performance-manage the Customer Care team, addressing under-performance and driving delivery against KPIs.
• Ensure all customer issues are handled professionally, promptly and in line with mandatory policies and procedures.
• Build strong relationships with Construction, Technical and Commercial to minimise issues and resolve them efficiently.
• Oversee all post-occupation remedial works, ensuring high standards, compliance with warranty requirements and effective out-of-hours service provision.
• Represent the Division at warranty provider inspections and ensure timely completion of associated works.
• Own the formal complaints process, resolving issues within target timescales and minimising escalation to the Ombudsman.
• Analyse root causes of complaints and drive continuous improvement to reduce repeat issues.
• Manage departmental costs, ensuring adherence to cost controls and recovering costs through the contra-charge process.
• Work closely with Commercial and Construction Directors to manage subcontractor performance post-occupation.
• Use CRM and all relevant systems effectively to support service delivery and compliance.
• Chair weekly internal meetings and ensure actions are progressed.
• Provide training and guidance to divisional teams to support a customer-first culture.
• Lead recruitment within the department, ensuring the right capability and calibre.

Essential Experience:

• Demonstrable track record of delivering multiple construction projects within the built environment.
• Demonstrable problem-solving skills and the ability to think strategically.

Desirable but not essential experience:

• Experience of building safety regulator gateway processes.
• Experience managing fire safety, cladding remediation and building safety projects.

Benefits:

• Competitive Basic Salary
• Bonus Scheme
• Pension
• Health care

Harken Search are committed to championing inclusive and diverse recruitment, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may just be the right candidate for this or other roles.

As well as championing inclusive and diverse recruitment, we also give 10% of all invoices to our partner charities. We thank both our candidates and clients for supporting us to make a difference to those impacted by these charities.