Customer Service Team Lead in Manchester

This is a performance leadership role operating within a regulated financial services environment. You will own the outputs of your team – delivering consistently good outcomes for customers while upholding the standards the FCA expects under Consumer Duty.

Key Responsibilities

• Set clear, non‑negotiable performance expectations and KPI targets aligned with team and business goals, and communicate them with confidence.
• Monitor team performance daily using real‑time data and dashboards, tracking QA scores, hold time, ACW, schedule adherence, and customer sentiment.
• Deliver structured, frequent coaching in the moment and during scheduled 1:1s using evidence‑based frameworks such as SBI.
• Conduct regular performance reviews with clear RAG status, written actions, and defined timelines for improvement.
• Recognise and reward high performance consistently; address underperformance directly, constructively, and without delay.
• Lead daily and weekly performance huddles that drive focus, accountability, and awareness of what good customer outcomes look like.
• Embed Consumer Duty thinking into daily operations, ensuring agents understand and deliver good outcomes across all four Consumer Duty outcomes.
• Monitor QA outputs for Consumer Duty indicators, identifying and escalating systemic issues that may indicate customers are not receiving the outcomes they should.
• Support regular review of team‑level Consumer Duty metrics and contribute to broader management information used to evidence compliance.
• Ensure agents are trained to recognise indicators of vulnerability and coach them to adapt their approach in real time.
• Monitor interactions for vulnerable customers, use coaching opportunities, and champion a culture that encourages help with difficult or sensitive interactions.
• Oversee quality of first‑contact complaint handling, ensuring compliance with FCA timescales and internal processes, analysing trends, and using complaint data as coaching input.
• Partner with QA to review quality trends, identify systemic gaps, and implement targeted coaching plans.
• Drive first‑contact resolution and reduce avoidable repeat contact through proactive coaching and process improvement.
• Maintain accurate records of performance conversations, coaching outcomes, and formal improvement plans.
• Build a team culture of accountability, psychological safety, and continuous improvement.
• Identify development needs early and create structured development plans that build capability in performance and regulatory competence.
• Proactively manage absence, wellbeing, and engagement, escalating concerns appropriately.
• Accountable for team metrics, including QA, hold time, ACW, schedule adherence, abandonment rate, and SLAs.

About You

You set standards and hold the line; you use data daily, coach in the moment, understand regulated environments, and manage direct performance conversations. You are skilled at planning ahead, analysing performance data, and translating insights into action. You bring resilience, directness, and excellent communication skills.

Essential Qualifications

• Proven track record leading high‑performing customer servicing teams in a regulated financial services or fintech environment.
• Demonstrable understanding of Consumer Duty and the FCA’s expectations around good customer outcomes.
• Experience managing vulnerable customer interactions and coaching agents to respond appropriately.
• Strong working knowledge of contact centre KPIs including QA, hold time, ACW, schedule adherence, abandonment rate, and SLAs.
• Skilled in performance coaching using structured frameworks with demonstrable improvement outcomes.
• Experience in multi‑channel servicing – voice and messaging – and the ability to coach effectively across both.
• Comfortable with analysing performance data and translating insight into targeted action.
• Resilient and direct, able to manage change, maintain standards under pressure, and lead through ambiguity.
• Excellent communication skills – clear, consistent, and credible with agents, peers, and senior stakeholders.

Desirable

• Zendesk experience or knowledge.
• Experience contributing to Consumer Duty MI, reporting, or evidence frameworks.
• Familiarity with continuous improvement methodologies such as Lean or Six Sigma.
• Mental health first aid qualification or formal wellbeing training.
• Experience with workforce management platforms and scheduling tools.

Benefits

• The chance to make a real impact in a growing business on a mission to change the consumer finance industry.
• Competitive salary.
• Pension contributions, including Salary Exchange facility.
• Annual bonus potential.
• Private medical cover provided by Vitality (optional benefit).
• 25 days annual leave (FTE) plus UK bank holidays (with an additional day added for each full calendar year worked, up to a maximum of 30 days).
• Your birthday off each year as an additional day’s holiday.
• 4× life insurance cover.
• Access to our confidential Employee Assistance Programme.