Customer Complaints Director

Job Title: Customer Complaints Director
Location: Leeds
Salary: up to 60k + Bonus + Benefits

Role Purpose

The Customer Complaints Director (B2C) leads the end-to-end complaints strategy across a high-volume consumer environment, ensuring fast, fair, and customer-centric resolution of issues.
This role is critical in protecting and enhancing brand reputation, reducing customer churn, and using complaint insight to drive continuous improvement across the entire customer journey.

Key Responsibilities Strategic Leadership

Define and deliver a B2C complaints strategy that balances customer outcomes, regulatory compliance, and commercial objectives

Position complaints as a key source of customer insight to influence business-wide decision-making

Act as the voice of the consumer at executive and board level

Operational Leadership (High Volume)

Lead large-scale complaints operations across multi-channel environments (contact centre, digital, social media, written correspondence)

Ensure efficient handling of high complaint volumes while maintaining quality and fairness

Drive improvements in speed to resolution, first contact resolution, and consistency of outcomes

Customer Experience & Brand Protection

Ensure complaint handling reflects the organisation’s brand values and customer promise

Minimise negative customer experiences that could impact retention, loyalty, and public perception

Manage escalations, including social media and executive complaints, with appropriate urgency and care

Insight & Continuous Improvement

Use complaint data, trends, and root cause analysis to identify systemic issues across the customer journey

Partner with Product, Marketing, Digital, and Operations to eliminate recurring pain points

Reduce overall complaint volumes through proactive improvements and preventative actions

Regulatory & Risk Management

Ensure compliance with all relevant consumer regulations and complaint handling standards

Maintain robust governance, audit trails, and reporting frameworks

Act as escalation lead for high-risk or reputationally sensitive cases

Culture & Capability

Build a customer-first, resolution-focused culture within complaints and wider customer teams

Lead and develop senior managers and large operational teams

Embed coaching, quality assurance, and performance frameworks to drive consistency

Stakeholder Engagement

Work cross-functionally to influence improvements in customer journeys, products, and services

Present insights, risks, and recommendations to senior stakeholders and executive leadership

Collaborate with Commercial teams to identify opportunities for retention and revenue protection

Transformation & Efficiency

Drive automation, digital enablement, and self-service solutions where appropriate

Improve operational efficiency and reduce cost per complaint

Lead transformation initiatives to modernise complaints handling

Key Accountabilities

Customer satisfaction following complaint resolution

Reduction in complaint volumes and repeat complaints

Speed and quality of resolution

Customer retention and churn reduction

Regulatory compliance and audit outcomes

Cost to serve and operational efficiency

Team engagement and performance

Required Experience

Senior leadership experience within B2C complaints, customer service, or contact centre operations

Proven experience managing high-volume customer environments

Strong track record of improving customer experience and reducing complaints

Experience in regulated B2C sectors (e.g., Financial Services, Telecoms, Utilities, Retail) preferred

Demonstrated success in using customer insight to drive business change

Experience leading large teams and influencing at executive level

Skills & Competencies

Strong customer-first mindset with commercial awareness

Ability to balance customer outcomes with business objectives

Excellent leadership and people development skills

Advanced analytical and problem-solving capability

Strong communication and stakeholder influencing skills

Resilient and adaptable in a fast-paced, high-demand environment

Success Profile

A successful Customer Complaints Director (B2C) will:

Turn high complaint volumes into actionable insight and business improvement

Protect and enhance brand reputation in a consumer-facing environment

Deliver fast, fair, and empathetic customer resolutions at scale

Reduce churn and improve customer loyalty and lifetime value

Build a high-performing, customer-focused complaints function