Customer Experience Manager

About the role

Southway owns over 6,500 homes in Greater Manchester and is a community-focused housing association with a vision to provide excellent customer service and quality homes, where communities thrive. Southway strives for continuous improvement led by customers, communities and colleagues. It is a member of the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter and is guided by its REACH values of Respect, Equity, Ambition, Compassion and Honesty. We are looking for an experienced and motivated Customer Experience Manager to lead Southway's complaints and customer feedback service and play a key role in improving outcomes for our customers. This is an influential role where you will ensure that insight from complaints and feedback is not only heard but translated into meaningful service improvements across the organisation.You'll combine strong operational leadership with strategic thinking, helping to shape how we respond to customers and continuously improve the services we deliver. You'll lead a small team, oversee the resolution of complex complaints, and ensure our approach meets regulatory expectations, including the Housing Ombudsman Complaint Handling Code.

Responsibilities

• Leading the complaints service: Provide operational leadership to ensure complaints are handled consistently, fairly, and in line with regulatory expectations.
• Ensuring compliance and assurance: Maintain robust compliance with legal, regulatory, and Housing Ombudsman requirements, providing confidence in our processes and responses.
• Overseeing complex complaints: Take ownership of high-risk, sensitive, or complex cases, ensuring thorough investigation and timely, well-judged resolution.
• Using insight to drive improvement: Analyse complaints and feedback to identify trends, inform priorities, and support measurable service improvements.
• Strengthening the customer experience: Lead initiatives that embed learning from complaints into service design and delivery.
• Leading and developing the team: Manage, support, and develop the Customer Experience team to deliver a high-quality, customer-focused service.
• Building organisational capability: Provide guidance, coaching, and training to colleagues, improving complaint handling and customer service standards across Southway.
• Working collaboratively: Build strong relationships across teams to resolve issues, influence change, and ensure a consistent approach to customer experience.
• Monitoring performance and reporting
• About You
• We're looking for someone with strong social housing expertise, sound judgement, and a clear understanding of the regulatory framework and customer expectations.
• You will ideally hold a CIH Level 4 qualification or above or be able to demonstrate experience working within a similar role.
• In return we offer a 35-hour week, competitive salary, an excellent contributory pension scheme, and 25 days holiday increasing to 30 days. You will be part of a supportive, values-led organisation that is committed to helping its customers and colleagues thrive.
• Closing Date: 17 July 2026
• Interview Date: w/c 27 July 2026
• Please apply through our website at Southwayhousing.co.uk
• For an informal discussion please contact Luke Benfield, Head of Customer Access and Service Improvement by e-mail .
• Applications are being reviewed as they are received, and interviews will be arranged for successful candidates in date order.
• The Trust reserves the right to remove the job advert once vacant positions have been recruited, please do not wait until the closing date to apply.
• We are committed to equality of opportunity and welcome applications from suitably skilled people from all sectors of the community.

Additional Information

Customer Experience Manager Location: Hybrid, Didsbury, Manchester Salary: £47,016 Full time / 35 hours per week Fixed term contract 18 months

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