Customer Culture & Engagment Lead

Who are we?

South Western Railway (SWR) operates over 1,500 services each weekday across the network and employs more than 5,000 people. We provide easy and convenient mobility, connecting people and communities in South West London, southern counties of England, and the Isle of Wight.

Join our team and help us continue to bring people together to get the most out of life.

About the job

The purpose of this role is to enhance customer focus across the business by working collaboratively with internal directorates and external partners. The role involves collaborating with industry partners such as DfTO and RDG, supporting the adoption of industry-wide projects in partnership with GBR, managing relationships with key stakeholders such as Transport Focus and London TravelWatch, and defining and owning the approach with SWR customer groups such as Customer Council. Responsibilities also include overseeing Customer Strategy policies at SWR, and publication of the annual customer report.

Your main responsibilities will be:

• Lead the Customer Stakeholder and Engagement Manager providing strategic guidance
• Support the development of the Customer Strategy to ensure that SWR are working towards becoming customer centric
• Customer Centricity is to be defined across GBR, self-research and any output from the CX maturity model. This will support what this part of the strategy looks like
• This could include but is not limited to;

• • Working with People and Culture Directorate to ensure our customer needs/standards are incorporated into recruitment/training and any process or policy
  • Working with operational teams and GBRTT to implement a set of quality customer service standards and an assessment process to manage against this
  • Supporting the evolving Customer Experience training program for the whole business, focussing our teams on working together to deliver for our customer

• Develop, implement and maintain a plan (encompassing standards, processes and technology) to deliver this customer centric strategy and put in place measures to assess performance against these standards and manage achievement of them, reporting through C&A
• Work directly with GBR Customer teams representing SWR, providing valuable input into projects and delivering these industry wide projects and processes at SWR.
• Oversee the SWR Customer Council, ensuring they maintain value for the business.
• Manage the relationship with London Travel Watch and Transport Focus, meeting with them on a regular basis
• Create and publish the annual Customer Report in line with the Services Agreement
• Own the communication and business engagement of the Customer Strategy, ensuring the purpose and plan is understood at all levels of the organisation
• Presenting and including proposals in the ABP process, designed to make SWR more customer centric, looking for innovative ways to fund proposals
• Ensures the strategy will meet the industry and business targets whilst considering the customer proposition

• Gathers, evaluates and interprets key business information and data to ensure Customer Strategy and business priorities are aligned

You'll need to be:

• Experience working within the rail industry with internal and external stakeholders
• Excellent understanding of customer needs and priorities
• Ability to present to senior leaders and directors
• Proven experience in writing and securing funding for business cases
• Initiatives and programme delivery at company wide level
• The ability to influence stakeholders and work closely with them to develop solutions
• Excellent organisational and planning skills
• Experience of leading and supporting successful projects

Desirable

• A bachelor's degree in a business-related field preferred, or equivalent substantial work experience
• Exceptional analytical and conceptual thinking skills
• Understanding of operational constraints for frontline teams in the rail industry
• Experience of creating detailed reports and giving presentations
• Competent in Microsoft 365 applications including Word, Excel and Sharepoint
• Detailed knowledge of the business environment and direct business experience - in particular, they need to be able to glean a quick understanding of the management structures, politics and culture within SWR

Working pattern

Working an average of 37 hours per week over 5 days 

Office hours

The Reward

In return we offer a competitive salary and a variety of valuable benefits, including:

• Free duty and leisure travel on SWR services for employees
• Free leisure travel for spouse/partner and dependants (criteria dependent)
• 75% discount on many other train operating companies
• Full training and support with development
• Excellent pension scheme

We all belong at SWR. Our vision is to provide an inclusive environment for all colleagues, ensuring all candidates have an equal opportunity to access meaningful employment.

We value our differences such as age, gender, LGBTQIA+, ethnicity, religion, and disability. We maintain a zero tolerance towards any form of prejudice towards our colleagues, customers, and future talent.

We celebrate and encourage diversity of thought, progressive ways of working and seeing all our colleagues grow and thrive.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia, or autism, please follow the links below.  We encourage you to share any additional needs you may require so we can provide a fair and equal process for all who apply.

https://exceptionalindividuals.com/neurodiversity/

https://www.healthassured.org/blog/neurodiversity/