Customer Service Leader

Life can sometimes be unpredictable, and it pays to plan ahead. Our aim at Legal & General Retail is to help our customers plan for the unexpected, achieve financial security for their tomorrow, and protect everything that’s important to them. To better understand our customers and meet their needs, we’ve brought our protection, retirement income, savings, lending and advice, fintech and mortgage businesses under one umbrella. Created at the start of 2022 through the merging of our long-standing and trusted retail retirement and insurance businesses, we’re a fast-growing division with big, customer-centred ambitions.

If you are looking for a good work/life balance, working Monday to Friday (9am to 5pm), on a hybrid basis....then look no further!

Legal & General are looking for a  Customer Service Leader who will engage, motivate and inspire their team to give their best.

You will provide guidance and support whenever needed, helping the team to have the best conversations with customers. With a strong belief in delivering outstanding customer outcomes, you will instil the same ethos into your team. As a true ‘people person’ you will nurture, coach and develop your team; taking pride in seeing them flourish. 

We are looking for an individual who is very flexible and can adapt quickly to meet the changing demands of customers and the business. In addition to this we are looking for experts in prioritisation, helping others to prioritise work, and focus on always meeting customer expectations.

What you'll be doing:

• Lead and develop a team to meet the needs and ensure fair treatment of customers, whilst delivering agreed business outcomes. Ensure that service levels are continually monitored and maintain appropriate resource to meet work priorities and customer demand.
• Proactively contribute to business area planning and succession planning to ensure team efforts are aligned to overall department goals. Understand the capabilities and required control versatilities within the division, and contribute to building medium and long term plans to ensure that work can always be covered.
• Work with other CELs and Customer Service Managers to agree prioritisation and look for areas of continuous improvement in processing and customer service. Use available tools to allocate work items suitable to the skills and training requirements of the individual.
• Provide a point of escalation and ownership of complex queries to include complaints, investigating where appropriate and resolving where possible, ensuring any complaints dealt with are logged correctly. Use root cause analysis to identify trends and contribute to continual improvement.
• Coach, train, develop and motivate individuals to achieve objectives as determined by the division’s goals, including customer outcomes, behaviours, quality and productivity. Regularly review these areas, set training and improvement plans and targets as appropriate, in conjunction with the individual’s needs. Drive effective two-way communication within the team and beyond, documenting all records in the agreed format.
• Be accountable for all areas of process breakdown, regulatory breach and health & safety issues within the division, in order to protect L&G and relevant parties from unnecessary loss, by documenting and ensuring that the team fully understand and comply with all financial, regulatory and legislative controls. Identify, manage and report key risks and deliver controls, in line with the risk management framework, to minimise the impact on L&G.
• Full involvement in recruitment, disciplinary procedures and remuneration decisions, in line with HR practices. Regularly deputise for the Customer Service Manager and represent the department at senior internal and external meetings.
• To manage the team in accordance with the Company’s policies and procedures, including the Partnership Agreement, so that the team’s business objectives are achieved consistently.

• Possesses a strong desire for self and others to deliver successful and efficient customer outcomes through developing a clear understanding of customers need and expectations. Acts to prevent problems by identifying issues and providing solutions without constraints to team or department boundaries.
• Demonstrates the ability, through thinking and practice, to improve our processes and system of work; making our Retail Retirements area  easy to do business with and deliver value for our customers
• Easily and willingly adapts to changing priorities.  “Can do” attitude and always willing to go the extra mile to ensure successful customer outcomes. Explains clearly the need for change, gets commitment from team to change. Takes responsibility for making change happen and actively assists colleagues to embrace change and new ways of working.
• Can take time to step back from day to day activities and think things through. Will draw on similar situations in the past to make sense of complex problems and to inform the decision making processes.  Considers situations from a number of angles before making a decision.
• Has the ability to seek out, clarify, share and communicate so that individuals and the business have all the information needed to work effectively. Has a flexible range of communication styles to suit the audience while understanding their needs and concerns.
• Puts forward views in a clear, constructive and considerate manner. Consider the impact of language used on different groups of stakeholders. Remains honest and truthful when explaining opinions. Listens and asks questions to ensure understanding.
• Builds trusting relationships across the team. Actively promotes a “One Team” approach and encourages collaborative working to deliver successful customer outcomes. Acts appropriately to address friction and tension between different individuals within teams and between teams. Gives public recognition to the contribution of others.
• Constantly encourages the development of skills, expertise and knowledge in others aligned to longer term needs of the business. Creates a climate where individuals and teams share skills and provide mutual support to encourage learning. Coaches’ people to understand areas of strength and where improvement is required. Actively motivates and supports others in developing themselves, without removing their responsibility for their own development. 
• Identifies gaps in own skills and knowledge and makes plans on how to develop these. Takes time to achieve their development objectives. Listen to and acts on, feedback from colleagues on areas for personal development.
• Gives honest, motivating and enthusiastic messages about priorities, objectives and expectations to get the best out of people.  Understands how to delegate tasks to others in the team. Knows and understands the disciplinary and grievance procedures. Unafraid of having difficult conversations.

The brand with the brolly is choosing today to change tomorrow.

Since 1836, we’ve grown to become one of the world's largest asset managers, homebuilders, pension providers and insurance brands. 

We’re all here to improve the lives of our customers, build a better society for the long term, and create value for our shareholders - helping to shape a better future for society and the planet.

We need people who share our ambitions, agility and entrepreneurial spirit to help us do it.

At L&G, you’ll find a balance that helps you be your best. Empowered by hybrid working, we’re supported by technology and workplaces that enable us to work effectively wherever we are. We come together in offices to collaborate and connect, and use time at home for individual, focused activities. And, when we achieve great things, we celebrate our success and reward strong performance.

Today, there’s over 10,000 of us, working towards our mission, with plenty of opportunities to grow your career as we grow L&G. Will you join us?

Great minds don’t have to think alike, so we welcome voices from all backgrounds. Bringing together people with different life experiences helps us build empathy with our customers and drive innovation.

We don’t just talk about it, we actively promote diversity and equitable opportunities for all. That means our employment decisions are made without regard to race, colour, religion, national or ethnic origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability or protected veteran status. In fact, we embrace every dimension of diversity to reflect the customers and communities we serve.

We think it’s important to create an inclusive environment where we can all belong, contribute and drive progress, where you can develop and grow, and be empowered. We want you to use your voice to help us build a better tomorrow.

We all work differently, and have different needs, which is why. we’re always open to discussing flexible working arrangements. Likewise, we’re committed to finding reasonable accommodations for candidates with specific needs during our recruiting process.

So whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever your story, we'd love to hear from you.