Service Quality Improvement Manager - Central / West Region (Part/Full Time)

Who are we?

GWR is the proud custodian of Brunel's railway - one of the most prestigious networks in the world.  We have some of the newest trains in the country and exciting plans to extend our services.   With more than one hundred million passenger journeys each year, we carry people to over 275 stations in the South West, from Cornwall and South Wales to London, passing through beautiful country and some of the UK's top tourist destinations. 

We are transforming the way people think about train travel, empowering our team of over 6,000 people from all different backgrounds to make it a great experience for our customers.  Together, we will revalue rail as a very special way to travel – relaxing, fast, efficient, friendly and fun.

About the team?

The Customer Experience team act as the voice of the customer within the business, by ensuring that GWR have robust plans in place to improve the overall customer experience and strengthen GWR's commercial position.

The team plays a lead role in establishing and embedding a Customer Centric culture that pouts the customer at the heart of decision making and gets the whole organisation united behind the goal of delivering great customer experience.

About the job?

The role focuses on the Service Quality Regime (SQR) that was introduced to GWR in June 2022. You will help to raise awareness and understanding of SQE across the business, and assist with management of the SQMS, register and audit systems. You will make sure that fails are passed to responsible owners, challenges sent back to suppliers, and that rectification evidence is chased and logged within their prescribed timescales. You will also work with internal teams to proactively prevent audit fails by identifying areas of concern, and develop projects that can prevent audit fails whilst also enhancing the customer experience. 

Your main responsibilities will be:

• To drive awareness and understanding, and champion Service Quality and the Customer Experience, across GWR
• Build strong working relationships with a wide range of colleagues and teams across GWR
• Undertake regular ‘shadow audits' alongside station, on-board and engineering teams to ensure minimum standards within the SQR are met or exceeded.
• Manage information within our service quality management systems, ensuring it is always up-to-date and accurate. Log audit faults/failures and follow up with responsible managers across the business to ensure rectification within prescribed timescales
• Proactively develop and manage projects and work with stakeholders to drive improvements with the twin goals of improving the customer experience and avoiding future audit fails
• Convene and chair regular Customer Experience and Service Quality Improvement Groups, and attend other meetings and forums as required to represent the customer experience

You'll need to be:

• You will have a strong eye for detail, and ability to spot things that do not look right
• Be a strong, effective, communicator with ability to build strong working relationships with people at all levels, both internally and externally
• Have a pragmatic and methodical personality, with a ‘can do' attitude
• Be flexible, equally at ease in a busy office environment as part of a team, and travelling and working independently around the network
• Have the ability to accurately interpret data, establish facts and use them to drive improvements
• Able to foster positive teamwork in the wider GWR team

As a minimum, you will need to have:

• An understanding of Service Quality Excellence (SQE) within GWR, and our network and services
• An excellent understanding of customer needs and expectations
• Experience writing reports, leading workshops, and presenting to groups of stakeholders
• Working knowledge of any of quality regimes, qualitative and quantitative research methods, databases, analytic tools would be an advantage
• A full, British driving licence and access to your own transport would be an advantage

About the location?

The location can be flexible, but the focus will be on either the Central or West areas of our network depending upon the candidate's location. Wherever you are based, you will need to be regularly out on the network, performing ‘shadow audits', meeting and working with local teams, including visits to stations and depots in your area.

Working Pattern?

We are advertising this as either a Part-Time (16.5 hours) or Full-Time (37 hours) position. Please indicate on your application which options you are applying for. Although the role is generally Mondays to Fridays, the nature of the role, required travel, and the audit and rectification processes mean that some evening and weekend working will be required. We welcome discussions about working flexibly.

The Reward?

As well as a great team environment and comprehensive training, all GWR colleagues enjoy a range of benefits including on-going development, defined benefit pension scheme, free rail travel across the GWR network for you and your family, company-sponsored health care plan, discounted shopping and gym membership and an employee assistance programme.

We all belong at GWR. This is our vision for providing an inclusive environment for all our 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 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.

We review all roles and job descriptions to ensure they are accessible and, where possible, we support and provide flexible working options; we recommend that you refer to each vacancy description for further details.

If you require additional support to complete your application due to a disability or neurodivergent condition such as 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/