Operational Excellence Lead (Customer Services

Overview

Permanent

From £52,000 + Pension + PMI +Share Save+ 6.6 weeks holiday+ Hybrid Working (1/2 days per week in the office)

Southampton, Store Support Office

We believe anyone can improve their home to make life better. From our Southampton Store Support office (SSO) we equip our stores, our people, and our whole business with everything it takes to help our millions of customers create a home they’ll love. Join us as an Operational Excellence Lead (Customer Services) and you’ll be a big part of this.

Role

Purpose:

The Operational Excellence Lead will define and lead the Customer Service Operational Excellence strategy across B&Q, driving improvements in customer experience, operational efficiency, contact reduction and cost savings. The role will set the vision, governance, roadmap and measurement framework for continuous improvement, ensuring activity is aligned to customer, commercial and strategic priorities. Working closely with Customer Service, Experience, Product and Digital teams, they will optimise end-to-end customer journeys, establish clear KPIs and lead a high-performing team focused on measurable business outcomes.

Operational Excellence Strategy

• Define and own the Customer Service Operational Excellence strategy, ensuring alignment to the wider Customer Service, Experience and Transformation strategy.

• Develop and maintain a multi-year roadmap focused on contact reduction, process simplification, customer experience improvement and operational efficiency.

• Identify emerging opportunities across automation, AI, process redesign and service innovation to improve customer and business outcomes.

• Establish clear operational excellence standards, methodologies and governance across the function.

Continuous Improvement & Transformation

• Lead the identification, prioritisation and delivery of high-impact continuous improvement initiatives across Customer Service and wider business functions.

• Champion a root cause-led approach that removes failure demand and improves Right First Time resolution.

• Ensure improvement opportunities are quantified, prioritised and tracked through to benefit realisation.

• Drive cross-functional improvements that simplify customer journeys, improve colleague experiences and reduce operational complexity.

Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, coach and develop the Operational Excellence team.

• Build capability in operational excellence, process improvement, customer-centric problem solving and agile ways of working across Customer Service.

• Foster a culture of continuous improvement, accountability and customer-centric decision making.

• Create strong internal and external partnerships that support delivery of strategic objectives.

Data, Insight & Performance

• Establish a data-led approach to identifying customer pain points, operational inefficiencies and improvement opportunities.

• Define and maintain the Customer Service Operational Excellence KPI framework, ensuring clear measures, ownership, targets and governance are in place across all improvement activity.

• Develop and embed leading and lagging indicators that measure customer outcomes, operational performance, efficiency, quality, demand reduction, digital adoption and value realisation.

• Define and oversee the Operational Excellence performance framework, including benefit tracking, contact reduction and customer outcome measures.

Cross Functional Influence

• Work closely with colleagues across Customer Service, Technology, Digital, Marketplace, Supply Chain and Retail Operations to improve end-to-end customer journeys.

• Influence strategic business decisions to ensure customer and operational impacts are fully understood and considered.

• Ensure offshore partner innovation, improvement initiatives and strategic roadmaps align to B&Q priorities.

• Support business-wide change programmes by embedding customer and operational thinking into decision making.

Commercial & Financial Ownership

• Identify and drive sustainable cost reduction opportunities across Customer Service operations.

• Support business case development for strategic investments, technology enhancements and transformation initiatives.

• Ensure operational risks are…