Complaints Handling jobs in Reading

Complaints Officer

Department: Complaints
Job Title: Complaints Officer
Salary: £30,000.00 - £35,000.00, DOE
Location: Guildford, Surrey
Hours: Monday to Friday, 09:00–18:00
Working Pattern: Office-based

About the Role

We are looking for a proactive, professional, and solutions-focused individual to join our Complaints team as a Complaints Officer.

This role is suited to someone who enjoys investigating customer issues, resolving escalated concerns, and working towards fair and balanced outcomes. You will deal with a broad range of customer matters, including complaints, feedback, service concerns, general escalations, and other complex queries.

This is not a scripted call centre role. We are looking for someone who can think independently, assess information carefully, communicate professionally, and take ownership of issues through to resolution.

The role involves a mixture of telephone-based work and administrative tasks. You will communicate with customers both verbally and in writing, often in sensitive or challenging circumstances. You will need to remain calm under pressure, de-escalate concerns confidently, and work collaboratively with colleagues across the business to resolve issues effectively.

The Complaints team plays an important role in ensuring customers are treated fairly and receive a positive experience with our business. The team also reviews customer-facing aspects of the organisation to ensure our processes, systems, communications, and customer journeys are working correctly, fairly, reasonably, accessibly, and compliantly.

By reviewing customer issues and identifying patterns or recurring problems, you will help the business improve its processes, customer service, and overall customer outcomes.

What We’re Looking For

We are looking for someone who:

• Has experience handling customer complaints, escalations, or complex customer issues
• Is confident speaking with customers and de-escalating challenging situations
• Can communicate clearly, professionally, and empathetically, both verbally and in writing
• Enjoys problem solving, investigation, and getting to the root cause of issues
• Can assess information objectively and make balanced decisions
• Works well in a fast-paced environment with competing priorities
• Is organised, reliable, and comfortable managing multiple tasks
• Takes ownership of issues and follows them through to resolution
• Can represent the business professionally when dealing with customers, colleagues, and external partners

Key Responsibilities & Activities

• Investigate and resolve customer concerns, complaints, feedback, and service issues
• Speak with customers by telephone and communicate in writing to address and resolve concerns
• De-escalate difficult situations and work towards fair, practical, and balanced outcomes
• Review customer accounts, call recordings, policy information, internal notes, and other records to understand the full circumstances of each matter
• Work with internal departments and external partners to obtain information and resolve customer issues
• Provide clear written responses explaining outcomes, decisions, and next steps
• Record investigations, actions, and outcomes accurately
• Identify trends, recurring issues, service gaps, or customer journey problems and feed these back to management
• Help balance workloads across the team and support colleagues where required
• Assist with a wide range of tasks that support the department and wider business
• Support investigations relating to payment disputes, data protection queries, or Subject Access Requests where required
• Assist with reviewing potential fraud concerns or complex customer disputes where additional investigation may be needed
• Contribute to improving customer-facing processes, communications, and service standards

Skills and Experience

• Previous customer service, complaints handling, escalations, or dispute resolution experience is essential
• Strong problem-solving and investigation skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to confidently de-escalate challenging customer situations
• Strong attention to detail and the ability to assess information objectively
• Good organisational skills and the ability to manage multiple cases or tasks
• Comfortable working in a fast-paced, office-based environment
• Confident using systems, reviewing customer records, and keeping clear notes
• Knowledge or experience within the insurance industry is preferred
• Experience within insurance, financial services, or another regulated environment would be beneficial but is not essential

Personal Attributes

The right person for this role will be calm, professional, and resilient. You should be comfortable dealing with challenging situations and confident in your ability to de-escalate concerns while working towards fair and balanced outcomes for customers.

You will need to be proactive, adaptable, and able to use your own judgement. This role would suit someone who enjoys solving problems, taking ownership, and helping improve how a business supports its customers.

We are particularly interested in candidates who are naturally curious, detail-focused, and able to remain composed when dealing with pressure or conflict.

Working Environment

This is a fully office-based role at our Guildford office, working closely with colleagues within the Complaints team and the wider business.

The office dress code is smart business attire, with dress-down Fridays.

What We Offer

• Salary dependent on experience
• 20 days annual leave plus bank holidays, increasing annually up to 25 days
• Supportive and collaborative working environment
• Opportunity to make a genuine impact on customer experience and business improvement
• Ongoing training and development within the Complaints function
• A varied role involving customer contact, investigation, problem solving, and process improvement

Summary

This role is ideal for someone who is confident handling complex customer issues, enjoys investigation and problem solving, and can communicate professionally in challenging situations.

If you are calm under pressure, organised, and motivated by helping customers while improving business processes, we would be keen to hear from you.

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Pay: £30,000.00-£35,000.00 per year

Application question(s):

• Have you worked within the financial services or insurance sector?
• Are you comfortable working independently and managing your own caseload?
• Will you be able to reliably commute or relocate to Guildford for this job?
• Do you have experience handling formal complaints within a FCA regulated environment?
• Are you familiar with FCA and FOS complaint handling rules and timescales?

Work Location: In person