Relationship Manager

Lead the day-to-day relationship with water companies. The primary purpose of the role is to establish and maintain effective relationships between CCW and water companies. The relationship aim is to improve consumer outcomes through identifying and challenging water companies, encouraging them to improve performance in areas of weakness, and share best practice in areas of strength.

The post holder will liaise with all internal CCW teams, particularly Customer Service, Policy and Research, to ensure understanding of company performance relative to others, and be able to communicate and discuss how performance could be improved and to encourage the sharing of best practice.

The post holder will report to the Head of Company Relationships to drive CCW’s policy and advocacy work, focussing on areas where there is consumer detriment across industry. Sometimes this may require the post holder reporting directly to the Executive or Board on specific issues.

Key duties and accountabilities

Leading company engagement

The postholder will have a company / companies assigned to them. The postholder will be the first point of contact within CCW for the company / companies on a day-to-day basis. They will be expected to:

Company relationships

• Confidently deal with company staff at all levels, through building constructive working relationships.
• Lead regular company interactions, both in person and on-line.
• Be the main liaison point for information exchange (formal and informal) between CCW and companies.
• Maintain an up-to-date knowledge of:
  • company policies, operations and performance.
  • CCW policy positions and how this may differ from company policy positions.
  • legislative and regulatory requirements that directly affect consumers, and how the company complies with these requirements.
• Provide challenge to company performance, policies and practices in order to influence and secure positive change for consumers, in line with CCW policy positions. This includes challenging directly and arranging conversations with the relevant CCW policy expert to help influence company positions and overcome objections.
• Ensure areas of focus identified in CCW’s assessments are documented and an action plan created and followed, through regular meetings with company area leads. Maintain an up-to-date record of company actions against these points.
• Influence the price review throughout the development of company business plans, providing robust analysis of Ofwat’s determination for their allocated companies.
• Keep abreast of company performance against ODIs and PCs that are of direct interest to customers, maintaining up to date knowledge of which their company/ies are performing well against and the actions being take where underperformance is an issue.

Internal relationships

• Have excellent relationships with other CCW departments in particular Policy, Research, Customer Service and PR/Comms to understand the issues they want raised with companies and to ensure all are up to date with relevant information.
• Use evidence gathered from a range of sources, including companies, external sources and CCW research to challenge companies in their performance, processes or culture.
• Ensure all relevant documents are up-to-date, e.g. escalations register, briefing packs, company updates etc.
• Escalate and document company issues following the agreed processes and timescales.

Improving the consumer experience

• Work with other Relationship Mangers to identify common areas of concern or trends that require further action, providing an industry overview to CCW
• Identify, in conjunction with other Relationship Managers, areas where CCW policy may need forming or changing and suggest areas where campaigns may be warranted.
• Attending company assessments on a range of topics, including complaint handling, debt and incident handling.

ICGs and Customer Panels

• Contribute to groups that also challenge companies, such as independent challenge groups (ICGs), through membership or advisory role
• Provide briefings to consumer panels on topics as requested, liaison with company to ensure information is accurate and specific.
• Be the key contact point between consumer panels and companies in arranging accountability sessions and ensuring actions taken from challenges made are relayed to Panel members, in a “you said, we did” style.

Influencing the agenda

• Work with partner organisations on projects of mutual benefit
• In conjunction with policy colleagues, support consultation responses from allocated water companies.
• Write relevant Executive Team / Board papers on areas of responsibility, where key decisions require sign off.
• Identify and share best practice both externally and internally
• Respond to requests for expert briefing and information from senior internal and external stakeholders (e.g. Executive or Defra) as required.
• Contribute to messages for all media activity for your company, speaking at conferences and to the media on relevant company issues.
• Be an active and effective member of the Customer Service team, contributing to all discussions/decisions; taking the lead in matters relating to their company.

Internal stakeholders

• Through discussion with colleagues and manager, enable cross company performance comparison across a range of issues, such as complaint performance, adherence to regulatory or statutory requirements and provision of information and service to customers.
• Maintain a weekly record of company news, highlighting issues of substance for CCW colleagues to refer to.
• Maintain an up to date register of company specific concerns, how they are being addressed and CCW’s action within that, escalating as appropriate.
• Brief the Executive on specific issues pertaining to their company/ies.
• Provide information to Board on company performance and issues, either directly or via Head of Company Relationships.

External stakeholders

• Establish and maintain productive working relationships, developing partnerships and joint working as necessary.
• Represent CCW in meetings, on panels and at conferences
• Represent CCW in media, working with Communications team colleagues to provide statements and interviews related to specific issues or company performance

Travel

This role will require regular travel to water companies and other meetings across England and Wales as needed for the role. This will be a minimum of six per year, with occasional overnight stays, although frequency may vary.

Other

• Carry out other duties within the scope of the role as required by the Head of Company Relationships.
• Actively promote and embed Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work. Support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies and procedures on EDI.

Actively promote and embed Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in all your work. Support and comply with all organisational initiatives, policies and procedures on EDI

Actively promote and role model CCW’s values and behaviours.