Head of Customer Service and Client Care

The role

Austen & Blake exists to deliver exceptional jewellery experiences around life’s most meaningful moments. When customers place their trust in us, they expect not just beautiful craftsmanship, but reassurance, care and absolute confidence, especially when something doesn’t go to plan.

This role is the guardian of that trust.

As Head of Customer Service & Client Care, you will lead the most emotionally important function in the business. This is not a call centre. It is a luxury client care and concierge operation, designed to resolve issues with precision, empathy and speed, while making customers feel genuinely looked after.

You will build and lead a highly skilled team that handles complexity calmly, fixes problems decisively and leaves customers feeling valued, reassured and heard even in the most challenging situations.

This team is the heartbeat of the organisation. When things go wrong, this role defines how Austen & Blake is remembered.

What you will own

You will have full end-to-end ownership of all customer care, aftercare and issue resolution, across every customer touchpoint, including:

• Email, live chat, telephone and social channels

• Aftercare sales and long-term client relationships

• Repairs, remakes and quality-related matters

• Complaints, escalations and sensitive customer situations

• Reviews, ratings and overall brand reputation

This role carries absolute accountability for customer outcomes.

Key responsibilities

• Build, lead and inspire a world-class luxury client care team that sets the benchmark for service, tone and behaviour

• Establish a concierge-level approach to customer care, where issues are handled with confidence, discretion and empathy

• Own and resolve customer pain points across the full journey, taking personal responsibility for escalations and complex cases

• Ensure customers always feel someone senior is in control, informed and accountable

• Lead the proactive management of reviews and ratings across all platforms, responding with care, clarity and brand-aligned tone

• Use customer feedback, reviews, complaints and service insight to identify recurring issues and work cross-functionally to eliminate root causes

• Act as the voice of the customer internally, ensuring insight is translated into meaningful operational, product and experience improvements

• Develop clear service principles, luxury tone-of-voice guidelines and response standards that reflect a premium brand

• Create and manage dashboards covering key customer service, aftercare and reputation metrics

• Report regularly to the leadership team on performance, trends, successes and challenges, with clear actions and recommendations

• Build strong partnerships with Retail, Ecommerce, Product, Operations and Manufacturing to ensure fast, joined-up resolution

• Recruit, coach and develop a high-calibre team of specialists who take pride in solving problems brilliantly

Customer care technology & capability

Austen & Blake’s customer experience is powered by a growing ecosystem of customer care, CRM and internal systems. This role owns the effectiveness of that ecosystem.

The Head of Customer Service & Client Care will be responsible for ensuring our customer care technology supports a seamless, premium and joined-up experience for both customers and

teams.

This includes:

• Taking ownership of the customer care technology stack, including telephony, CRM, case management, messaging and internal systems

• Ensuring platforms such as 3CX, Salesforce, Zoho and internal tools are used to their full potential and aligned to best practice

• Acting as the voice of the customer service function in all technology decisions, enhancements and process design

• Working closely with Digital, Technology and Operations teams to improve system integration and data flow

• Ensuring agents have a single, clear view of the customer, their history and any active issues

• Defining workflows, escalation paths and service automations that improve speed, consistency and quality

• Identifying gaps in current tooling and recommending improvements or new solutions where required

• Ensuring dashboards, reporting and insight are accurate, meaningful and actionable

• Staying close to emerging customer care tools and practices used by best-in-class premium and luxury brands

This role is not expected to deliver technical implementation, but must be confident, informed and opinionated about what great customer care technology looks like, and how it enables exceptional service.

What excellence looks like

• Customers feel calm, reassured and valued, even when issues arise

• Problems are resolved quickly, clearly and without unnecessary friction

• Complaints are handled with confidence and turned into positive brand moments

• Reviews and ratings reflect trust, care and consistency

• Customer insight drives tangible improvements across the business

• The team is viewed internally as trusted specialists, not a support function

Who we’re looking for

This is a senior leadership role requiring depth of experience, emotional intelligence and strong judgement.

You will likely have:

• Built or led a high-performing, experience-led customer service or client care operation within a premium, luxury or hospitality-led brand

• Significant experience handling complex complaints, escalations and emotionally charged customer situations

• A strong understanding of reputation management, reviews and customer advocacy

• Proven ability to balance empathy with commercial judgement and decisive action

• Experience leading multi-channel service environments with high standards

• Strong understanding of modern customer service and client care technology, with experience shaping or optimising service platforms and reporting frameworks

You are:

• Calm, assured and credible under pressure

• Obsessive about ownership and follow-through

• Highly emotionally intelligent and people-led

• Comfortable setting high standards and holding teams to them

• As confident in the detail as you are in leadership conversations

Why this role matters

When customers are at their most vulnerable or disappointed, this team defines the brand.

Handled brilliantly, these moments build loyalty for life.

This role ensures every customer leaves feeling they were treated with care, respect and five-star attention, exactly as Austen & Blake intends.