Head of Operations - Customer

About Mercury

Mercury is a forward-looking New Zealand organisation that supplies energy and telecommunications to more Kiwis than any other provider. The business is helping lead the shift toward renewable energy and a more sustainable future, with a purpose centred on caring for tomorrow by connecting people and place today.

Opportunity

Mercury’s Customer organisation is moving into a significant phase of growth and change. To support this evolution, the company has introduced new roles that will strengthen accountability, commercial ownership and cross-channel alignment, helping the function become more efficient, customer-led and ready for the future.

Reporting to the Chief Customer Officer, this fixed-term leadership role will guide and reshape the customer care function over a two-year period. The focus is on simplifying ways of working, lifting service performance and building a stronger future for Customer Care.

You will oversee the teams that provide timely, fair and practical support across Mercury’s product and service channels. A major part of the role is improving customer experience, removing friction, strengthening service delivery and ensuring customers with additional needs — including medically dependent, vulnerable and hardship customers — are identified, prioritised and supported appropriately.

This position offers the chance to build a more reliable, efficient and future-ready customer care operation while also helping your people navigate change effectively.

What you'll do

• Direct and grow Mercury’s Customer Care leaders and teams.
• Create a service culture grounded in customer focus, accountability and care.
• Improve the customer journey across onboarding, billing, payments, moving home, complaints and hardship support.
• Resolve customer issues promptly, fairly and consistently.
• Oversee performance across customer care channels, including response times, service levels, quality, productivity and cost-to-serve.
• Make sure teams have the right coaching, tools and support to perform effectively.
• Build stronger pathways for urgent, complex or high-risk situations.
• Ensure medically dependent, vulnerable and hardship customers are identified and supported with appropriate care and priority.
• Manage risk and compliance in relation to complaints, hardship, billing support, vulnerable customers, medically dependent customers and escalations.
• Use customer feedback, complaints and data to pinpoint issues and improve outcomes.
• Simplify processes, reduce unnecessary contact and improve the use of digital tools, self-service, automation and customer data.
• Lead ongoing improvement across Customer Care and help prepare the function for what comes next.

What you'll bring

• Substantial senior leadership experience in customer care, customer operations or contact centre environments.
• A track record of managing service performance in a high-volume operational setting.
• Strong people leadership capability, with experience building engaged and capable teams.
• A practical, hands-on approach to improving customer experience, complaint resolution and service quality.
• Experience supporting customers with sensitive needs such as hardship, vulnerability or critical service dependence.
• Solid understanding of risk, compliance, conduct and fair customer outcomes.
• Experience improving processes, systems and day-to-day operating models.
• Confidence in using data and insights to identify issues, lift performance and support decisions.
• Sound judgement, empathy and calm decision-making in sensitive or high-risk situations.
• The ability to collaborate across teams to simplify complexity and deliver better results for customers.
• Experience in energy, utilities, telecommunications, financial services, large-scale customer operations or another regulated, customer-led environment would be a strong advantage.

What Mercury offers

• A diverse workplace where your strengths and talents are recognised and encouraged.
• Employee discounts, plus savings with third-party providers.
• Annual salary reviews and the option to buy additional leave.
• The scale, career opportunities and facilities of one of New Zealand’s largest multi-utility providers.
• A flexible working approach that combines trust and autonomy, with the option to work from Mercury’s purpose-built offices and from home.

Additional information

Mercury is committed to learning and development, and this role will include opportunities to grow your skills and mindset in ways that support your current work and future career. The organisation aims to create an energised, innovative and agile environment where people feel valued.

Mercury also values diversity of background, experience and capability, and encourages candidates to apply even if they do not meet every criterion.

Applications close on Friday, July 10th at 5:00pm. Mercury reserves the right to move a strong candidate through to interview sooner. A full position description is available on the Mercury careers page. If accessibility or other support is needed during the application or selection process, candidates can contact recruitment@mercury.co.nz, but applications should not be sent to that email address.

“Every voice has its place — and together, we thrive.”