Temporary Customer Services Officer/Admin x 6

Reference no:  Southwark 5224245

Pay Rate: £11.05 per hour PAYE 

The purpose of the role is to interact with customers to provide and process information in response to enquiries, concerns or requests for Housing Benefit and Council Tax services. To deliver Customer Service excellence by telephone, email, letters or text across a range of Council services ensuring swift resolution for our customers.

Key Responsibilities:

• Deal with telephone and face to face enquiries, emails, letters and texts from customers in a professional manner.
• Interrogate the Council’s systems to provide information and resolution to our customers. Raise service requests and update system notebooks as appropriate.
• Record and maintain customer records, comply with Council policies and procedures and ensure confidentiality of customer information at all times. Ensure your duties are undertaken with regard and compliance of the Data Protection Act and other legislation.
• Be sensitive to the needs of our diverse local community whilst ensuring swift and appropriate action for our customers. To demonstrate empathy and professionalism at all times in an environment that can sometimes be demanding and stressful.
• Be a team player in a customer focused team, contributing to meetings, team building and continuous improvement. To actively participate in training and development to develop your skills and competencies.
• Process and record debit and credit card payments by our customers.
• Encourage and assist customers to access Council services, forms and information via the Councils website.
• Ensure swift resolution to a range of enquiries from our customers at the first point of contact to avoid the need to call or visit the Council for the same matter again.
• Process and record action taken to resolve or deal with enquiries from our customers within the remit of a Customer Service Officer or ensure resolution through liaison with other Council services or officers.
• Perform any other duties consistent with responsibilities and level for the role.

“Role Requirements” – to give yourself the maximum chance of success please try and ensure your CV addresses the following essential criteria:

Qualifications:

1. Educated to GCSE level including English Language and Maths or work experience of at least equivalent level.

Skills & Experience:

1. Minimum of 12 months recent experience in a similar role, or context and ideally within a public sector organisation.
2. Experience of working within an operational service delivery environment
3. Experience of dealing directly with and advising customers
4. Experience of using computer systems including Microsoft Office and/or other work-related systems such as Northgate Revenues.
5. Knowledge of customer services, preferably in a Local Government environment.
6. Knowledge of Housing/Council Tax Benefits and Council Tax legislation and/or other Council Services.

Skills & Abilities:

1. Ability to communicate effectively both verbally and in writing with a variety of people both in and outside the Council.
2. Ability to plan and prioritise the workload and meet deadlines when faced with conflicting priorities.
3. Effective interpersonal skills, tact, diplomacy and listening skills to enable development of working relationships with customers, colleagues and stakeholders.
4. Ability to work independently and within teams to meet targets and deadlines.
5. Ability to provide a customer focused service.
6. Ability to produce reports and performance information.
7. Ability to deal with conflict situations.
8. Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite).

NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via [email protected] by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. SEE DETAILS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS AD.

If you have previously applied to one of our vacancies and have already sent the required supporting documentation to us, please make this clear when you re-apply as this will help speed up your application.

To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF

If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity.