Highways Customer Assurance Officer

Do you have experience working in a quality assurance role where you provide vital information, address queries with care and passionately lead the implementation of improvements to enhance the customer experience?

Can you showcase exceptional communication skills, allowing you to convey often technical information to customers in a way that truly resonates with them?

If the answer is yes, we want to hear from you!

We are seeking a Customer Assurance Officer to join the Highways Customer Service Hub, focused on delivering a proactive, quality-driven service by monitoring and enhancing the customer experience through operational quality assurance across all customer channels.

Salary: £29,540 to £32,061 per annum
Contract type: Permanent
Working pattern: Full-time - 37 hours per week
Location: based at County Hall Chichester, West Street, Chichester, P019 1RQ and Drayton Depot, Drayton Lane, Near Chichester, PO20 2AJ. Hybrid working available - minimum of 2 days per week in the office. There will also be a requirement to work from our other offices and depots across West Sussex County.

This is predominantly a desk-based role, with the requirement to take frequent phone calls and manage regular interruptions. You will need to be able to work flexibly during the week to cover the team hours between 8am and 5pm. You will also need to be able to travel independently to our offices and depots across West Sussex, some of which are not served by public transport.

About the job

In this role, you will provide a transactional service direct to customers and deliver a truly customer-focused service which delivers 'customer excellence' consistently across the Highways and Transport service.

Any given day can often feel quite different from the next! There will be some key responsibilities likely to feature in this role including:

• Being the essential contact point for providing consistent solutions to customer enquiries through phone, email, letter and social media, including logging customer enquiries and producing well written letters and emails.
• Analyse and evaluate all aspects of quality assurance, prepare detailed reports and lead monthly improvement meetings where you and management will collaboratively agree on solutions.
• Ensure service continuity and maintain service levels, including addressing fluctuations in service demand such as extreme weather conditions.
• Proactively engage with the community and Councillors to keep them up to date with planned activity across Highways.
• Working collaboratively with the Customer Service Centre, Highways Officers and contractors to ensure reports and required works are efficiently coordinated and communicated.
• Support the Highways and Transport service by taking ownership and coordinating Freedom of Information responses, ensuring responses are of the highest quality and provided within the stated timescale.

If you enjoy working in a fast-paced environment and relish being part of a close-knit team, supporting colleagues to deliver better outcomes for the residents of West Sussex, then this role could for you.

Required experience and skills

• Experience working in a busy customer service environment supporting a diverse range of customers by providing information, resolving inquiries and utilising key performance indicators within a quality assurance role.
• Educated to GCSE standard or equivalent qualifications, or demonstrable comparable experience.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to confidently build relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders.
• High IT competency including a good working knowledge of Microsoft packages, specialist software, social media and other required IT products.
• A basic knowledge of road maintenance and repair, to be able to explain the different stages of the process to a customer with some clarity.
• Keen attention to detail, able to prioritise between competing demands and to remain calm in challenging situations.

Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information on the Key Skills and experience required.

Rewards and benefits

From flexible working (where possible) to access to our Employee Assistance Programme, we aim to create a supportive and dynamic working environment where employees can achieve their full potential, achieve a healthy work-life balance and are rewarded for the work they do.

You will benefit from 25 days annual leave, rising to 28 days after 5 years' service plus the opportunity to buy additional leave and an excellent local government pension scheme.

A range of discounts give our staff access to hundreds of offers; groceries, travel, cinema tickets, days out, leisure activities, high street retailers and the opportunity to save over £1,000 a year through our West Sussex Choices benefits platform.

For more information about the wide variety of benefits you can take advantage of please visit our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further information

The reference number for this role is EIE01474.

To apply, please follow the links below to upload your CV and Cover Letter. In your cover letter please outline your motivations for applying and explaining the skills and experience you can bring to the role (please refer to the key skills) ensuring that any gaps in employment are covered in your CV. Please ensure you have saved the job description attached to the main advert on our website as, once the job has closed, you may not have the opportunity to download again.

Equity, inclusion and accessibility is very important to West Sussex County Council. We welcome and encourage applications from everyone, as this helps us build a diverse and talented workforce that reflects the communities we serve. We ensure our approach to recruitment is flexible and supportive to enable all applicants the best possible chance of success.

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that have a disability, are a veteran or are a care leaver. More information can be found on our application help page.

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