Customer Service Officer

About The Job

If you are all about supporting people, providing a great customer experience and problem solving then you'll be in good company in the Community Hub Team! Join us as a Customer Service Officer

Salary: £25,409 to £27,852 per annum (pro rata for part time)
Contract Type: Fixed Term Contract until 31 December 2023
Working Pattern: Full Time (37 hours per week) Shift pattern: 5 days per week, including weekends and bank holidays. Shifts covering 8:00am to 4:00pm, 9:00am to 5:00pm, 10:00am to 6:00pm OR 12:00pm to 8:00pm
Location: Durban House, Durban Road, Bognor Regis, PO22 9RE (Flexible and Hybrid Working)

We have new opportunities to join our Communities directorate. The Community Hub Team provides telephone, email and e-form contact points for a wide range of enquiries from residents needing information, advice, guidance, signposting and practical support. This is a role that requires someone with excellent communication and interpersonal skills as well as personal resilience and professionalism when dealing with potentially sensitive, confidential or distressing queries.

Does this this sounds like the type of challenge that you are looking for? If so, we'd love to hear from you!

All West Sussex County Council (WSCC) employees have a WSCC location as their contractual work location, however we do operate a 'Smarter working' approach, this is something that you agree locally with your manager, for what works best for you, your role and your team. More details will be shared once you start working.

Internal candidates wishing to apply for this role will be considered for a secondment position. Please can you therefore discuss and agree this with your manager before applying for this position.

The Opportunity

You will provide a transactional front-line service to direct customers. These range from answering customers enquires through phone, email, letter, social media and making outbound calls.

You will use your initiative and judgement to decide how best to respond to a query, including asking colleagues to draft responses, referring customers to other organisations and/or colleagues, sending interim correspondence.

Alongside a supportive team, you will work to customer focused processes and policy that support West Sussex County Council's Customer Strategy.

About You

Along with great customer service skills, you will have excellent IT skills including good knowledge of Microsoft packages, specialist software, social media, and other required IT products.

You will need to be able to balance priorities and deadlines as well as responding to and redirecting enquiries, using your initiative to deal with unexpected problems and situations. You will have great attention to detail and organisational skills.

You will be confident receiving and making telephone calls as well as providing feedback on improvements within the team.

For more information on the Key Skills as well as the Qualifications and/or experience required, please refer to the Job Description attached.

Rewards and Benefits

Here at West Sussex County Council we care about wellbeing, allowing time for celebrating our teams' efforts, and developing our team to be the best they can be. Alongside this, we also offer the below benefits.

• An excellent local government pension scheme
• Generous holiday entitlement of 26 days (plus opportunity to buy additional leave)
• A range of flexible working options, depending on your job role
• Maternity, paternity, dependency and adoption leave
• Volunteering opportunities
• Training and development opportunities, including coaching, mentoring and apprenticeships
• A range of discounts giving 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 (see our Staff discounts page if you are a business looking to offer a discount)
• Health and wellbeing benefits including access to our Employee Assistance Programme, Mental Health First Aiders, Wellbeing Hub and Voluntary Health Cash Plans

For a full list this can be found at our Rewards and Benefits page.

Further Information

To apply you will need to complete our application form and upload your CV, in the application you will highlight your skills and experience that you can bring to the role 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.

We are committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children, young people and vulnerable adults. This post is subject to satisfactory references, enhanced DBS and health check.

West Sussex County Council is an equal opportunities employer committed to promoting an environment that is inclusive and free from all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination and values the diversity of its people. We actively welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and take every possible step to ensure that no individual will be disadvantaged.

For information regarding your eligibility to apply for this role under our Disability or Veteran's Guaranteed Interview Scheme, this can be found on our application help page.

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