Customer Accounts Specialist

MTVH; Cambridgeshire and Peterborough; Hybrid; GBP 34,000 - 37,000; Full time

Job summary

A housing association in the UK is seeking a Customer Accounts Specialist to support income collection through home visits and court attendance. The role requires strong knowledge of debt recovery and housing benefits, excellent negotiation skills, and the ability to work in a high-pressure environment. The position offers a full-time contract with various benefits, including a generous leave policy and career progression opportunities.

Benefits

28 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays

Enhanced pension plan

Life assurance cover

Employee Assistance Programme

Career progression opportunities

Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of Housing Benefits and Universal Credit.
• Experience managing cases through the legal process.
• Ability to handle a high volume, target-driven environment.

Responsibilities

• Conduct home visits for customer income collection.
• Attend court and eviction proceedings as required.
• Work with stakeholders to achieve income collection targets.

Skills

Debt recovery knowledge

Negotiation skills

Communication skills

Attention to detail

Understanding of GDPR

Education

Full driving license

Tools

MS Office

Job description

Customer Accounts Specialist

Location: Cambridge, Peterborough, Bury St Edmunds and Luton, Colchester

Salary Banding: £34,755 - £36,584

Full Time Permanent Post based on 37.5hrs per week

Whilst you may be required to attend our Trinity Court office (Cambridge) from time to time, the focus of this role is predominantly based on our estates conducting home visits to support our customers. Regular court attendance will also be required.

This role covers a large geographic area, and regular travel will be expected to locations such Cambridge, Peterborough, Bury St Edmunds and Luton, Colchester as well as occasional visits in the North London area when cover is required.

As a Customer Accounts Specialist, you will be responsible for locally based income collection and enforcement services. This will include all legal processes as well as enforcing court judgements. To achieve this, you will work closely with our regional team and alongside other teams reducing arrears and meeting your targets. Your main responsibilities will include dealing with customer visits and court/eviction attendance in the region. Here you will need to follow MTVV policies, procedures and adhere to its quality standards. Further, you will ensure effective debt collection through negotiation and payment plans and you will provide advice on welfare benefits including Housing Benefit and Universal Credit.

In addition, you will work in collaboration with various internal and external stakeholders to ensure that given targets are achieved and income collection is effective. You will be required to develop relationships and attend meetings with several external stakeholders including local authorities, DWP and courts.

What you’ll need to succeed:

• While good knowledge of the debt recovery, legal framework, Housing Benefits, Universal Credit and other welfare benefits and experience in managing cases through legal process is essential for this role, to really succeed it is your values and passion that will differentiate you.
• Knowledge of housing policy and good practice in the sector.
• It is required to negotiate debt collection and payment plans.
• At MTVH our values of Care, Dare and Collaborate run through all that we do, and we’re looking for people who demonstrate these behaviours every day of the week.
• Demonstrable achievements in improving services for customers, and in motivating others to deliver excellent services.
• We are seeking people who are able to communicate, listen and negotiate on a professional level.
• High attention to detail with a problem-solving approach.
• Understanding of GDPR requirements and commitment to confidentiality.
• You will need to be able to handle working under pressure and manage your own workload as you will be working in a high volume, target-driven environment. Additionally, you must be willing to work outside of standard working hours on occasions and you are expected to have a good MS Office working knowledge.
• Personal resilience and a high degree of self-confidence and determination.
• Personal commitment to a culture that emphasises continuous improvement through staff development and personal growth.

To meet our commitment to providing safe, high quality services to our customers we will complete a basic background check with the Disclosure and Barring service once an offer of employment is made.

This role requires you to hold a full driving licence and have access to your own vehicle as well as travelling for business car insurance.

Working Hours:

Working hours will normally be between Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00, although your contract will state Monday to Friday 08:00 to 20:00 and Saturday 09:00 to 17:00.

Initial interviews will be held over Microsoft Teams

Please note :- we do not currently offer visa sponsorship.

What’s in it for you?

• 28 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays (pro rata for part time) per year
• 2 volunteering days per year for things like helping out in local communities
• An additional ‘Beliefs day’ once a year to have an extra a day off
• Supported family friendly approach with extended parental leave
• Enhanced pension with matched contributions of up to 9%
• Option to buy or sell up to 5 days annual leave per year
• Life assurance cover 3 x your salary
• Cycle2work scheme
• Hybrid Working - Dependent on job role and department
• Health cash plan scheme for your everyday healthcare needs which you can add your family members too
• Tenancy deposit – interest free loan to help with rental deposits and season Ticket loan
• Access to extensive learning and training opportunities with Wisebox platform
• Colleague virtual social platform with our workplace pages where you can keep up to date with the organisational activity and link in with colleagues
• Career progression across the organisation with our mentoring/coaching programmes, apprenticeships and career planning support
• Employee Assistance Programme- We are committed to the wellbeing of our colleagues and support this as an organisation

About us

We are committed to developing and implementing or maintaining sustainability initiatives to reduce environmental impact and promote sustainable practices within MTVH.

Learn more about our benefits and organisation by viewing our attached document

Our promise

Here at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) we want to capture the value that difference brings and are committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. We work collaboratively ‘Serving people better every day’ to educate, support and develop all of our diverse employees and the communities that we serve. We are also part of the disability confident employer scheme.

We want every employee and every customer to feel comfortable enough to be their true self and are working tirelessly in the background to create an environment that encourages our employees to challenge non-inclusive behaviours and to be mindful of their own and other’s wellbeing.

We provide a platform of Network groups for employees to share views, tell us what we’re doing well and recommend improvements. We want to create a real sense of community and a workforce who feel that their opinions are valued. Our Networks groups are:

• Gender
• Ethnicity
• LGBTQ+
• Disability

Our core values of Dare, Care and Collaborate demonstrate that we are a people focused business, solving social issues by working together!

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a suitable candidate is found so we do encourage you to complete the application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.

For a full breakdown of company benefits, please see the attached Benefits Digital Booklet: https://view.pagetiger.com/bksiskh/001