Customer Service Advisor

West Northants Council; Northampton; On-site; GBP 22,000 - 26,000; Full time

Job summary

West Northants Council seeks a Customer Service Advisor to enhance customer satisfaction by resolving inquiries at first contact. The role involves utilizing technology to assess customer needs, maintaining performance targets, and contributing to team improvements. A focus on adaptability and customer excellence is crucial to thrive in this position.

Benefits

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Support for disability and reasonable adjustments

Qualifications

• Experience in a customer-focused environment is essential.
• Ability to work well in a team and under pressure is vital.
• Adaptability to face challenges and deliver solutions is necessary.

Responsibilities

• Resolve customer queries by phone, face-to-face, and email.
• Analyze and record customer needs to improve service delivery.
• Monitor personal performance against Customer Service Centre KPIs.

Skills

Customer focus

Problem-solving

Communication

Team collaboration

Job description

Join our Customer Service Centre team and play a crucial role in maximizing the resolution of customer inquiries at the initial point of contact. We're committed to achieving key objectives, including resolving up to 80% of queries on the first interaction, enhancing customer satisfaction, and minimizing the need for customers to make repeat calls in pursuit of resolution or action. Your contribution will make a direct impact on our commitment to delivering top-notch customer service!

The Customer Service Advisor will be the first point of contact for all of the Council’s external customers, with enquiries/issues related to the following service areas:

• Adult Social Care
• Community Occupational and Assistive Technology
• Children’s Social Care for all across Northamptonshire
• Births, Deaths & Marriages
• Blue Badge
• General Enquiries
• Housing & homelessness
• Early Years
• Schools & Education Services
• Free School Meals
• Highways & Planning
• Libraries
• Council Tax and Benefits
• Waste
• Elections
• Business Rates

What will you be doing?

The primary work location will be either One Angel Square - Northampton, The Forum - Towcester or The Abbey Centre - Daventry

Working alongside our colleagues in Customer Services, you'll support:

• Resolvingat least 80% of customer queries by telephone, face to face and email, only forwarding / escalating to others in exceptional circumstances.
• Assessing, analysing, interpreting and recording customer needs using appropriate skills and technology, to enable customer issues to be resolved and a database of customer needs and contact to be developed
• Resolvingcomplaints/concerns at the first point of contact, where possible, minimising the need to escalate to the Customer Feedback Team for investigation.
• Continuously seeking to improve the service offered to customers, proactively interpreting customer needs and suggesting improvements to service delivery
• Monitoring and assessing personal performance against targets, seeking support as necessary in order to deliver Customer Service Centre KPIs
• Sharingknowledge and information with colleagues, contributing to the team’s ability to deliver continuous performance improvements
• Ensuringcustomers are regularly updated on the progress of their enquiry or service request as agreed at point of contact (where applicable).
• Proficiency in the use of all technology deployed in the Customer Service Centre to help facilitate an excellent customer experience
• Demonstratingawareness/understanding of equal opportunities and other people’s behavioural, physical, social and welfare needs.
• Ensuringthat reasonable care is taken at all times for the health, safety and welfare of yourself and other persons, and to comply with the policies and procedures relating to health and safety within the department.
• Carrying out any other duties which fall within the broad spirit, scope and purpose of this job description and which are commensurate with the grade of the post.

About you

You don’t need experience across all aspects of the job as that will form part of your development journey, but you will need experience of working in a team and in a customer focused environmentas this is the central to the role.

You’ll need to have a solutions driven and adaptable approach to working, thrive in a busy environment with a positive approach to challenges!

Ideally you will have previous experience of working in a customer basedFace to Face and Contact Centre environment. You will be able to smoothly manage differentprocesses whilst being able use your own initiative to 'think outside of the box’.

If you’ve got experience within West Northants Council, that’s great, but not essential; being adept at building relationships with key hiring managers and quickly developing an understanding of customer excellence ismost important.

At West Northants Council, it’s about our people. People who thrive with ambition, bubble with new ideas, demand better ways of working, caring about every detail, and who never shy away from a challenge. Our culture is a gateway for new experiences. A place to forge new opportunities. To empower you in your career and unite you with like-minded people.

Our vision is ‘to make West Northants a great place to live, work, visit and thrive’. We truly stand by this and work hard every day to make this a reality. Our corporate values, THRIVE, stand for: Trust, High Performance, Respect, Innovate and Empower, they underpin everything we do and how we deliver services.

We are committed to ensuring diversity, equality, equity, and inclusion is woven into the fabric of WNC and everything we do, to enable all colleagues to develop and maximize their full potential. We are a disability confident employer, a member of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a Care Leaver Covenant partner

The following film was created by us to communicate our intentions - watch WNC colleagues explain what DEI means to us .

If you need additional support or reasonable adjustments during the application process, including needing the job description in another format or language, please email [e-mail] for support.

West Northants Council, where careers thrive.

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• Location One Angel Square 4 Angel Street Northampton, United Kingdom