3 x Customer Services Officers

A vacancy has arisen within Transactional and Customer Services for three permanent Customer Services Officers working full time, 37 hours per week. Your primary base will be Council Offices, Civic Centre, Crook in the call centre and you will also be required to work across any of the Customer Access Points within County Durham.

WHAT IS INVOLVED?

As a Customer Services Officer, you will be responsible for answering incoming telephone calls from customers, residents, other service users and stakeholders, regarding council tax and benefit enquires. You will also provide face to face support in all our customer access points across the county as well as interacting with customers via email and through our digital offer.

We are a friendly, and welcoming team and take pride in delivering a high standard of customer service to our customers.

We work hard at maintaining a high level of performance and are a team who support each other.

Working in Customer Service is a busy, fast paced environment and no one day is the same.

As a customer services officer, you will be based in the contact centre at Crook but will be expected to travel to any of the access points in the County Durham area.

Due to the nature of the role, it is important to have excellent listening skills, patience, and empathy to be able to deal with what sometimes can be difficult and challenging interactions.

Full training will be provided, however it is important that you possess excellent listening skills and be able to show patience and empathy., Durham County Council currently operates a hybrid working policy where a model of 2 days in the workplace and 3 days at home/remote will apply. This model is pro-rated for part time roles and arrangements are at managers discretion, alternatively you can work all of your contracted hours within the workplace if you prefer.

EQUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION

We are a proud equal opportunities employer and recognise that a diverse, talented workforce brings new ideas and new perspectives, which will facilitate growth and improvements to services.

We are committed to ensuring that our employment policies and processes are fair and equitable to all. We welcome job applications from everyone, and successful candidates are considered only on their skills and ability to do the job.

As a Disability Confident Leader, we encourage applications from disabled people and provide support throughout the recruitment process.

You should have 4 GCSE's grade A-C or equivalent and have experience of dealing with the public on the telephone or face to face.

We offer generous rewards and benefits that are designed to help you perform at your best:

• Competitive salaries and 27 days holiday per year rising to 32 days after five years continuous local government service.


• Option to purchase up to 10 additional days annual leave per year.


• Excellent work/life balance through schemes including job sharing, compressed hours and flexi-time (allowing up to 13 flexi days per year).


• Hybrid working (home and office working).


• Excellent contributory career average Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS). Plus, top up options - Salary Sacrifice Shared Cost AVC scheme and standard AVC scheme for members of the LGPS.


• Wellbeing Portal and access to an Employee Assist Scheme.


• Wide range of learning and development opportunities including professional qualifications, coaching and mentoring.


• Employee Benefits Portal and Lifestyle Savings Scheme (discounts across a host of major retailers).


• Discounted DCC gym membership.


• Staff networks run by staff for our staff, including Race Equality and Diversity, Disability, LGBT+, Armed Forces, Carers, Menopause.


• Trade Union membership.


A range of other salary sacrifice schemes such as car leasing.Rewards and benefits are subject to individual terms and conditions.