What's involved with this role: Temporary Customer Services Officer/Admin x 4 Job Ref: Bournemouth 5248339 Hours per week: 37 Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm Role Length: This opening assignment is for 6 months City: Bournemouth, Dorset The purpose of the role is to provide excellent customer service to a wide range of internal and external customers contacting the Council by e-mail, telephone, by post, in person or by future communication technologies. Key Receptibilities: Maintain and deliver excellent customer service, providing a consistently professional and courteous service to all customer enquiries. Manage all incoming enquiries to the Council by various channels including phone, post, web, email and face to face. Provide face to face cover at the Customer Service Centre or other appropriate customer services office facility. Provide a professional customer enquiry resolution service to all Council customers in a timely way, ensuring where possible that enquiries are resolved at first point of contact thus maximising customer satisfaction. Take responsibility for obtaining all information necessary for processing or resolving queries, only escalating it to other officers within Customer Services or the core service for professional judgement when appropriate. Use sound judgement and take decisions within established procedures for each service request, adhering to the Council’s Customer Service policies, performance standards and service level agreements. Receive and process all forms of payment made to the Council. Provide a comprehensive information service to customers, advising on services available from the Council and encouraging customers to use the most efficient method to access services and information. To maintain customer confidentiality according to the relevant procedures and guidance including compliance with the Data Protection Act, Freedom of Information Act and any other local or statutory requirements. Undertake personal development activities such as learning new systems, processes, services and skills in order to enhance and improve customer service skills, update council service knowledge and IT skills. Carry out general administrative duties required in response to customer enquiries, including entering and maintaining accurate records using the most appropriate system. Liaise in a constructive and positive manner with other service areas, colleagues and stakeholders within the Council and partner organisations. Have a flexible approach to working hours and location, ensuring the provision of a suitable and satisfactory customer service function at all times. NB: Please feel free to apply to us direct via jobstclrec.com by quoting the job reference and job title exactly. To help speed up the process of uploading your CV to the client we would suggest that you send us your CV in Word format (or equivalent) if possible, rather than as a PDF. If you are successful in securing this role, please note that for the entire duration of this contract, regardless of extension you will be working this role at the PAYE rate that has been advertised. For absolute clarity, we only work on a PAYE basis, rather than entertaining umbrella pay terms, we do not offer Ltd/umbrella or outside IR35 rates. If you wish to understand PAYE vs Umbrella more, please let us know and we can send you some additional information for clarity. Due to the number of CVs being sent to us under current market conditions, we cannot, unfortunately, respond to all applications. If, therefore, you have not heard from us within 3 days please make a working assumption that you have not been shortlisted on this occasion. We will, however, be very happy to receive future applications from you for other roles. Please quote the Job Title & Vacancy Reference No. in your application, or we will be unable to match your CV to the role being applied for. Other “Essential Requirements” – Please check to ensure that your CV addresses the following items: Qualifications: A good general education, including Maths and English at GCSE Grade C (or equivalent). Skills & Experience: Working in customer services, dealing with customers face to face and by telephone. Demonstrate excellent communication skills. Administrative processes and procedures. Some basic experience of repair reporting to residential dwellings desirable but not essential. Excellent communication and interpersonal skills. Ability to deal calmly with difficult situations. Strong IT skills including Microsoft packages or equivalent (e.g. G Suite). S Please note that clients invariably ask us to strip out contact details from CVs before we submit them for consideration. This is always quicker and easier to do if you send your CV to us in Word format, rather than as a PDF please