A vacancy has arisen within Transactional and Customer Services for two Customer Services Assistant working full time, 37 hours per week. Your primary base will be Council Offices, Civic Centre, Crook in the call centre. These vacancies are temporary for a period of 12 months. As a Customer Services Assistant, you will be responsible for answering incoming telephone calls from customers, residents, other service users and stakeholders, as well as interactions through our various digital channels. This role is working in a busy and demanding contact centre environment where you will be first point of contact for general enquires for our multiple service areas including refuse and recycling, garden waste and housing solutions. Full training will be provided however it is important that you possess excellent listening skills and be able to show patience and empathy whilst dealing with any challenging and vulnerable customers. WHAT IS INVOLVED? We are a friendly, and welcoming team, based in the contact centre in Crook Civic Centre. We take pride in delivering a high standard of customer service to our customers and work hard at maintaining a high level of performance and are a team who support each other. It is a busy, fast paced environment and no one day is the same. You will support customers, residents, other service users and stakeholders through all our contact channels with all general enquiries including refuse and recycling, garden waste and housing solutions enquiries. 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 and support will be provided. You will be working with targets and key performance indicators to achieve. We encourage you to contact Karen jones via email at karen.jones@durham.gov.uk to arrange an informal discussion about the role. WHAT WILL I NEED? You will need 4 GCSE’s (A-C) or equivalent and experience of dealing with the public through a range of contact channels. Please refer to the attached person specification for the full criteria. INTERVIEWS Interviews will be held week commencing 10th November 2025. We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for applicants that can show they meet all the essential criteria and have indicated they have a disability, are a looked after young person, care leaver or a veteran. OUR OFFER TO YOU We offer a competitive rewards package that includes attractive salaries, a generous annual leave entitlement of 27 days (rising to 32 after five years’ continuous local government service), membership of the excellent contributory career average Local Government Pension Scheme, and a range of flexible working arrangements including hybrid working (home and office) where applicable. Explore the full range of rewards and benefits on our website. Rewards and benefits are subject to individual terms and conditions. EQUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION We are a proud equal opportunities employer and believe a diverse workforce brings fresh ideas and drives service improvement. We welcome applications from everyone and make employment decisions based on skills and ability. As a Disability Confident Leader, we actively encourage applications from disabled people and offer support throughout the recruitment process. HOW TO APPLY Please note, we do not accept CVs. All applications must be submitted online via the Northeast Jobs portal. Use the ‘Person Specification’ section of the form to clearly demonstrate how you meet the essential (and where possible, desirable) criteria. Applications that do not evidence the essential requirements will not be shortlisted. For guidance on completing your application, visit our website. If you require assistance when applying for this role, please contact our Recruitment Helpdesk on 03000 26 27 27, or via email RecruitmentResources@durham.gov.uk All correspondence relating to your application will be sent from donotreply@northeastjobs.org.uk. Kindly check your spam/junk folder regularly to ensure you don’t miss any updates. CONNECT WITH US Follow us on Instagram Like us on Facebook Visit our website VPRS/161