Complaints Officer, Duty

Are you a calm problem solver who is passionate about getting the best outcome for your customer? If you answered yes to the above, then we would love to hear from you. We are recruiting to the role of Duty Complaints Officer in our Customer Relations Team within Children's Services. We manage complaints for Children’s Services and Adoption South East. This important role enables us to deliver our statutory and local complaints processes. We ensure complaints and feedback are properly recorded, investigated and responded to.

The Customer Relations Team are often the first point of contact for families who need help or information from Children’s Services Department teams. We help families and those working with them to find the information and advice they need.

As a Duty Complaints Officer within the team you will triage all incoming enquiries and help make a real difference in people’s lives. You will be the first point of contact for people who want to make a complaint or give feedback about Children’s Services. You will also provide advice, information and divert some enquiries to other services or organisations. You will prepare cases for allocation, problem solve, and manage a short-term caseload. Working with colleagues across Children’s Services, you will try to resolve issues that may not need to go into the complaints process. Your aim is to sort things out quickly, keeping the customer as the focus. The most interesting and rewarding part of the role is helping customers who feel something has gone wrong. The role is varied and requires you to build positive relationships quickly, using all methods of communication. You will have an understanding that the way we communicate with customers is essential so we can work with them and ensure that they engage meaningfully with our services.

Our comprehensive complaints policies and procedures will help you to provide fair, transparent and helpful information to customers. The post-holder would be expected to work every day. There is flexibility around hours worked. You will be required to work in County Hall with some days working at home. This role would suit an applicant who has previous complaints and or experience working for a public or regulated body.

We are looking for candidates who:

• Have excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Attention to detail.
• Can work independently, to tight deadlines.
• Can be sensitive and robust in their approach.
• Have a creative approach to resolving complaints, working within our policies and processes.

To apply for this role please follow the ‘Apply Now’ button above. When completing your application be sure to address how you meet all the criteria in the person specification drawing on any relevant work/life experience, education or personal interests. Interviews will be in person at County Hall in Lewes on the week of 19 May. If you are unavailable on these dates let us know and we may be able to schedule an alternative date to interview you.

We offer a diverse range of benefits to help and support you during your employment. More information can be found on our benefits page. This is a challenging and rewarding role that will allow you to have a real impact on our service users' customer experience. If you meet the essential criteria, we look forward to hearing from you.

For an informal discussion about this opportunity contact Polly Walsh, Customer Relations Manager at Polly.Walsh@eastsussex.gov.uk to request a MS teams call or phone call.