Customer Service Assistant, Loughton

Permanent, Part Time - 18.5 hours

£25,081 per annum, pro rata

Location: Loughton

This role includes working Saturdays.

Do you enjoy working with people? Enthusiastic about playing a key role in your local community? A role model for excellent customer service? The Customer Services Assistant role within the library service encompasses all this and more. Working at the heart of the community, you will enjoy daily interaction with a wide range of people and have the rewarding opportunity to make a real difference to their lives.

The ideal candidate will enjoy working with customers of all ages and backgrounds. This includes planning and delivering regular events and activities for children, adults, families and older people, both within the library setting and at other venues in the community. You will also need to be confident in building relationships with local stakeholders, partners, and community groups to identify opportunities to work together.

Effective communication skills are a necessity together with good listening skills to ensure that you can deal with customer enquiries and queries appropriately. You will be required to carry out a range of clerical tasks and library routines, so the ability to learn and to work quickly and accurately under pressure is essential. You will need to be able to adapt and respond to a complex, ever-changing environment, taking opportunities to improve the way things are done, whilst considering best value for money for the customer and the organisation.

Part of your role also includes being a key holder so you may be required at times to open or close the library, therefore being punctual and reliable is essential. Library work is varied and can involve working on your own, as well as working with teams both locally and across the county, so you need the ability to motivate yourself for both types of work. Although the job will have a base location and a regular rota, you will be required to work flexibly, including working on Saturdays and cover at other local libraries. There may also be occasions where you will need to be able to work until 7pm.

Above all, we are looking for people who genuinely enjoy operating in a customer-focused organisation.

Accountabilities:

• Work as part of project or process team under the new operating model, ensuring excellent customer service is provided across functional output.
• Consistently and accurately work within customer processes and, where appropriate, suggesting areas of potential improvement.
• Deliver an effective, efficient face to face and telephone service to customers of Essex County Council, promoting a positive image through email, telephone, face to face, social media and letters.
• Provide a clear, concise and timely service to customers, to meet SLA and productivity targets.
• Administer and respond to applications from residents against defined criteria to communicate outcomes.
• Ensure that customers' enquiries are understood and resolved promptly by phone, email or face to face as appropriate.
• Challenge and suggest improvement to current processes that impact on the customer.
• Accurately input and interpret a range of data.
• Follow a schedule of work within defined deadlines, highlighting issues of concern as necessary.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Educated to RQF Level 2 (GCSE) in Maths and English. In addition, a level 2 qualification in administration, business or customer services or equivalent, or equivalent by experience in customer service.
• Experience of providing customer service across a large organisation.
• Well-developed working knowledge of Microsoft Office applications is essential (use of databases is desirable).
• Ability to work at speed and to criteria accurately.
• Ability to communicate, both verbal and written, in a manner which is easily understood.

At interview, in order to gauge candidate suitability, shortlisted candidates will be required to come prepared to deliver a short 3-minute activity which demonstrates your ability to engage with children. This can include reading a short children's story or sharing a rhyme and talking about how you would engage children in this activity.