Customer Service Officer - Valuation Support Unit - Durham - Durham

About the job

Discover a career in your hands at HMRC. Whether you're seeking purpose, growth, or a workplace that gives you a true sense of belonging, hear from some of our employees as they share their story about what it's really like to work at HMRC. This role is part of HMRC Valuation Office, formerly known as the Valuation Office Agency. We have recently integrated into HMRC. HMRC Valuation Office are the public sector's property valuation experts and advisers with a vision to be a world-leading provider of public sector valuations. Our work is vital to the collection of over 60 billion of revenue which goes back into communities, touching every citizen and every business across England and Wales.

Role Overview

The Valuation Support Unit (VSU) sits at the heart of our operations here in the Valuation Office. As a Customer Service Officer, you will play a crucial role in supporting our customers to ensure every customer receives a positive experience of the VO. This is a varied and fast-paced role, a typical day could involve handling a variety of customer calls, from providing guidance to a small business owner on business rates or responding to a query on Council Tax. We prioritise speaking to our customers via the telephone. The successful candidates will receive full call handling and technical training to give you the confidence and ability to help our customers. As a Customer Service Officer, you will also have the opportunity to handle customer enquiries via other communication channels and carry out a range of data processing and administrative tasks to support operational functions. This is a dynamic role where no two days are the same, requiring you to work at pace in a busy environment. While it can be challenging, you will always have colleagues and managers on hand to support you and help you develop valuable experience in problem solving, resilience and customer service skills.

Key responsibilities

• Providing excellent customer service primarily via telephone, and through email and written correspondence.
• Gather information and ensure our customers provide all necessary information correctly.
• Assisting customers with advice based on their query and managing customer expectations through clear communication.
• Providing assistance including explaining procedures or policies, supporting customers to understand our processes and justifying decisions.
• General administration and data processing tasks including using our tools and databases to gather and analyse data.
• Record information on appropriate systems including documenting customer interactions accurately.

Person specification

We are looking for someone with good communication skills who's passionate about customer service and enjoys the challenge of building relationships with customers. Quality is central to everything we do here in the VSU and so you should be a performance-driven individual motivated to meet targets and deliver against goals. You will be comfortable in dealing sensitively and professionally with people from all walks of life, some of whom may be vulnerable and under stress. To thrive in this role you'll be flexible, adaptable and above all willing to work as part of a team to respond to ever-changing priorities at pace, always putting the needs of the customer first.

Essential Requirements

• Customer focused with a passion for providing high standard and quality service.
• Excellent listening skills with the ability to communicate with different types of people with a range of needs.
• Work at pace, responding flexibly to emerging priorities and able to switch between different types of work as needed.
• Resilient with the ability to manage difficult situations in a calm and professional manner with empathy and compassion.
• Processes and records data safely and securely.
• Goal orientated individual who enjoys working in a target driven environment.
• Good IT skills including keyboard skills and working knowledge of Microsoft Word, Excel, and Outlook.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process: Managing a Quality Service, Making Effective Decisions.

Technical skills

We'll assess you against these technical skills during the selection process: Technical skill aligned to the Front-Line Help and Advice job family within the Operational Delivery Profession.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of 28,016, HM Revenue and Customs contributes 8,116 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. HMRC operates both Flexible and Hybrid Working policies, allowing you to balance your work and personal commitments. We welcome applications from those who need to work a more flexible arrangement and will agree to requests where possible, considering our operational and customer service needs. We offer a generous leave allowance that starts at 25 days, increasing by a day for every year of qualifying service up to a maximum of 30 days and a Civil Service Pension with an average employer contribution of 28.97%.