Garage Officer in Somerset

Role Purpose

Manage the process of renting council domestic garages, providing first point of contact advice for enquiries, including face to face, telephony, emails, social media, and digital customer interactions.

Provide a business support service within Housing complying with specialist / statutory frameworks. Provides professional advice, guidance and appropriate support to clients, managers, and professionals.

You will:

• Undertake an initial review of needs presented by the customer and to decide on appropriate next steps for the individual(s). Seeking assistance/advice from senior colleagues when appropriate.
• Advertise garages and manage bids received via the Homefinder system and liaise with successful/unsuccessful bidders.
• Verify Universal Credit applications via the portal and communicate with stakeholders.
• Prepare Tenancy Agreements for signing and arrange for new tenants to collect the keys.
• Organise distribution of keys.
• Inspect void garages and create a schedule of works, reporting any repair issues to the relevant team and ensuring these are done in a timely manner.
• Responsible for the creation of direct debits and collection of arrears.
• Ensure garage terminations are dealt with promptly and matters relating to ongoing voids.
• Ensure that tenants are keeping to the terms of their tenancy agreements and deal with breaches of the agreement as they occur.

Impact

• Will champion channel shift, adopting and looking for opportunities for a digital first approach, along with feeding back on any web-content that may need changing/updating if it is incorrect or confusing.
• To receive safeguarding contacts to clarify and establish facts and to assess if there is any immediate risk of harm to an individual(s).
• Model new ways of working and champion cultural changes.
• Responsible for managing contacts in a tactful, courteous, and professional manner.
• Regular contact with tenants, members of the public, professionals, and colleagues from across the business, requiring postholders to share their specialist knowledge, seek solutions and offer support that ensures continuity of service, consistent standards, and customer satisfaction.
• Understands statutory duties and policy frameworks for services and ensures they are appropriately complied with at the first point of contact.
• To follow the correct and/or mandatory procedures, gathering and documenting information concisely throughout the duration of all customer interactions to ensure accuracy, efficiency, and compliance.
• Ensures that regulatory and statutory deadlines are adhered to ensuring reports are received and processed on time from Housing officers and where appropriate, partner agencies.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

• Understand customer services values, equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• Local Authority or Housing Association knowledge.
• Experience of working in operational services and delivering customer-led services.
• Sound understanding of the office environment to provide effective administrative support. Knowledge and experience in the use of IT systems / finance systems such as spreadsheets, word processing and databases. The ability is required to identify problems, take appropriate action, or seek advice.
•Experience of working to tight deadlines, prioritising own workload and the ability to work flexibly and effectively.
• The appropriate education / qualification for this post is a minimum NVQ 3 standard / 5 GCSEs including Maths and English at C/4 or above combined with demonstrable standards of numeracy and literacy.
• Evidence of continued professional development.
• Vocational qualification related to customer services.
• Sound customer / client relation skills are required combined with an understanding of data protection and confidentiality issues.
• Ability to directly undertake and influence others on the importance of good customer services.
• Ability to motivate and empower others, be a positive team member and can work on own initiative.
• Good communicator