Customer Service Specialist (Gateshead)

Start date: 4 August 2025

Rate of Pay: £12.86 per hour

Location: Gateshead - PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS AN ONSITE ROLE AND WORK FROM HOME IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR THIS POSITION

Shifts: Full time 40 hours per week. Monday – Friday between 08.00 am and 6:00 pm. You must be fully flexible to work any shifts between these hours.

Training: 11 days

The Role:

We are seeking dedicated Contact Centre Agents to join our team. We are looking for individuals who possess a unique blend of compassion, strong judgment, assessment skills, professionalism, and excellent time management skills. This role entails assessing caseloads in a timely manner. Your responsibilities include managing a dedicated caseload with empathy, professionalism, and confidentiality, while collaborating with relevant agencies and stakeholders to address complex issues. Ultimately, your role aims to enhance the well-being and financial stability of potentially vulnerable customers through proactive intervention and effective case management.

Key Responsibilities:

• You should be confident in conducting challenging but effective conversations.
• You are required to maintain multiple cases simultaneously, varying by type and stage.
• You will be responsible for managing a designated caseload.
• You will be required to question in a curious and confident manner, whilst being considerate of potential sensitivities, asking appropriate follow-up questions relevant to the uniqueness of the case as required to gather evidence.
• You should be able to review and compare multiple sources of information, including using reasoned judgement to assess contradictory pieces of evidence.
• You should be able to engage with potentially challenging and vulnerable individuals, whilst demonstrating empathy and excellent customer service skills.
• At times you will be required to work collaboratively within your own team and with wider teams to support delivery outcomes.
• You should be proactive in talking to relevant people to get advice and information when unsure how to proceed.
• You will be responsible for managing and conducting caseloads by following a structured review process in adherence to all legal and policy requirements.
• You will decide what evidence is appropriate to request as is required to confirm the validity of declarations, considering the uniqueness and context of each individual case.
• You will be accountable for planning and conducting robust interviews asking challenging questions to gather all relevant information; exercising judgement to tailor follow-up questions specific to each individual case.
• Gathering, verifying and assessing all available information, and deciding on an appropriate course of action.
• You will be required to record the progress of caseloads on specific systems, including maintaining and retaining relevant evidence in an evidence file including redacting and annotating sensitive material when appropriate.

Background Checks:

The role you are applying for requires that you are vetted to Baseline Personnel Screening Standard (BPSS). If your application is successful, we will ask you to provide documents/evidence to allow us to perform the below checks:

• Identity check
• Nationality and Immigration Status (including the entitlement to undertake the work we are offering)
• Basic Criminal Records Check (including international criminal checks if you have lived outside the UK in the last 5 years)
• Employment/Academic History Check - for a period of three years leading up to your application. We will require documented evidence of your three-year history such as employer/education references, payslips/P45s, other evidence of salary payments. If you had any gaps in work/education during this time, we will need evidence of what your activity was, e.g. travel, study, unemployment, volunteering etc. If your application is successful, we will provide you with a list of acceptable documents and how you can send them to us.

Please note that if you are selected for the role, we will require all documents/evidence before we can confirm your start date with us. All screening and evidence must be completed satisfactorily before commencement of employment. We strongly recommend you start to compile this information so you have it ready to supply when needed.

What else do we need from you?

• Strong verbal and written skills with the ability to show attention to detail.
• Ability to establish excellent customer relationships in a fast-paced environment.
• A can-do attitude with the ability to interact with lots of different people.
• Professional and emotional stability, able to remain professional and maintain professionalism and provide consistent customer service when engaging with Claimants.
• PC skills, and the ability to navigate multiple systems competently, with ease.
• A good consistent typing speed and the ability to multi-task.
• Take ownership of situations with positivity, resilience and a dedicated approach to providing service excellence.
• Processes will be ever evolving.