About the job

Job summary

Do you want to start your career in the UKs biggest civil service procurement company? Do you have a passion for customer service?

Do you want to work in a busy, successful environment and join an innovative organisation? Are you looking for a role that will support you and develop your skills within customer facing environments?

This Customer Service Advisor position could be perfect for you.

Job Summary

This is an exciting opportunity to begin a career in Customer Service.  In this role, you will work as part of a fast-paced Customer Service team and undertake the Level 2, Customer Service Practitioner Apprenticeship.

An Apprenticeship provides work-based, on the job training and development. The training is fully funded so it does not cost you anything – and you will earn whilst you learn.  They provide you with the skills, knowledge and behaviours you need to be fully effective in a designated role. Therefore, with very few exceptions, you do not need to have related work experience/ qualifications to apply.

Job description

What’s important throughout the Apprenticeship is that you put into practice what you learn, and capture evidence of this so your progress and increasing capability can be assessed.

We want you to get the most out of your Apprenticeship. To help you manage your learning we’ll give you over the duration of the Apprenticeship, a minimum of 20% of your paid working hours to focus on skills development. This means you won’t be asked to study in your own time.

However, both the role and the Apprenticeship are very demanding and you’ll need to work hard.  You will be assessed throughout and at the end of your Apprenticeship by submitting coursework, undertaking exams and presenting your work to others.

There is plenty of support and you’ll be part of a larger apprentice community and where possible we’ll get you involved in ‘apprenticeship related’ activities, so you’ll get to know people outside of your own team or Department. 

Further information can be found in the apprenticeship standard for this Apprenticeship Standard – you should read this to see the skills, knowledge and behaviours you will need to have learned by the end of your apprenticeship:

https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/customer-service-practitioner-v1-1

There you can also find a link to the assessment plan. This will give you details of how the apprenticeship is assessed. 

Apprenticeship Eligibility Criteria:

This is a development role so to be eligible to apply, the training and development you receive during this apprenticeship must provide you with significant new skills and learning. This is an essential requirement for apprenticeship funding and means you must not already be over-qualified or over-experienced in this type of work.

In addition you must:

• Not hold or be working towards a similar level or higher level qualification to the apprenticeship UNLESS this is in a significantly different subject/business area.

• Be aged 16 or over (there is no upper age limit).

• Have the permanent right to work in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK/EU/EA for 3 consecutive years before starting the apprenticeship.

• Have left full-time education by the time the apprenticeship starts and not be in receipt of funding for other learning programmes (including another apprenticeship)

• 2 x GCSES (or equivalent) in Maths and English at Grade C or above (or equivalent).

If you are a graduate you will not be eligible to apply as this apprenticeship is specifically designed to offer opportunities to non-graduates, to complement the various graduate programmes and senior entry routes also available on Civil Service Jobs.  These opportunities can be found via: https://www.faststream.gov.uk/

Please Note:

If you don’t meet the above apprenticeship criteria we cannot progress your application for this role.

If you are not sure whether or not you meet the criteria please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk

Main Purpose

• Supporting the Customer Service Centre by providing an efficient and effective single point of contact for external customer enquiries via the inbound and outbound telephone facility, email, letter and website.

• Provide high quality enquiry handling to customers & suppliers, ensuring consistency, accuracy and relevance of message content and delivery.

 Key Accountabilities:

These will include:

●      Provide a complete and informed response on first contact to all customers and suppliers.

●      Enquiry resolution service for a wide range of customers across Central Government, the wider public sector and the business / supplier community.  This requires strong CCS awareness to ensure a quality first line customer response to telephone, web and email enquiries.

●      Managing workflow and escalation of enquiries that cannot be resolved at the first line to the relevant point of contact within the organisation.

●      Ensure customer satisfaction and continuity of service is managed.

●      Compliance with internal QA, organisational service and advice standards, ensuring high quality of support offered.

●      Follow procedures for capturing and recording all customer generated communication and action accurately into the CRM system.

●      Ensure individual and team targets / KPIs for customer service are maintained.

●      Acknowledging complaints & where needed, the transferring of the complaint through to a senior advisor for resolution.

●      Develop specialist expertise in agreed business areas.

Person specification

Essential Criteria (To be assessed at application stage) :

• Experience of working to deadlines and defined standards.

• Ability to deal with wide ranging enquiries and follow through to resolution, along with the ability to develop solutions to address a problem.

• Excellent communication skills, both oral and written, tailoring all communications to suit the audience.

• Customer service ethos – experience of delivering within a service environment and achieving excellent customer service results or the awareness of the importance of delivering great customer service.

• A team player with the ability to multi task and work in a cross functional, fast paced environment.

• An ability to demonstrate a logical and pragmatic approach to challenges when under pressure.

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £24,985, Crown Commercial Service contributes £6,770 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

Things you need to know

Selection process details

This vacancy is using Success Profiles (opens in a new window), and will assess your Behaviours.

Selection Process

Candidates who are successful at sift will be contacted as soon as possible following the closing date and advised of the interview process in more detail. The sift will commence 08-08-24 and interviews will be held either at one of our offices or via video with interview times and dates to be confirmed. (Subject to change)

To find out more about our recruitment process please click here

Please note: Applicants can make use of artificial intelligence but the information presented at application must be factual.

A reserve list may be held for up to 6 months, which the Civil Service may use to fill future suitably similar vacancies across government for candidates who are considered appointable following interview. Should you be placed on a reserve list and want to be removed please contact recruitment@crowncommercial.gov.uk.

Feedback will only be provided if you attend an interview or assessment.

Security

Successful candidates must meet the security requirements before they can be appointed. The level of security needed is counter-terrorist check (opens in a new window).

See our vetting charter (opens in a new window). People working with government assets must complete baseline personnel security standard (opens in new window) checks.

Nationality requirements

This job is broadly open to the following groups:

• UK nationals
• nationals of the Republic of Ireland
• nationals of Commonwealth countries who have the right to work in the UK
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities with settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS) (opens in a new window)
• nationals of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein and family members of those nationalities who have made a valid application for settled or pre-settled status under the European Union Settlement Scheme (EUSS)
• individuals with limited leave to remain or indefinite leave to remain who were eligible to apply for EUSS on or before 31 December 2020
• Turkish nationals, and certain family members of Turkish nationals, who have accrued the right to work in the Civil Service

Further information on nationality requirements (opens in a new window)

Working for the Civil Service

The Civil Service Code (opens in a new window) sets out the standards of behaviour expected of civil servants.

We recruit by merit on the basis of fair and open competition, as outlined in the Civil Service Commission's recruitment principles (opens in a new window). The Civil Service embraces diversity and promotes equal opportunities. As such, we run a Disability Confident Scheme (DCS) for candidates with disabilities who meet the minimum selection criteria.