INTERNAL ONLY VACANCY. This post is open to existing Leeds City Council employees only. Applications will not be considered from external candidates.

Job title: Digital Customer Service Officer

Salary: C1 *GBP*27,711 - *GBP*30,060

Hours: 37

Contract: Permanent

Location: Hybrid/Merrion House one day a week (currently on a Tuesday)

A rare opportunity has arisen to join the social media team within the contact centre.

As a Digital Customer Service Officer, you will thrive on providing first class digital customer service on all aspects of council services and activities across the city. The main function of the team is to respond to enquiries received via social media and to moderate the council Facebook page.

Leeds City Council is one of the largest employers in the region with over 14,000 employees. We seek to recruit and develop talented individuals who embody our council values and ambitions.

About you

As a Digital Customer Service Officer, you will bring to the role:

• Working to and exceeding customer care standards (preferably with council tax experience)
• Experience of administering various social media platforms
• Ability to offer digital support and actively look to enhance processes to improve customer experience
• Ability to write and schedule digital posts, maximise accessibility and represent the council values
• Ability to foster and maintain useful contacts internal and external to the council

About the role

As our next Digital Customer Service Officer, you will have a keen eye for detail, excellent spelling and grammar, good thinking and reasoning skills and the ability to use your own initiative. You will need to add personality to digital conversations and your replies to customers will often be public so it imperative that you provide an excellent, coherent, and friendly service whilst being the voice, eyes, and ears of the council.

The role is integral to our social media team. As well as often receiving over a thousand messages and comments per week about every imaginable service the team also manage the general enquiry email inbox, the council YouTube and Google My Business accounts, the council Meta Portfolio and play a key role in project boards such as elections and council tax annual billing. The team works closely and proactively with P&R, corporate comms, web team, and the rest of the contact centre, as its front-line online nature means they often the first to know about any issues arising throughout the city.

What we offer you

We take pride in offering the best employee experience, with benefits including:

• a competitive salary and annual leave entitlement plus statutory holidays
• membership of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund with generous employer contributions
• flexible and hybrid working arrangements subject to service requirements

• a clear career pathway and continuing professional development opportunities
• a range of staff benefits to help you boost your wellbeing and make your money go further

How to apply

Complete the online application form.

Read our guidance for further advice on completing your application.

If you have any queries or would like an informal chat about the role contact Nick Moore, Digital Customer Services Team Leader: Nicholas.moore@leeds.gov.uk

We welcome applications from everyone and actively seek a diverse range of applicants from all backgrounds and cultures. We particularly encourage applications from, but not limited to, women, carers, veterans as well as LGBT+, ethnically diverse, disabled and care experienced people.

This role is based in the UK. Home Office guidance states that candidates must evidence their right to work in the UK prior to commencing employment, either as a UK or Irish citizen, under the EU Settlement scheme or having secured any other relevant work visa.

If you do not have the right to work in the UK, you must consider your own eligibility for sponsorship for a particular role through the Skilled Worker visaroute before applying. To be eligible for sponsorship you'll usually need to be paid the standard salary rate of at least *GBP*38,700 per year or meet one of the other eligibility criteria. Ensure you are eligible before applying.

Job Description

Job purpose

To produce, monitor and moderate content on the corporate social media accounts and support the development of digital/online strategies including (but not limited to) social media, chat bot, CRM (customer relationship management) and online forms.

To work within a team to provide a comprehensive customer focussed service to the authority, including operational cover as necessary, and support the building and maintenance of productive working relationships between the contact centre and its partners.

Responsibilities

• To have a good understanding of social media platforms and issues facing local authorities and the public sector
• To provide a customer service platform via social media by monitoring and responding to both public and private messages online, within agreed service level
• To monitor and moderate social media content to ensure Leeds City Council policies and procedures are adhered to
• To manage social media while adapting to changing circumstances and priorities
• To have responsibility for creating and scheduling social media content in-line with the authority guidelines
• To maintain individual and collective responsibility towards upholding the council online reputation to the highest possible standards by providing a high level of quality within written responses, sensitivity of moderation, mitigation of reputational risks involving contentious and offensive content, and quality assurance for scheduled posts
• To be the eyes and earsof the council on social media and to alert appropriately of any reputational risks and/or serious events
• To monitor and manage a range of email enquiries across multiple service areas, actioning requests and responding to customer enquiries at the first point of contact or signposting appropriately to ensure the best customer journey
• To manage Leeds City Council listings on Google My Business (aka Google Maps) and Bing by ensuring all locations are claimed, verified, monitored, and updated with the relevant information
• To manage the administration of the Leeds City Council corporate YouTube account
• To support the collation of analytics for monitoring and reporting purposes and for performance reports, within agreed deadlines
• To work effectively with the wider contact centre, web, communications teams, and other key members of staff to provide an effective liaison function between customer services and service partners
• To work effectively with others to support cross-service projects from a social media perspective, including information gathering
• Work with colleagues to promote channel shift and more cost-effective methods of contact with members of the public
• To provide support/cover for other services and undertake or support any necessary training
• To contribute towards the contact centre achieving key performance indicator (KPI) targets in relation to average speed of answer and customer satisfaction by supporting the team during peak demands, either through admin, telephone or email support
• To regularly review KPI performance to improve understanding of where service demand is, and make any suggestions for demand reduction/ channel shift
• Actively contribute to wider contact centre activities such as People Hour, Your Voice and team service days to support wellbeing and positive relationship building
• To foster and maintain useful contacts internal and external to the council
• To demonstrate commitment to and actively promote the full range of council values and policies
• To undertake any other reasonable duties commensurate with the grade of this post, as deemed appropriate by the Digital Development Manager or Contact Centre Management Team
• Commitment to own continuing professional development
• The duties outlined are not meant as an exhaustive list and will also comprise any other duties within the spirit of the post commensurate with the job evaluation outcome for this post.

Qualifications: Equivalent job-related experience

Essential requirements Candidates will only be shortlisted if they can demonstrate that they meet all the following essential requirements.

• Experience of administrating various social media platforms
• Keeping up to date with changes across digital platforms
• Ability to offer digital support and actively look to enhance processes to improve customer experience
• Ability to write and schedule digital posts, maximise accessibility and represent the council values
• Good knowledge of accessibility and digital guidelines
• Ability to contribute towards the production of digital reports
• Excellent literacy, numeracy and organisation skills
• Proven ability to deal efficiently, effectively and sensitively with a wide range of enquiries
• To understand tasks from a customer perspective and committed to putting the customer at the heart of everything you do
• Working to and exceeding customer care standards
• Ability to maintain complete confidentiality and comply with Data Protection legislation
• Communicating effectively with others in a wide range of settings
• Ability to foster and maintain useful contacts both internal and external
• Ability to contribute to partnerships involving various stakeholders to achieve positive outcomes
• Ability to work to specified work programmes and timetables, prioritising effectively
• Manage an ever-changing workload of ad hoc tasks across multiple service areas
• Dealing with matters which are highly sensitive and confidential
• Working in a team environment but with the ability to work individually without supervision and meet targets
• Ability to manage competing priorities while adapting to changing circumstances
• Working with several computer packages, including Microsoft Office, email and intranet
• Ability to support training programmes, user testing exercises, change and risk management exercises where appropriate
• Supporting projects and sharing analytics
• To support quality assurance exercises for new and existing project implementations
• Understand and embrace the council values, behaviours and codes of conduct
• Committed to own personal development

Essential Behavioural & other Characteristics

• Understand and embrace Leeds City Council Values and Behaviours and codes of conduct
• Committed to continuous improvement in all areas and work towards delivering the Best City Ambition of Health & Wellbeing, Inclusive Growth and Zero Carbon
• Able to understand and observe Leeds City Council policies and procedures.
• Carry out all duties having regard to an employee responsibility under Health, Safety and Wellbeing
• Willingness to actively participate in appraisal, training and development activities to ensure up, to date knowledge and skills.
• Flexible and adaptable to change to assist other services as required commensurate to grade.
• Be aware of and support difference and ensure equality for all working in an anti-discriminatory manner, upholding, equality & diversity of Leeds City Council.
• Recognise and appropriately challenge any incidents of racism, bullying, harassment, victimisation, and any form of abuse, reporting any concerns to the appropriate person
• The Council has adopted a flexibility protocol and the role will be expected to work within these parameters.

Desirable requirements Candidates are not required to meet all the following desirable requirements however these may be used to distinguish between candidates.

• Working recently in a local government contact centre environment
• Proven effective communication and relationship management at all levels of the organisation

Apply for this job