Title:  Customer Care Agent - Housing

Sanctuary manages rented and shared ownership homes and supports community initiatives for thousands of customers across England. Our staff help make a real difference to the quality of people’s lives.

Customer Care Agent - Housing

Customer Service Centre, Francis Street, Hull

£27,118 - £30,258 per year

40 hours per week – Monday to Friday, plus some early evening and weekend working

We are seeking full time Customer Care Agents to join our Customer Service Centre (CSC) team in Hull. The CSC takes inbound customer calls relating to repairs, incidents and general housing queries. Sanctuary has around 120,000 properties ranging from General Rented Housing, Housing for older people, Homeownership, Student accommodation, Care & Supported sites and Commercial properties.

Being on the front line isn’t always easy! Our CSC team handles calls from minor water leaks to more urgent repairs such as no heating or hot water in a full block of flats for example. We also handle calls from customers who are looking for a property with Sanctuary, assisting with tenancy related issues and answering any housing related queries including Anti-Social Behaviour, so understandably our callers may be unhappy. We are looking for a particular type of person to be good at resolving complex customer queries and complaints.

Confidence, communication, emotional resilience and empathy – this is what it takes to be a great Customer Care Agent. With these skills, you can understand and respond well to the different ways that our customers can react, ensuring that they have a positive customer service journey.

Although this job can be challenging, every day is different and there is no better buzz than helping our customers by turning dissatisfaction into satisfaction.

The role of Customer Care Agent will include:

• Managing high volumes of both calls and emails and providing excellent customer service by concentrating on resolving the issues on the first contact where possible.
• Liaising closely with our housing and maintenance teams to ensure that issues are resolved in a professional manner.
• Having empathy and understanding when our customers may be upset or angry.
• Listening out for wellbeing cues, to identify vulnerable customers and escalate to our regional teams or the welfare services, as/when appropriate.
• Communicating with residents, staff and external agencies to investigate housing and maintenance related queries and complaints and provide a positive experience.
• Ability to work to deadline and hit KPI’s.
• Ability to spot potential for improvements and confidence to make suggestions.
• Evening and weekend working include offering an out of hours emergency service.

Skills and experiences:

• Previous experience in a customer service or contact centre role is essential, ideally handling inbound calls and emails.
• You must also have a professional telephone manner and the ability to cope with a high volume of calls whilst remaining calm under pressure. If you’ve worked as an emergency call handler, you’ll have this down to a tee.
• You must be able to handle different types of calls and email enquiries, adapting your style to our customers’ needs and be able to navigate computer systems.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to prioritise your own workload, as well as working as part of a team towards shared targets and KPIs.
• A positive attitude, a can-do approach and great communication skills.
• Experience of managing a variety of complex enquiries.

Why work for us?

Sanctuary Housing is one of the UK’s leading social landlords, providing around 120,000 homes across England and Scotland. We give our residents good quality, affordable homes in communities that they can be proud of. As part of a not-for-profit organisation, we reinvest any surplus we make back into the local communities we serve.

Our Benefits    

As part of our commitment to making Sanctuary a great place to work, where your wellbeing is of genuine importance, we have developed an attractive employment package. The package recognises your contribution, supports your physical, mental and financial health and gives you the flexibility to tailor your employee benefits by offering:

• 23 days annual leave (rising to a maximum of 28 days) plus public holidays
• A pension scheme with employer contributions from Sanctuary
• Life Assurance
• Employee Advice Service including counselling
• Cycle to Work scheme
• Voluntary health plans  
• Employee discounts
• Wellbeing support and tools
• Employee recognition scheme
• Employee Networks, with a shared interest in inclusion, and who provide invaluable support to colleagues
• Role salary is £27,118, (rising to £28,546 with an additional policy allowance of £1712 per annum after 12 months, subject to satisfactory performance)

View the job profile (if the link is unavailable please visit the Sanctuary careers website)

Closing Date: 26 November 2024

Before you apply, please ensure you have an updated copy of your CV. If you're unsure about any details or have questions about the role, our fantastic talent team will be happy to help you – housing.recruitment@sanctuary.co.uk

We reserve the right depending on application numbers to close or extend the closing dates for positions; we would therefore recommend an early application.

For an insight into what it’s like to work for us, take a look at our company page on Linkedin

Inclusion is one of our core values. Our goal is to be a diverse, inclusive organisation where our people thrive and meet our customers’ needs with fairness and empathy. We know having a range of ideas and opinions makes a difference. We encourage and welcome applications from people from diverse backgrounds to support this mission. We will make adjustments throughout your application process, in line with Sanctuary’s commitment to our Disability Confident employer status.

Building Equality and Diversity

Sanctuary Group encourages and welcomes applications from people from diverse backgrounds to support our commitment to offering an inclusive environment for our employees and customers.
We work closely with the Home Office in order to prevent illegal working.
Sanctuary Housing Services Limited is a subsidiary of Sanctuary Housing Association, an exempt charity.