Customer Care Officer

How You'll Make a Difference Working remotely as a Customer Care Officer, you will provide support and guidance to customers, resolving enquiries relating to council tax, housing benefit, the social housing register and homelessness support. The Contact Centre is a fast-paced and dynamic environment, managing a wide range of enquiries across multiple channels, you will predominantly handle enquiries via telephone, email and social media. You will need a flexible approach and the ability to adapt quickly to changing priorities while delivering a high-quality customer experience. What You Will Be Doing

• As the first point of contact for the council, you will handle a high volume of telephone enquiries, providing accurate advice, practical help and supportive guidance to customers.
• You will offer advice on housing benefit and council tax reduction eligibility, housing advice and homelessness support, as well as council tax billing and recovery.
• A key part of your role will be resolving customer queries by assessing and analysing benefit entitlement and signposting customers to the most appropriate services.
• Due to the varied nature of enquiries, you will need to work flexibly and adapt quickly to the changing needs of customers.
• You will accurately assess customers' financial information to help resolve queries and ensure correct benefit and support outcomes.

What We Need From You

• We require you to hold a relevant qualification, such as an NVQ Level 3 in Customer Service, or equivalent relevant work experience.
• It is essential that you have previous experience in a customer service, call handling or other front-line role, with confidence dealing directly with customers.
• You will be able to demonstrate strong initiative and problem-solving skills, taking ownership of enquiries and working effectively across revenues, benefits and housing services.

What You Need To Know

• All applications will be initially reviewed and if you are shortlisted, you will be invited to complete a short psychometric assessment. If you are successful through this stage, you will be invited to an in person interview.
• Please note that due to the nature of this role, it is a requirement of employment that a Basic Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is obtained.
• This role is not face-to-face, all customer contact is predominately via telephone, email and social media.

Interviews will take place on 24th June 2026.How a Career At South Gloucestershire Council Is Different

• We value our staff as individuals, investing in their careers and we are recognised for the quality, breadth and depth of our training and development offer, which helps make the greatest long-term difference in work.  
• We trust our team to work in the way which allows them to make the biggest difference and we continue to invest in technology to help staff do their jobs to the best of their ability and celebrate innovation.  
• We recognise that our diverse team of skilled and dedicated people make us a great place to work. We welcome applications from everyone and ensure that individuals are selected, promoted and developed on the basis of their merits and abilities.

Our teams at South Gloucestershire Council are making a real difference to the lives of people who live, work and learn here.

• We’re providing essential services across our internal network to ensure we can fully support our community.
• We’re positive and forward thinking, always looking for new and innovative ways of working work and we’re ambitious about the future.

We've achieved a great deal, but we need talented and dedicated people to ensure we continue to make a difference. We’re making a difference, be part of it! To view the full job description, please click this link: Customer Care Officer - Job Description