Customer Service Assistant (Receptionist)

What will you be doing?

Reception teams handle and resolve customer enquiries for a wide range of council services, including:

• Adult Social Care
• Children’s Social Care
• Libraries
• Highways
• General Council Enquiries
• Household Waste Recycling Centres
• Concessionary Bus Passes
• Blue Badges
• School Admissions
• Education Transport
• Registration of Births, Deaths, and Marriages
• Park and Ride

Reception work focuses on communication and supporting a diverse range of customers. This role offers the chance to work within a supportive team and build strong working relationships. Staff regularly have meaningful conversations with customers, making a positive impact on their daily lives.

The work environment is fast paced, with seasonal peaks resulting in busy periods. Staff must be comfortable adapting to change, using initiative, and responding confidently to customer needs. While the work can be challenging, it is also varied, interesting, and rewarding.

This setting allows individuals to develop strong communication, problem‑solving, and negotiation skills. Many staff progress within Customer Services, while others use their experience to move into roles across the wider council.

To be successful, applicants must be able to manage difficult or stressful situations, show empathy, and remain calm during challenging interactions. Every customer contact is different, and full training and ongoing support are provided.

The Reception sites associated with this position are located at New Shire Hall, Alconbury. Customer Services also manages the reception function at Wisbech.

The Role of a Customer Service Assistant

This is a face‑to‑face customer service role, and Assistants are scheduled according to business needs across our full opening hours.

 Assistants must be confident with IT and able to type efficiently. Applicants should ensure their typing skills are at a suitable level before recruitment assessments. Slow or two‑finger typing may make the role more difficult.

Key skills and attributes include:

• Excellent communication skills
• Ability to build rapport with a wide range of people
• Strong attention to detail
• Ability to retain information
• Confidence working at pace
• Ability to manage multiple tasks at once

About you

Minimum level of qualifications required for this job 

Qualifications Required           

• English GCSE at Grade C or above or proven literacy skills - Essential      
• NVQ in Customer Service- Level 2 or equivalent - Desirable   

Knowledge and Experience (Essential)                                  

• Confident understanding & application of Customer Service principles and procedures 
• A customer service background with proven experience of interacting with customers face to face, online and by telephone. 
• Demonstrable customer focus with a commitment to work towards a relevant professional qualification. 
• Working understanding of Windows & Microsoft packages (including: Word, Excel, E-mail, Power Point, Internet) 
• Understanding a requirement for confidentiality 

Knowledge and Experience (Desirable)     

• Knowledge of office systems/procedures 
• Knowledge of Council policies & procedures 
• Experience of local authority working 
• An understanding of legislation and guidance on Data protection and discrimination 

Skills (Essential)

• Able to communicate effectively and confidently, both verbally and in writing, with a strong commitment to delivering excellent customer service and treating all customers with dignity, sensitivity, and respect. 
• Active listening and strong empathetic skills 
• Is outgoing, positive, courteous and welcoming to all customers, providing a positive impression of self and the organisation. 
• Ability to apply knowledge and use initiative to identify solutions to customer requests, taking ownership to resolve issues at the first point of contact. 
• Able to utilise IT systems accurately to deliver services 
• Ability to follow defined administrative processes, ensuring adherence to specified service levels. 
• Able to work flexibly and demonstrate time management skills to meet the competing demands of the site/personal workload. 
• Self- motivated and able to work positively and constructively with others and independently to deliver the site workload with minimal supervision and to timescale. 
• Ability to solve problems 
• Confident and flexible- Aptitude for change 
• Active participation in coaching, training and development within a customer service environment 

Skills (Desirable)

• Commitment to continuous service development 
• Commitment to on-going personal and role development 
• Persuasion and influencing skills. 
• Ability to be confident and assertive when faced with challenging behaviour. 
• Able to communicate verbally and in writing in Lithuanian, Polish, Latvian, Russian as well as English. 

Our benefits

We value our colleagues in Cambridgeshire County Council and have developed a number of benefits in addition to the basics like annual leave, sick pay, pension and mileage…

• A comprehensive wellbeing package to cover all aspects of wellbeing, both in and out of work, which can also be accessed by your family
• Buy up to 4 weeks additional annual leave (pro-rata) through our salary sacrifice scheme
• Take your bank holidays flexibly to better suit your personal circumstances
• Make Additional Voluntary Contributions (Shared AVCs) to your pension with tax and National Insurance savings
• Access to development opportunities, apprenticeships and qualified coaches to support your personal and professional growth
• Paid volunteering hours each year so you can make a positive impact on our community during your normal working day
• Access to Peer Support Groups through our IDEAL staff equality, diversity and inclusion network
• Opportunities to nominate and receive Employee Recognition Awards
• An Our Cambs Rewards account, giving you access to in-store and online discounts as well as our Car Lease and Cycle to Work schemes

Take a look at our Employment Benefits Brochure attached to this advert to find out more.

About us

Cambridgeshire is a great place to work and live with a diverse population, an urban centre in Cambridge, historic Isle of Ely, Huntingdon and St Ives as well as more rural landscapes.

Our four values are central to our culture, driving everything we do.

We are proud to serve the diverse communities of Cambridgeshire and want our workforce to be reflective of this diversity, which we firmly believe benefits our colleagues, the organisation and our communities. If you don’t meet every single requirement in the job role but think this could be you, please don’t be put off.   We are committed to building a workplace that is compassionate and inclusive as well as diverse, so if you think you could be a good candidate for this role please consider applying and speak to the recruiting manager if you have any questions.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, along with our employee network 'IDEAL' and self-organised peer support groups help us to foster an inclusive, supportive and safe working environment where people feel valued, respected, and empowered.  We collect relevant diversity data for monitoring as part of the recruitment process to understand the diversity of our applicants and monitor any trends throughout the recruitment processes so that we can take meaningful action.

We are proud to be a Disability Confident Leader. We fully support providing reasonable adjustments throughout our recruitment process, as well as when you join us, and we encourage candidates to contact the Hiring Manager, whose details can be found in the advert, to discuss any adjustment needs. Through a Guaranteed Interview Scheme, we will offer an interview to all applicants who disclose a disability and meet the essential criteria for a job vacancy. On your application form you can indicate you are disabled. Some examples of reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process could include additional time to complete an assessment or printing a document on pastel coloured paper with larger font size and line spacing. We would value talking about what might be possible to enable you to join us and thrive, so if there is something that would help you to do your best during your journey with us, please get in touch.

Visit our jobs and careers section to find out more about our wide range of learning and development opportunities; apprenticeships; our wellbeing package; staff benefits; our commitment to equality, diversity and Inclusion. 

https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/council/jobs-and-careers