Role: Customer Services Assistant
Grade and Salary: Grade 4, £23,581 - £26,038 per annum (Pro-Rata)
FTE and working pattern: 12.75hrs per week, 35 weeks out of 52 per year
Holiday Entitlement: 28 days annual leave plus 9 buildings closed days (and Christmas Eve when it falls on a weekday) (Pro-Rata)
Purpose of Role
To provide, as part of a team, a high-quality, professional and efficient service by responding to and resolving where possible enquiries from all customers about the Information Services Directorate’s services and functions and helping to ensure that IS’s resources, facilities and services are available and accessible.
You are required to provide an effective professional support service to Information Services customers: students, distance learning students, teaching staff, external borrowers, staff and student visitors from other institutions, researchers and the general public. You will provide an inclusive and consistent service appropriate to the needs of the customers regardless of any barriers such as language or disabilities, by conducting ongoing dialogue to establish individual requirements.
You will provide front-line support to enable customers to access HWU IT facilities and services, including email and printing, basic maintenance of equipment (e.g., filling printers), and facilitate the borrowing and returns service, including dealing with lending material, renewals, returns, recalls and reservations, re-shelving lending material in a timely manner, undertaking basic stock management tasks e.g., RFID tagging, as and when required by customers.
You will monitor and administer bookings for physical spaces within our managed premises and record occupancy and building usage levels to inform future planning. You will report faults, both systems related and building issues.
You will provide back-up for the Inter-library loans assistant, dealing with enquiries, issuing and returning items lent to HWU from other libraries.
You will be required to open and/or close the building, un/setting alarms, ensuring all machinery is switched on/off, particularly when the building is secured at the end of the evening during vacation.
Key Duties & Responsibilities
Enquiries and Information skills
You will offer regular first line and second line (where possible) support, face to face at the Service Desk and irregularly by telephone, by email and via social media regarding IS services, particularly related to borrowing library stock and access to library services. You will establish the nature and extent of the enquiry received from customers. You will decide whether or not you have the skills and knowledge to resolve the enquiry. If so, you will utilise online systems, standard resources or refer to printed sources: if not, you will refer the customer to a specialist colleague.
Professional development
You will attend training to update existing and develop new skills to ensure you can fulfil your current role and any new responsibilities consistent with this role.
Personal attributes
As a Customer Services Assistant you will be required to communicate regularly, both orally and in writing. You will be allocated tasks daily: these tasks may rotate according to agreed procedures. You will establish, through discussion with the rest of the team members, how to prioritise required tasks daily. As a team member, you must be generally aware of fluctuations in demand for service and adjust to customer need daily.
When allocated personal tasks, you will prioritise daily and team-based requirements to meet required deadlines. You will need to prioritise roving and monitoring tasks within the library building, for example, monitoring space, emptying book bins, collecting statistics (headcounts), with the demands of queue management at the service desk and maintaining printers in other buildings.
Essential & Desirable Criteria
Essential
1. The ability to communicate with staff, students and the general public about the University, not just Information Services, for example contacts within Schools, University rules and regulations etc.
2. Awareness of the rules and regulations governing Information Services
3. Awareness of the resources provided by Information Services
4. Working knowledge of equipment i.e., the printers, PCs, multi-functional devices and what to do if they fail
5. At least two years previous experience of working in a customer services role is essential, as is being enthusiastic, flexible and organised, with good interpersonal skills
6. Ability and willingness to learn and keep learning new digital skills and capabilities appropriate to your role and how it evolves
7. Understand and adhere to information security practices particularly as it relates to personal or sensitive information
8. Maintain awareness of my own digital wellbeing by being mindful of the length of time spent at a screen and the impact on mental and physical health in using digital technologies.
9. Knowledge and experience of working at busy service points with high levels of customer demand, problem solving and resolution of day-to-day issues, without frequent reference to line manager
Desirable
1. Experience of work in a higher education Information Service, preferably in a customer facing environment
2. Knowledge of Higher Education and the research process
How to Apply
Applications can be submitted up to midnight (UK time) on Sunday 16th February 2025.
Please submit your CV via the Heriot-Watt on-line recruitment.
We welcome and will consider flexible working patterns e.g., part-time working and job share options.
Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised, and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities. Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.
Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our university community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups.
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