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 – Commercial
Customer Hub, Francis Street, Hull
£28,943 - £30,467 per year
40 hours per week – Monday to Friday
We are seeking full-time Customer Care Agents to join our Customer Hub team in Hull, specifically supporting our Commercial Team. This team looks after customers from Sanctuary Independent Living, Homeownership, Student Accommodation, and Care & Supported sites.
The Customer Hub handles inbound calls relating to repairs, incidents, and general housing queries. Sanctuary manages around 120,000 properties, including 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 Customer Hub team deals with a wide range of calls, from minor repairs such as water leaks to urgent issues, like no heating or hot water in a full block of flats. We also support customers looking for a property with Sanctuary, assist with tenancy-related concerns, and handle queries including Anti-Social Behaviour. Understandably, some of our callers may be distressed or frustrated, so we are looking for individuals who excel at resolving complex customer queries and complaints.
To be a great Customer Care Agent, you will need:
* Confidence to handle a variety of situations professionally.
* Strong communication skills to engage with customers effectively.
* Emotional resilience and empathy to understand customer concerns and provide support.
While this role can be challenging, it is also highly rewarding. No two days are the same, and there is no better feeling than turning a customer’s dissatisfaction into a positive experience.
The role of Customer Care Agent - Commercial 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.
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:
* 25 days annual leave (rising to a maximum of 30 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
* Effective 1st April role salary is £28,943 per annum (rising to £30,467 after 12 months subject to satisfactory performance)
To view the job profile, please click here
Closing Date: 24 March 2025
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 #LifeatSanctuary on Twitter’
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.