The District Council has just one job vacancy advertised on its website at the moment – as a collections officer:
We are looking for a target driven person to provide excellent customer service to customers.
As a Collections Officer, you will be contacting customers on a low income who are experiencing difficulties in paying their council tax following the implementation of the Council?s new local council tax support scheme starting in April 2013. Using your excellent customer service skills, you will be responsible for contacting customers to help them understand the new scheme and negotiate the best possible solution to help them pay their new council tax liability from April 2013.
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You will need to provide support and be able to go through a range of options to help them out. This could be setting up a suitable payment plan or helping them to review their finances and reduce their current expenditure. You will need to work very closely with the Citizens Advice Bureau to achieve these objectives.
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As a core member of the Recovery team you will need to have a minimum 6 months recent experience of collections within a debt recovery environment. If you enjoy working to targets and tight deadlines then this is the job for you. You will need excellent negotiation skills and be confident to use persuasive language during the chasing and following up of outstanding debts.
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This is a temporary 12 month contract. The position may be extended if the level of debt collected meets or exceeds expectations.