The Chamberlain News

Birmingham council seeks ‘highly resilient’ individual on £75k to sort out call centre

Times may be hard for local government, but Birmingham city council is still prepared to pay a £75,000 salary to someone who can improve its much criticised call centre and website.

The authority is advertising for an “exceptional” individual with the “vision and drive to help shape our communications into one voice”.

Whoever gets the job will be responsible for overseeing the contact centre, which deals with hundreds of thousands of telephone calls from the public each year and returning to in-house management after being run by Capita since 2006.

One of the biggest challenges facing the new assistant director of customer services will be to persuade council customers to conduct business through the internet rather than face to face, thereby saving money.

Creating channel shift to the website has so far eluded the council, with most people who deal with the local authority preferring to communicate by telephone or through personal contact.

He or she will inherit a huge caseload of complaints about the call centre and website from councillors who have long been hounded by constituents who claim their calls and requests for services such as housing repairs either go unanswered or are not properly dealt with.

In an advert for the job the council says the successful applicant will develop and champion a citywide strategy for customer services provision, and deliver the city’s one contact vision.

The advert continues: “You will nurture support and effective partnerships across the council, with partners and other public service organisations. Managing resources and budgets effectively, you’ll ensure that continuous improvements are made.

“In no time at all, you’ll build an outstanding reputation for excellence – and our service director for customer services and elected members will look to you for expert guidance and advice on developing issues affecting customer services.

“To be successful in your application, you’ll bring substantial experience of working in a senior role within a large, complex political public sector, commercial or contact centre environment. As well as a proven ability to lead, motivate, inspire others, you’ll be able to influence and negotiate at a strategic level to ensure the best interests of our customers are met whilst ensuring quality and value for money are paramount.

“Highly resilient, you’ll always focus on putting the customer at the heart of what we do. Crucially, you’ll be capable of driving organisational change towards achieving a first-class, ‘one door’ customer experience.”