Customer Access Team Leader Ref: 15-25

Salary: Grade 8, (£30,873-£36,841) per annum
Hours: Full time, 37 hours per week
Place of Work: Dereham
Basis: Permanent and fixed term (12 months)

Would you like a job where what you do:

• Make a real difference in the quality of customer-focused services delivered across all access channels at Breckland Council?
• Contribute to improving and enhancing customer service experiences across the organisation?
• Drive continuous improvement, support transformation, and lead positive change within customer services?

We are looking for a resilient and proactive Team Leader to join our Customer Access Team at Breckland Council. This is an exciting opportunity to lead and inspire a team of Customer Access Officers, ensuring we deliver high-quality, customer-focused services across all access channels. The successful candidate will be a strong communicator, confident in engaging with key stakeholders, elected Members, and Senior Management. You will work collaboratively with internal services and play an active role in cross-cutting project work that supports innovation, service transformation, and continuous improvement. A solution-focused mindset and the ability to drive forward change will be essential.

You will:

• Provide day-to-day leadership and direction to the Customer Access Officers, supporting their performance, development, and wellbeing.
• Ensure consistent delivery of high standards in customer service across all contact channels.
• Foster a collaborative culture within the team and across service areas to resolve customer issues effectively and efficiently.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with internal departments, partners, and stakeholders to help shape and improve service delivery.
• Use data and customer insight to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for service improvement and proactively develop innovative, solution-based approaches.
• Lead and contribute to service-wide and corporate projects, ensuring the voice of the customer is embedded in decision-making and outcomes.
• Support the delivery of strategic priorities within Customer Services, including digital transformation, channel shift, and customer access improvements.

About you:

Collaborative

• I encourage individuals and teams to work, learn and deliver together.
• I make sure people feel trusted, valued, informed and supported.

Ambitious

• I act as a role model, leading by example: motivating, influencing and inspiring others.
• I am motivational and drive positivity.

Results-driven

• I recognise good performance and take the time to thank, praise and celebrate achievements.
• My team are clear on what they need to achieve.
• I look for opportunities to develop people and nurture future talent.

Empowering

• I make sure individuals have control and a sense of purpose about their work. Work should make people feel good.
• I empower everyone to work in the most effective way, trusting in their ability to deliver, and encourage individuals to have the confidence to challenge in a safe space.

Supportive

• I help create an environment where individuals feel comfortable to be themselves and where they feel heard, included and valued.
• I promote and regularly check on individual's mental health and wellbeing.
• When individuals are finding things hard, I give them chance to talk and give them the help and support they need.

OK, I'm interested...but is it really the job for me?

As a Customer Access Team Leader, you will:

• Lead and motivate a customer-facing team in a fast-paced environment.
• Need excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to influence and build relationships at all levels.
• Demonstrable resilience, with the ability to manage competing priorities and support your team through change.
• Use your strong problem-solving skills and need a solution-based mindset.
• Have a passion for customer service and continuous improvement.
• Need experience of contributing to or leading project work, ideally within a public service setting.
• Have a collaborative approach with a track record of working effectively across services.
• Knowledge of local government services is desirable but not essential.

Closing date: 9am Monday 16^th June

Job summary

Description of duties

• Provide day-to-day leadership and direction to the Customer Access Officers, supporting their performance, development, and wellbeing.
• Ensure consistent delivery of high standards in customer service across all contact channels.
• Foster a collaborative culture within the team and across service areas to resolve customer issues effectively and efficiently.
• Build and maintain strong working relationships with internal departments, partners, and stakeholders to help shape and improve service delivery.
• Use data and customer insight to identify trends, risks, and opportunities for service improvement and proactively develop innovative, solution-based approaches.
• Represent the Customer Services Team at meetings with SMT, Members, and other key stakeholders.
• Lead and contribute to service-wide and corporate projects, ensuring the voice of the customer is embedded in decision-making and outcomes.
• Monitor KPIs and customer feedback and take appropriate actions to address service challenges and drive performance.
• Support the delivery of strategic priorities within Customer Services, including digital transformation, channel shift, and customer access improvements.
• Ensure compliance to all policies, procedures, standard operating practices, with recommendations for action and continuous improvement.

Primary Line/Performance Management Objectives of the Role

To support and guide the Customer Access Team.

Primary Leadership Objectives of the Role

Provide day-to-day leadership and direction to the Customer Access Officers, supporting their performance, development, and wellbeing.
 

This job description is not exhaustive.

The job description outlines the current position and will be subject to review in the light of development within the service, in consultation with the post holder as detailed in your Contract of Employment.

Experience and Knowledge

Essential

• Proven experience in a leadership role within a customer service or contact centre environment
• Microsoft office software
• Knowledge of variety of services provided by Local Government.
• Ability to search and navigate the internet effectively.
• Knowledge of and ability to access, read and maintain a variety of databases

Desirable

• Previous local authority experience
• Knowledge of Academy
• A working knowledge of customer relationship software preferably GOSS CRM.

Qualifications

Essential

• A good standard of spoken and written English (GCSE English at grade C / Level 4 or above or equivalent qualification or experience)

Desirable

• NVQ customer services.
• ECDL or equivalent computer skills

Behaviours

Collaborative - I encourage individuals and teams to work, learn and deliver together.

Ambitious - I act as a role model, leading by example: motivating, influencing and inspiring others.

Results-driven - I recognise good performance and take the time to thank, praise and celebrate achievements.

Empowering - I empower everyone to work in the most effective way, trusting in their ability to deliver, and encourage individuals to have the confidence to challenge in a safe space.

Supportive - I promote and regularly check on individual's mental health and wellbeing.

Health & Safety (exposure to risk)

None

What's it like to work for us?

We are passionate about our people and pride ourselves on being a great place to work, we genuinely care and know that a happy workforce is a productive and motivated one! If you're still not sure, here are some stats from our 2024 staff survey to convince you..

• 94% said they feel trusted and empowered
• 90% of staff recommend Breckland as a great place to work
• 89% said they have had opportunities to learn and grow in the last 12 months
• 94% think Breckland provide positive action on health and wellbeing
• 91% said they felt supported by their manager

If you STILL need convincing, here's what some of our staff say...

• "Breckland is a fantastic employer, lots of opportunities and support"
• "Having only just started, it is a great place to work, everyone says hello, is smiley and chatty. I like the groups that are on, like carers shed and neurodiversity"
• "We are encouraged to take regular breaks and there are mental health first aiders and a wide range of good promotional aspects of healthy living and wellbeing."
• "In times of need the council offers excellent support."
• "BDC really does seem to care about the wellbeing and happiness of their staff."

At Breckland Council we have embraced the Government's agenda to modernise local government. Our approach is to lead change rather than follow it, and to add the best value we can to our communities. We achieve this by developing our employees to their full potential, providing them with the relevant knowledge, equipment, and authority to carry out their duties.

We are a dynamic and innovative organisation that is always testing and learning as we seek to continually improve. We have never stood still in response to the emergence of new opportunities, changing customer demands, and ongoing funding challenges. We have exciting plans for how to deliver the best possible services to our residents and businesses.

Breckland as a district is a special place nestled in the heart of rural Norfolk, spanning over 500 square miles of beautiful countryside and forest, with five Market Towns and over 140,000 residents. We care, we listen, and we support people and businesses within our district. We have big ideas and we are innovative in our approach, coming up with ways to meet the needs of the local communities that we serve. Through our actions, we want to make things better.

But we know that we can't do it alone. We are a collaborative organisation and we work together with others to make a greater impact. We are also an organisation where our employees can grow and develop and are empowered to achieve and succeed. We are proud of our area, and by driving investment and enabling opportunities, we can maximise its full potential. We want to inspire aspiration to live, work, visit, or do business here: we want our district to be one of choice.

We will support and enable growth and change in our thriving, welcoming places where people and businesses choose to be, knowing their ambitions can be not just fulfilled but exceeded. By listening to people, by understanding what they need and by working together, we can shape what we have to offer. By doing so, we can benefit those who are already here and those who choose to come to live, work, visit, or do business.

We offer excellent conditions of service, including:

• A local government pension scheme (14 per cent employer contribution).
• Attractive holiday package (25 days increasing after three years' continuous Local Authority service by one day per year up to the maximum of 28 days, plus bank holidays)
• Free car parking.
• Remote-enabled working arrangements.
• A newly refurbished office. See what it is like working here by watching this short film: 
  

Our commitment to talent development, on the job learning and upskilling, training and professional memberships, will keep your knowledge and skills up to date.

If you would like an informal chat regarding this role, please contact Zoe Webster Customer Access Senior Lead by emailing zoe.webster@breckland.gov.uk

Closing date - Monday 16^th June 2025

APPLY ONLINE

Please be aware that if you are selected for this role there will be a requirement to undertake a DBS check as part of pre-employment checks.

Equal Opportunities

We are committed to being an Equal Opportunities employer, recognising the benefits of sustaining a workforce that reflects the diversity of the community we serve. We welcome applications from anyone who feels they meet the requirements of our vacancies. These are listed as essential requirements on the person specification.