View Vacancy - Consular Contact Centre Officer Cantonese/Mandarin

The British Government is an inclusive and diversity-friendly employer.  We value difference, promote equality and challenge discrimination, enhancing our organisational capability. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, race, colour, ethnicity, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, age, veteran status or other category protected by law. We promote family-friendly flexible working opportunities, where operational and security needs allow.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Consular Roles)
Consular

Main purpose of job:

We are very interested in applicants who are fluent in Cantonese/Mandarin. This is an exciting role at the FCO Consular Contact Centre (CCC) operation, working on varied, fast-paced issues. The successful candidate will be a key part of our friendly team, based at one of our contact centre sites (Malaga and Ottawa), and working across the global network of British consulates. This means that the job holder will be at times required to work unsociable hours to support teams in different times zones and:

  • Provide first contact to our consular customers across the globe by answering calls, through digital/online communication, via email and social media. A high level of written English is essential for carrying out these tasks.
  • Field consular casework enquiries, crisis scenarios and emergency out of hours calls.
  • Provide detailed advice, signpost to relevant competent authorities or escalate enquiries as required to stakeholders.  The Job Holder will need to record all information relating to calls & emails and ensure this information is up to date and accurate.
  • Update tools used by the GCCC for resource management, resilience and business as usual needs. Resolve calls and lead on carrying out UAT and other technical tests for new applications to be used by the contact centre. The job holder will also be required to support other contact centre staff on new systems and lead the shifts in the absence of a Duty Manager. The JH will need to liaise with the global contact centre team to carry out these responsibilities.
  • This position involves unsocial hours. It is a shift based position.

Roles and responsibilities / what will the jobholder be expected to achieve?:

Customer Contact

  • Responsible for receiving calls, written and social media enquiries during shift time, responding accordingly and recording actions taken. Officers will deal with distressed British nationals and some difficult customers and complaints (escalations), providing signposting, logging cases on our database, passing calls and cases to Consulates around the network as appropriate
  • Leading on all aspects of first contact with a focus on customer service and consular assistance for British nationals

Resource Management

  • Be responsible for monitoring call, social media and written enquiry activity and working to meet team and personal KPIs
  • Offering flexibility to assist with staff absences/post closures/technical failures and the need for staff language skills
  • Responding to different channels of customer contact to ensure the best possible customer service
  • To maximise the use of language speakers to assist consular callers.
  • Prepare and monitor data in relation to all key performance indicators (KPI).
  • Monitor call, written enquiry and social media queues continually, to ensure the best possible customer service is maintained at all times.

Stakeholder / Post Management

  • Responsibility with fellow officers for ensuring core scripts and guidance are consistent with FCO policy and service in line with SLA;
  • Responsibility for Post Essential Information (PEI) and contact information, ensuring it is accurate and up to date. Contributing to the continual development of our scripts and essential tools, to ensure handlers are able to provide essential information for over 100 countries
  • To represent the Consular Contact Centre to key stakeholders and other parts of the FCO, particularly in times of crisis and out of hours.

Customer Knowledge Management

  • Assisting the Team with call data received, ensuring that all data is recorded accurately and anomalies reported for action;
  • Being a key part of our customer knowledge management and quality control initiatives, helping to collate accurate feedback on what our customers are saying and helping to test the quality of our service.

Other skills / experience / qualifications:

  • Essential on arrival: Fluency in English (C level according to Common European Framework of Reference for Languages), verbal and written, with excellent communications skills;
  • Fluent in Cantonese/Mandarin
  • Intermediate level of the Microsoft Office suite;
  • Availability to work unsocial hours;
  • Strong customer communication and service skills;
  • Good geographical knowledge.
  • Previous experience working with a contact centre or customer service environment

Must have the legal status to live and work in Canada.

Desirable:

  • Any other language will be an advantage.
9 May 2021
Administrative Officer (AO)
Full-time
37.5
Americas, Caribbean & Overseas Territories
Canada
Ottawa
British High Commission Office
2
$51,422.22 CAD
24 May 2021

Learning and development opportunities (and any specific training courses to be completed):

  • Achieve a deeper understanding of the wide range of consular services that the Consular Directorate delivers.
  • Attain a better insight of the work done by the front-line consular teams at posts.
  • Acquisition of customer service best practices.
  • Improve networking and negotiation skills when dealing with external and internal customers alike.

The candidate will work on a shift-rotation basis (i.e. varying work schedule each week) from Monday – Sunday including unsociable hours. Night hours will be compensated. The candidate will need to be available to work Public Holidays. The exact working hours and shifts will be laid down by the Contact Centre in Malaga.

The British Embassy Network offers a strong benefits package.  This package includes generous vacation and leave time, and enriching learning and development opportunities.

Please be aware that you will only be able to apply to vacancies for Country Based Staff roles with the British Government through this official tal.net site (operated by Oleeo). Jobs may be advertised on third party websites, however our adverts will always link back to the official tal.net site. If you complete and send an application through any other site, we will not receive it.

This opportunity is closed to applications.