Survey Enquiry Line Call Agent

Job summary

Do you have excellent communication and organisational skills? Have you got a good eye for detail? If so, this might be the role for you!

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UK’s largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

Social Surveys Directorate (SSD) is the largest Directorate in ONS, comprising 2000 colleagues, including the field communities, split across six divisions:

• Social Surveys Field Collection (SSFC)

• Social Surveys Telephone and Ports Collection (SSTPC)

• Social Surveys Research and Production (SSRP)

• Social Surveys Strategy, Research and Innovation (SSRI)

• Social Surveys Transformation (SST)

• Social Surveys Central Division (SSCD)

This post sits within Social Surveys Telephone and Ports Collection (SSTPC) division which encompasses the International Passenger Survey community, who are based at airports, seaports, and international train stations across the UK, and the Telephone Operations community, which is based within our HQ offices.

The division also incorporates the Survey Enquiry Line, who support field interviewers and the public who call in requesting assistance, and the Survey Validation team who undertake critical coding and editing work.

Job description

The Survey Enquiry Line Call Agents answer a high volume of calls from members of the public who have been invited to take part in government surveys in our inbound Customer Contact Centre.

Call Agents work collaboratively within the team to maintain delivery at peak times. They are the first point of contact for members of the public and ONS field interviewers.

Call agents deal with a variety of calls, including appointment booking, technical support and general queries relating to ONS surveys.

Call agents work on a shift basis covering the call centre opening times which are Monday – Friday 09:00-18:00 and 09:00-1300 on Saturdays.

The induction for this role will be delivered in person. You will be required to complete a one‑week induction programme onsite at the ONS Titchfield office in Fareham. The hours will be 09:00am – 16:00pm for the training. Following this initial induction period, you will then work primarily from your contractually allocated office location, spending at least 40% of your working time on site.

Working from 09.00 to 18.00 Monday to Friday, and Saturdays 09.00 to 13.00, the team provides a crucial role in supporting field staff in their work and to provide an effective service to survey respondents. Flexibility will be required within your role to support your team across these hours.

We welcome applications from candidates seeking part‑time or compressed working patterns. However, due to the nature of the work and the shift coverage required, the minimum number of contracted hours for this role is 30 hours per week.

The successful candidate will work in SEL and their duties will include:

• Effectively dealing with high call volumes from respondents who have been selected to take part in ONS surveys.

• Handling queries from ONS Field Interviewers, providing resolution at first point of contact, and passing on to the appropriate team.

• Accurately completing Service Desk requests and other documentation.

• Actively contribute to continuous improvement within the team.

• Ability to be able to work flexibly to support the SEL opening hours and business priorities.

Responsibilities

• Taking incoming telephone calls from respondents and triaging individual queries.

• Process requests and queries in a timely manner.

• Identifying and resolving issues using the information available. 

• Escalating queries of a more complex nature as required. 

• Completing documentation to a high standard ensuring data and information captured.

Person specification

Essential criteria

• Evidence of contact centre or inbound telephone experience, Software’s such as 8x8 or similar telephony packages.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

• Good IT skills. Agents will have the ability to learn and work with multiple systems, databases and software including MS Outlook, Excel & SharePoint.

• Ability to manage difficult calls and complaints from the public in a calm manner.

• Ability to work under pressure.

Behaviours

We'll assess you against these behaviours during the selection process:

• Communicating and Influencing

• Working Together

• Delivering at Pace

Benefits

Alongside your salary of £25,501, Office for National Statistics contributes £7,387 towards you being a member of the Civil Service Defined Benefit Pension scheme. Find out what benefits a Civil Service Pension provides.

The Office for National Statistics is part of the Civil Service, and as such we share a number of key benefits with other departments, whilst also having our own unique offerings to support our valued colleagues across the organisation.

Whether you are hearing about us for the first time or already know a bit about our organisation, we hope that our careers site will give you a great insight into the benefits and facilities available to our colleagues, and our fantastic working culture.