About the role of Customer Accounts Specialist Whilst your role will be based from our Twickenham office, regular travel will be required to the following areas: Kingston upon Thames, Richmond upon Thames, Guildford, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Epsom & Ewell, East Hampshire, Eastleigh, Basingstoke & Deane. Travel to other localities in the southern region may also be required. As a Customer Accounts Specialist, you will be responsible for locally based income collection and enforcement services. This will include all legal processes as well as enforcing court judgements. To achieve this, you will work closely with our regional team and alongside other teams reducing arrears and meeting your targets. Your main responsibilities will include dealing with customer visits and court/eviction attendance in the region. Here you will need to follow MTVH policies, procedures and adhere to its quality standards. Further, you will ensure effective debt collection through negotiation and payment plans and you will provide advice on welfare benefits including Housing Benefit and Universal Credit. In addition, you will work in collaboration with various internal and external stakeholders to ensure that given targets are achieved and income collection is effective. You will be required to develop relationships and attend meetings with several external stakeholders including local authorities, DWP and courts. What you’ll need to succeed: While good knowledge of the debt recovery, legal framework, Housing Benefits, Universal Credit and other welfare benefits and experience in managing cases through legal process is essential for this role, to really succeed it is your values and passion that will differentiate you. At MTVH our values of Care, Dare and Collaborate run through all that we do, and we’re looking for people who demonstrate these behaviours every day of the week. We are seeking people who are able to communicate, listen and negotiate on a professional level. It is required to negotiate debt collection and payment plans. You will need to be able to handle working under pressure and manage your own workload as you will be working in a high volume, target-driven environment. Additionally, you must be willing to work outside of standard working hours on occasions and you are expected to have a good MS Office working knowledge. To meet our commitment to providing safe, high quality services to our customers we will complete a basic background check with the Disclosure and Barring service once an offer of employment is made. This role requires you to hold a full driving licence and have access to your own vehicle. Working Hours: Working hours will normally be between Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 20:00 and Saturday between 09:00am to 17:00pm, however you may be required to work outside of these hours on occasion. Your pattern of work will be varied on a rota basis Please note :- we do not currently offer visa sponsorship. What’s in it for you? Our benefits include:- 28 days annual leave plus 8 bank holidays (pro rata for part time) per year 2 volunteering days per year for things like helping out in local communities An additional ‘Beliefs day’ once a year to have an extra a day off Enhanced pension with matched contributions of up to 9% Life assurance cover 3 x your salary Health cash plan scheme for your everyday healthcare needs which you can add your family members too Tenancy deposit – interest free loan to help with rental deposits Access to extensive learning and training opportunities with Wisebox platform Colleague virtual social platform with our workplace pages where you can keep up to date with the organisational activity and link in with colleagues Career progression across the organisation with our mentoring programme and apprenticeships We are committed to the wellbeing of our colleagues and support this as an organisation About us Learn more about our benefits and organisation by viewing our attached document Our promise Here at Metropolitan Thames Valley Housing (MTVH) we want to capture the value that difference brings and are committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion. We work collaboratively ‘Serving people better every day’ to educate, support and develop all of our diverse employees and the communities that we serve. We want every employee and every customer to feel comfortable enough to be their true self and are working tirelessly in the background to create an environment that encourages our employees to challenge non-inclusive behaviours and to be mindful of their own and other’s wellbeing. Our core values of Dare, Care and Collaborate demonstrate that we are a people focused business, solving social issues by working together! We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if a suitable candidate is found so we do encourage you to complete the application as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.