First Responder (Call Handler) - Home based
12 month fixed term contract, part time (21 hours/3 days)

Blue Cross are one of the UK’s leading rehoming organisations for animals. We support sick, injured and homeless pets and care for more than 40,000 animals every year through our rehoming, veterinary and education programmes.

What is the role?
As a First Responder you will be the first point of contact for customers seeking advice and guidance over the phone and via email through our nationwide ‘First Response’ service. The role will involve speaking to people who need help with a pet in their care, offering advice on a range of topics from behaviour services to people who are giving up their pets. You will have the support from teams such as the Internal Spacefinder support group to help crisis customers and pets needing help in emergencies, as well as teams across the charity who can provide expert guidance and advice if needed.

This is a 12 month fixed term contract and your normal hours of work will be 21 hours per week working Thursday - Saturday with Bank Holidays being worked on a rota basis. The role is home based, some travel maybe required for training purposes.

Want to know more the detail? Great! We have attached the job description which hopefully gives you everything you need.

What is required?
We are looking for people with the following:
• Demonstrable practical active listening skills
• Experience of working with customers in a busy customer service environment
• Ability to handle challenging situations with tact, compassion, and diplomacy
• Excellent communication, literacy, numeracy, IT and administrative skills including a good knowledge of Windows and MS Office
• Experience of recording and evaluating progress against agreed measures
• Understanding of animal welfare principals and experience of caring for a variety of species

It would also be great if you had:
• Employment or volunteering in the welfare sector
• Experience working in compliance with GDPR
• Experience of call handling
• Supervision of volunteers or paid employees
• Team development and training
• Experience working with CRM systems

Why work for Blue Cross?
• 38 days annual leave (including bank holidays) - pro rata
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Holiday exchange & enhanced parental leave
• Annual volunteer days
• Huge range of discounts across high street stores, insurance services & more
To read more about the benefits Blue Cross has to offer, please visit the 'why work for us' page on our website.

To apply for this role, all candidates must complete the online application process.

Salary: £18,598 per annum pro rata
Grade: 4.2
Closing Date: 9th December 2022

We reserve the right to close this vacancy early should we receive an overwhelming response.

At Blue Cross we are passionate about our commitment to diversity, inclusion and removing barriers, should you like to discuss any reasonable adjustments or changes to our recruitment process to support you to be your best then please get in touch. You can get in touch with us either via email at jobs@bluecross.org.uk, via telephone on 01993 825515 or if you would prefer a video call then we can arrange this using Microsoft Teams.

Blue Cross holds inclusion as a core organisational value. We positively encourage applications from suitably qualified, experienced and eligible candidates regardless of sex, race, disability, age, sexual orientation, transgender status, religion or belief, marital status or pregnancy and maternity. We actively embrace our differences and know that it is our differences that make us unique. You are very welcome at Blue Cross, without the need to hide any part of who you are.