King's College London

About Us

The King’s community is dedicated to the service of society. King’s Strategic Vision 2029 sets out our vision for the future, shaped around five priority areas: educate to inspire and improve; research to inform and innovate; serve to shape and transform; a civic university at the heart of London; and an international community that services the world. Our ambitious Education Strategy sets out the actions that we must take to transform how we teach, how and where our students learn and how we support them during their time with us. 

The Student Knowledge & Information department brings together colleagues who are focussed on helping students to get the information they need quickly and easily and also to engage with their programme and university life more broadly, through management of inbound enquiries and service requests, static and dynamic digital content, and outbound communications. Our remit covers all King’s students, from enrolment to graduation.

Student Services Frontline is King’s central team for enquiry management. Supported by a comprehensive knowledge bank (Student Services Online), the team handle a wide array of enquiries from current students, alumni and third parties, received through online enquiry forms, over the phone, through webchat and in person at our help desks.

We are part of the Students & Education Directorate, a collection of wide-ranging professional services in place to support King’s students and their education. As a directorate we manage the student lifecycle from application to graduation and beyond, to ensure a coherent and seamless student experience and effective administrative processes, working closely with King’s faculties to do so. 

About the role

Student Enquiries Officers handle enquiries from students, alumni and third parties via various enquiry channels including in person, online and by phone. They are responsible for providing excellent customer service and handling often complex enquiries using our Customer Relationship Management software (CRM), Microsoft Dynamics. Supported by a comprehensive knowledge bank (Student Services Online), the team work collaboratively with colleagues from across the university to provide an excellent student experience.

Key responsibilities include:

• Provide in-depth written and verbal information and guidance relating to multiple support services and administrative processes across the university to a diverse and multinational range of enquirers.
• Use research skills and knowledge resources to provide positive and timely resolutions to enquiries in a case management system (Microsoft Dynamics) ensuring accurate records and effective notes are kept, escalating complex cases and flagging trends to managers as required while sharing knowledge across the team.
• Liaise and collaborate with other teams within the Students & Education Directorate and elsewhere at King’s as needed to resolve enquiries.
• Adhere to processes, policies and legislation, including those relating to data protection, equality and inclusion, referring to specialists and other departments when necessary.
• Manage and prioritise daily workload, working to meet the team’s agreed Service Level Agreements and Key Performance Indicators and flexibly across our locations and settings, including face-to-face, phone, Microsoft Dynamics and webchat.
• Remain supportive, empathetic and positive when dealing confidently with challenging situations that arise in a busy frontline service, maintaining effective and appropriate boundaries in all work.

This is an exciting opportunity for candidates looking to gain experience in a student support environment, who wish to utilise their skills and expertise in customer service.

We encourage applications from candidates who have experience from both within and outside of the Higher Education sector where they can demonstrate the skills needed to succeed in this role.

This is a full time (35 hours per week), and you will be offered an indefinite contract.

About You

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. Relevant work experience and/or education: We think a wide range of different work and educational experiences could support you to be successful in this role. Relevant work experience might include work in retail or customer services. Relevant educational experiences might include higher education in a related discipline, professional qualifications, or other training.
2. Experience of handling enquiries within a customer-focused enquiry, information, and guidance service with the ability to interpret, analyse, diagnose, prioritise and problem-solve a range of enquiries.
3. Proven IT skills, including the ability to use a wide range of Microsoft 365 and/or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems (or similar) with the enthusiasm to learn new systems.
4. Excellent interpersonal and written communication skills, with the ability to both provide clear and precise communications on topics of varying levels of complexity, striking an appropriate tone for various channels and audiences (including those for whom English is a second language), and to support and reassure students who are in distress or feeling under pressure with empathy and compassion.  
5. Ability to take responsibility for own decision making while knowing when and how to escalate or signpost sensitive enquiries.
6. Ability to work under pressure and remain calm and resilient in a fast-paced, customer-focused environment, whilst working with others as an effective team, making an active contribution to achieving team goals, and sharing knowledge in support of excellent customer service to students.
7. Ability to take responsibility for your own learning and development, ensuring any specific training needed for your role is undertaken.
8. Understanding of the need for confidentiality with working knowledge of UK General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Desirable criteria

1. Customer service training and/or qualification.
2. Committed to making a positive impact on society, putting the needs of others first, beyond what might be expected or contracted.
3. Knowledge of Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer relationship management (CRM) software.

Full details of the role and the skills and experience required can be found in the attached job description which is provided on the next page.

Further Information

We pride ourselves on being inclusive and welcoming. We embrace diversity and want everyone to feel that they belong and are connected to others in our community.

We are committed to working with our staff and unions on these and other issues, to continue to support our people and to develop a diverse and inclusive culture at King's. We ask all candidates to submit a copy of their CV, and a supporting statement, detailing how they meet the essential criteria listed in the advert. If we receive a strong field of candidates, we may use the desirable criteria to choose our final shortlist, so please include your evidence against these where possible.

To find out how our managers review your application, please take a look at our ‘How we Recruit’ pages.

Interviews are due to be held in July.

This role does not meet the requirements of the Home Office and therefore we are not able to offer sponsorship for candidates who require the right to work in the UK.