Supervisory Customer Service Specialist

Summary

This position is located at the One Metropolitan Square Building in St. Louis, MO. The position serves as Branch Chief and oversees the daily operations of the Customer Contact Branch; a fast-paced call center. Communicating and negotiating with Rural Development Leadership, contractors, and external contacts to manage overall operational needs to support customer and agency goals and objectives. This vacancy announcement is open to current Rural Development Employees only

Duties

• Performs the full range of supervisory duties, overseeing division staff; which is the primary customer-facing division for Servicing and Asset Management Office.
• Develops long-range plans and strategies to ensure the effectiveness of collection efforts. Develops responses and approaches to to emergencies and other factors that may impact collections.
• Participates in the system enhancements to ensure accuracy and efficiency. Directs and manages the development, implementation, and administration of the front-line collection service telecommunications process.
• Ensures the customer focused standards are minimize the line blockage and speed of response to wide-ranging customer inquiries. Develops efforts to reduce inbound call abandonment rate.
• Works along side with Office of Chief Information Officer (OCIO), Information Technology System (ITS) Division to develop enhanced telecommunication systems to improve collection and customer service process.

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including time-in-grade restrictions, and specialized experience, as defined below Time in Grade: Current federal employees applying for a promotion opportunity must meet the time in grade requirement of 52 weeks of service at the next lower grade level in the normal line of progression for the position being filled. GS-14: Applicants must possess one (1) year of specialized experience equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-13), or it's non-federal equivalent. Specialize experience is defined as performing the full range of supervisor duties and leading team members to support the agencies goals and objectives. Researching solutions when complex problems arise in loan servicing operations. Evaluating current customer service practices and implementing improved customer service strategies to create efficiencies in the delivery of loan servicing programs within an organization. Conducting management and system analysis to set short-range and long-range plans and creating reports to show effects of actions. There is no substitution of education for experience at the GS-14 level. Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Requirements

You must be a US Citizen or US National. Males born after 12/31/1959 must be Selective Service registered or exempt. Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check. Direct Deposit - Per Public Law 104-134 all Federal employees are required to have federal payments made by direct deposit to their financial institution. Successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/. Subject to one year supervisory/managerial probationary period unless prior service is creditable. New USDA supervisors must successfully complete all components of the required training program before the end of their probationary period. As a condition of employment for accepting this position, you will be required to serve a 1-year probationary period during which we will evaluate your fitness and whether your continued employment advances the public interest. In determining if your employment advances the public interest, we may consider: your performance and conduct; the needs and interests of the agency; whether your continued employment would advance organizational goals of the agency or the Government; and whether your continued employment would advance the efficiency of the Federal service. Upon completion of your probationary period your employment will be terminated unless you receive certification, in writing, that your continued employment advances the public interest.

Education

Qualifications are based upon meeting specialized experience only. Education cannot be used to qualify for this position.

How to apply

Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply and be considered for this position, you must complete all required questionnaires, assessments and submit all required documentation as specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. Resumes cannot exceed two pages. The application process is as follows: Click the Apply Online button. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended. Set aside about 1-2 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us. To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status:Visit https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/howto/application/status/. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status, and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application. Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration. Please ensure your resume does not exceed two pages. Applicants who submit a resume that exceeds two pages will be removed from consideration. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc.