Receptionist

Your role at the University of Kent

If you have experience of providing excellent reception services, good IT skills and the ability to actively listen to customers and deal with unexpected situations with courtesy diplomacy and patience this role could be ideal for you. Join our team, providing a friendly, helpful and informative reception service to students, staff and external visitors.

What will help you make a difference?

For much of your shift you will be the sole receptionist and therefore it is essential that in addition to having excellent customer service skills, you are able to deal calmly and confidently with all queries and bookings. When the students go home in vacation periods Kent Hospitality operates Conference/Bed and Breakfast facilities, so our reception services vary throughout the year to accommodate this.

You will be working to a rota for this role. A typical shift pattern may be 8am until 4pm on week one, followed by 12pm until 8pm on week two. Shift patterns may vary and may finish as late as 11pm.

Rewarding your contribution

You will enjoy a friendly, open and collaborative working environment and support in your development and wellbeing, along with a range of great staff benefits including:

• 43 days' leave per year (personal leave, bank holidays and additional days allocated for the Christmas period, pro rata for part-time staff)
• an excellent pension scheme with generous employer contributions
• study while you work discounts, cycle to work scheme, local business discounts
• on-site parking

For further information on our staff benefits please go to https://staff.kent.ac.uk/employment/benefits

As Receptionist you will:

Confidently resolve all initial enquiries from students, staff, residents, and others

Issue keys and maintain/monitor the security of them in line with procedure

Programme student and vacation guest bedroom key cards using access control software

Act as the central reception point for deliveries, sorting and collecting post, taking, and passing on urgent messages, reporting room defects and taking payments

Use our software module to search for and communicate with residential students by email and check students or vacation guests in and out.

What we are looking for in the right candidate:

GCSE grade 4/C or above in English and Maths or equivalent

Experience of working in a busy and demanding front facing customer service environment providing excellent customer care

The ability to demonstrate experience handling difficult and unexpected situations

A high level of IT skill and familiarity.

Meet your team

Kent Hospitality provides housekeeping, catering, bar, reception, conference, and events services. Together we are dedicated to delivering high-quality facilities and outstanding customer service with passion, pride, and professionalism.

The department manages student accommodation on the Canterbury and Medway campuses for over 6,500 students. Our accommodation has many accolades, including winning ‘Best University Accommodation for Groups’ for twelve consecutive years at the Group Travel Awards and were awarded Commercial University of the Year 2018 at CUBO’s (College and University Business Officers) annual Summer conference.

For further information, please visit: www.kent.ac.uk/hospitality

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