Service Desk Analyst

Summary and Main Purpose:

• As a Service Desk Analyst, you will be the first point of contact for all customers regarding software related issues.
• Requests will come through to the service desk via phone and email so it is important that you possess excellent written and oral communication skills and can deliver high levels of customer service at all times.
• Ensuring that all enquiries are logged on to the Zendesk application so that all tickets can be effectively tracked and managed.
• You will be expected to provide first line support whilst working within agreed SLA’s.
• Responsible for the efficient and timely escalation of issues and keeping customers informed of progress and/or resolution
• Identify opportunities to improve the service provided to our customer base, so that SLA’s are exceeded and customer satisfaction is consistently high.
• Provide assistance to colleagues both within and outside of the service desk team for any issues related to support and training.
• Ensure that at all times the company is represented as professional, courteous and helpful.

Key Accountabilities:

• Provide 1^st Line Support to all customers (both internal and external) via telephone and email giving assistance with our application.
• Ensure that all support requests are recorded accurately and professionally on the Zendesk system so that all tickets can be effectively tracked and managed.
• Ensure any issues which require further investigation are escalated to the Group Leader in a timely manner and clearly documented descriptions of the fault are provided, thus ensuring that a swift resolution can be found.
• Follow up with other support staff involved in resolution to ensure incidents are resolved, requests are filled, and the customer communication is complete.
• Increasing the number of first time fixes by information sharing and documentation of issues on the staff knowledge base.
• Take responsibility for ensuring that customers are kept fully updated at all times on the progress and resolution of issues that they have logged.
• Build strong relationships through problem understanding, timely resolution or escalation, communicating promptly on progress, creating a positive customer experience at all times
• Keep abreast of software developments and ensure any gaps in knowledge are addressed.
• Attend internal and external training courses relevant to company products, as required.
• Follow all standard processes and procedures and implement any changes to working practices as requested to do so.
• Some overtime may be required.

Person Specification:

In Return

You will be joining a successful fintech software company with unlimited opportunities for growth.

ParentPay offer competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• 25 days annual leave plus statutory public holidays
• Company matched auto enrol pension scheme*
• Group life insurance at 4 x annual salary*
• Option to join the company private health scheme*
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free car parking on site and easy access to main motorway network within 2 miles of the office
• Flexible working hours

* Terms and conditions apply.

About ParentPay

ParentPay created the market for online payments for schools and have grown successfully to become the market leading service provider to over 11,000 schools and academies and more than 200 local authorities in the UK.

We offer a range of flexible tools that allow schools to save time and money and enable over 3 million parents across the UK to have control and confidence when dealing with school payment matters for their children.

Product Designer

We are growing and looking for Product Designers

Mid, Senior and Lead roles available

About ESS

As the largest provider of education management software in the UK, we influence the lives of over one million people every day. Education exists to inform, engage, empower and our job is to help make this happen. We do this with a range of digital SaaS products which help deliver the best learning outcomes possible.

Why join ESS?

Make a difference. Design to empower educators, parents, and learners to deliver the best school and learning experience possible.
Build foundations. You will an integral role not only in building our new SaaS products but also in our culture, processes, and design community.
Supportive environment. Experienced mentors and peers to help you achieve your goals and create a creative culture.
Remote working (UK). We have evolved during the pandemic and our design and research team now work remotely, with occasional travel to our Bedford office for social and collaborative work.

Compensation and benefits. We are well-funded and offer a variety of benefits and extremely competitive salaries.

What we’re looking for?

We are looking for digital product designers (mid, senior and lead levels) to help evolve the creative direction and establish design within our agile teams. You should be an experienced designer comfortable with UX and visual design. Our ideal candidate has a strong digital product design background and experience working in a multi-disciplinary team.

Above all, we’re looking for someone who will advocate for the end-user and design guided by data. We value collaboration and while we are seeking experienced designers, we care more about potential and drive, than the length of your resume.

What you will be getting up to:

• From discovery through to final designs. You will design for a diverse range of users, platforms, and problems.
• Collaborating with a variety of disciplines (UX researchers, Analysts, PMs and Devs etc) in an agile, fast paced environment.
• Building empathy and compassion for the end-user while appreciating our business needs. You will be delivering a holistic solution that solves problems for users.
• Evolving design at ESS. Working with colleagues to raise the quality and grow the ESS design community, principles, processes, and systems.
• Be one of our voices of design, inside and outside of the company, sharing our work, evangelising its success, articulating the vision.

How to Apply?
Please upload your C.V, with a link to your portfolio and complete a few HR questions. We will get back to you as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer visa sponsorship.

Hiring process:

• Intro call (30 mins)
• Portfolio and competency interview (1 hour)
• Task/Workshop interview (1 hour)
• Potential offer
• Optional meet the team call (30mins)

Support – If you have a medical condition or an individual need for an adjustment to our process, and you believe this may affect your ability to be at your best – please let us know so we can talk about how we can best support you and make any adjustments that may be needed.

Payroll Co-ordinator

Job purpose:

To work with our payroll provider to process the payroll for c.500 employees in an efficient and accurate way, maintaining confidentiality and compliance.

Key responsibilities:

• Manage end to end processing of monthly payroll, for PAYE, NI, tax, new starters, leavers, changes, absence, benefits & pension updates to the outsourced payroll provider
• Translating data from HRIS and 3rd party providers including benefits and pensions to produce monthly payroll input files in an accurate manner
• Complete monthly checking of payroll and work closely with the HR team, managers and our payroll provider to ensure minimal errors in processing
• Provide a payroll advisory service for employees, providing a positive experience by responding to all payroll related questions and queries (including, tax, NI, benefits and pension queries) in an accurate and timely manner
• Manage processing for year-end inc. end to end responsibility for P11d processes (primarily for fleet) and supporting transition to tax at source for benefits in kind
• Maintain accurate records
• Produce monthly reports for benefits, pensions and childcare providers and working with finance to ensure 3rd party payments are accurate and on time.
• Communicate regularly with and maintain good relationships with providers to ensure accurate processing of the payroll and making improvements to processes (inc. pensions, benefits, childcare and payroll providers)
• Producing payroll calculations and liaising with HMRC as required
• Make recommendations to improve payroll processes and controls
• Keep up to date about payroll legislation and work with our payroll provider to ensure compliance.

Key interfaces for role:

Moorepay payroll provider, HR team, Finance team, Pensions provider, Benefits providers,

Key performance indicators:

• Accurate and on time payroll processing
• Data transformation on time and without errors
• Answering employee queries in accurate and timely manner

The company may expect you to undertake other tasks outside of this job description. This job description is not exhaustive and may be updated from time to time

Messaging and Parental Engagement Product Manager

Purpose

This is a fantastic opportunity for an individual to drive the onward strategy for a market leading messaging and parental engagement product set. Whoever takes on this great new opportunity will be a key player, and the businesses top messaging expert, in what is an ambitious and fast-growing messaging related organisation within a growth market.

Candidate Profile

• 4+ years messaging related Software Product Management, delivering innovative App based end user experience to both B2B and B2C environments. This will probably include previous experience of a fast growing mid-sized and entrepreneurial SAAS business
• In-depth knowledge of the messaging landscape in UK and Europe including: an understanding of a range of messaging systems
• Previous experience as an internal messaging evangelist, educating a business and keeping them up to date with market developments, risk, and compliance issues at a national and international level.
• Strong relationship and partnership management skills able to build valuable external alliances. Ideally this should include involvement in agreeing commercial terms.
• Demonstrated experience of working with data in a secure environment and awareness of data protection initiatives, such as GDPR
• A personality and style that is resilient, enthusiastic, confident, organised, autonomous, and driven

Principal Responsibilities

• To deliver great user experience, convenience, and security to customers with a particular emphasis on messaging and parental engagement related product functionality.
• Be the messaging and parental engagement evangelist within the business, educating a range of stakeholders on developments within the UK and European messaging landscape
• Relevant experience in SMS/MMS and text messaging, 2-way messaging (Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, etc.), omni-channel communications, mobile push notifications, email, and modern communication (e.g. RCS) channels to drive forward our messaging strategy
• Review and enhance existing messaging related external partnerships and when required proactively identify new potential commercial partners.
• Maintain a continuous focus on value
• Work in close partnership with Delivery Management team, providing regular key metrics and updates for management reporting

Immediate Goals

• Become the expert in your products, customers, and the market in which they operate
• Build and develop existing parity assessment to help to identify areas of duplication, product overlap, gaps, or differentiators
• Define onward strategy for messaging and parental engagement across the product portfolio with the aim of doubling parental engagement revenue over the next three years
• Get closer to the customer, analyse the NPS data and get a clear understanding of where current issues are
• Calculate the current CLTV and make present a tangible plan to increase by addition of parental engagement features

Software Developer

Overview

We are seeking exceptional Software Developers to join the ParentPay Development team.

After receiving training we’ll get you up to speed as soon as possible so that you are able to contribute to the design and improvement of our products and help us extend our already market leading position.

Our Technologies

• C# ASP.NET (.NET 4.5)
• Microsoft SQL Server
• jQuery / Knockout / Angular
• WebAPI / WebServices / WebForms
• Visual Studio & ReSharper / Visual Studio Code

Key Responsibilities

• You will work as part of a cross functional Scrum team alongside enthusiastic and passionate Developers, Business Analysts, Software Testers and UI designers. Working with the team to ensure new and existing functionality is of the highest quality.
• You will be involved in projects from their inception through to delivery. Working with Agile tools, techniques, and best practices like the Three Amigos to improve our products, focussing on delivering high business value features first.
• You will be expected to deliver high quality software meeting the business requirements, working directly with Business Analysts to ensure we create the best solution for customers and our application.
• You will be developing features at all levels of the software stack, including front end user interfaces, APIs and back end. Using a variety of technologies: C# (.NET 4.5) WebAPI, WebForms, Angular, Web Services, Async Services.
• We work within a Continuous Integration development environment and you will be releasing software to test rapidly and releases to production are made every 3 weeks using the scrum process.
• You will be expected to take an active part in all scrum ceremonies including presenting completed work to the wider team at the end of each sprint and contributing to planning and retrospective sessions to make sprints as successful as possible.
• You will need to be able to identify the optimal solution to minimise development time, QA time and change risk, without degrading code quality.
• The Development team at ParentPay take a pro-active approach to learning with regular knowledge sharing sessions on areas of the application and technologies. You will take part in these sessions and take responsibility for your own self-learning using tools such as Pluralsight.
• You will also receive regular coaching and mentoring from your team lead and other members of your scrum team to ensure your personal development continues throughout your career.
• You will implement software development best practice through the application of agreed processes whilst maintaining an analytical attitude and looking for opportunities to do things better!

About You

• You’re a passionate and enthusiastic software engineer with keen analytical skills.
• You have a degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or similar with a minimum of 2:1
• You have strong A-level results, ideally with Maths and Science subjects.
• You have excellent verbal and written communication skills and work well with others.
• You have development skills in C#, Java or C++. C# is an advantage but not essential.
• You are highly motivated and proactive, with a positive attitude and desire to complete the sprint and meet the team and business needs.
• You are able to apply precision and attention to detail to all aspects of your work.
• You have an ability to quickly acquire an understanding of existing code and work with this in new development
• You are capable of discussing software requirements and business problems with developers and non-developers. Using technical and non-technical language where appropriate to describe and summarise in a manner that can be understood at all levels.
• You are able to support other members of the team: Developers; Testers & Business Analysts.
• You can be a strong team player and work independently without constant management.
• You are able to work well under pressure to respond quickly to any production issues and find meaningful workarounds until a release can be made.
• You are flexible and adapt readily to changing priorities and working practices.

In Return

You will be joining a successful fintech software company with unlimited opportunities for growth. To help you achieve your career ambitions, you will gain access to various development teams (Developers, Business Analysts, Software Testers, UI designers Product Owners, Architects) across the Parent Pay group, providing you with a highly skilled and diverse support network.

ParentPay offer competitive salaries and a comprehensive benefits package, including:

• 25 days annual leave plus statutory public holidays
• Company matched auto enrol pension scheme*
• Group life insurance at 4 x annual salary*
• Option to join the company private health scheme*
• Cycle to work scheme
• Free car parking on site and easy access to main motorway network within 2 miles of the office
• Flexible working hours

* Terms and conditions apply.

About ParentPay

ParentPay created the market for online payments for schools and have grown successfully to become the market leading service provider to over 11,000 schools and academies and more than 200 local authorities in the UK.

We offer a range of flexible tools that allow schools to save time and money and enable over 3 million parents across the UK to have control and confidence when dealing with school payment matters for their children.

Customer Support Analyst

Customer Support Analyst – Schoolcomms, Bude, Cornwall
15 to 18 hours Term Time Only (40 weeks)
£7,000 – £8,400 (FTE: £20,000 to £23,000 per annum)

Aim:

Schoolcomms is looking to expand the customer support team. The successful applicant will assist customers with the implementation, functionality, and use of their school communication system.

The Company:

Schoolcomms is an exciting IT solutions company that has enjoyed phenomenal growth over the last few years.  We provide innovative communication and online-payment solutions to schools across the UK and pride ourselves on the quality of our products and services and excellent customer relationships.  Improved communication with parents and students is a top priority for schools and is being driven by Government recommendations.  The next few years provide a huge opportunity for expansion and to enhance our reputation as a first-class supplier in Education.

Objectives:

• Provide accurate and creative solutions to software difficulties to ensure customer satisfaction
• Acquire and maintain current knowledge of relevant product offerings, support policies and methods of support delivery
• Provide proactive training to customers to reduce inbound support in the longer term
• Customers are supported effectively and are confident with all aspects of the product
• Help to drive system usage amongst customers to ensure they are fully utilising the system
• Help the rest of the Schoolcomms team by providing a level of internal support relating to the software

Nature of work undertaken:

The applicant will be an integral member of the Support Team, providing quality customer service and technical support, with excellent interpersonal skills, timeliness, technical expertise, and commitment to the satisfaction of customers. Duties include assisting customers in resolving user queries and troubleshooting technical problems as well as offering support to colleagues. For the right applicant this position will offer the opportunity to grow within the company, undertaking other roles and responsibilities over time. The role is office based and full training is provided.

Required Personal skills and qualifications:

 Essential Requirements:

• Aptitude for providing positive customer service
• A ‘can do’ attitude
• Clear friendly telephone manner
• Strong problem-solving skills with proven resourcefulness in high-pressure situations
• Strong knowledge of MS Windows, and MS Office

 Desirable Requirements:

• Foundation Degree, HND or Degree in IT or similar field
• Prior related work experience
• Practical experience troubleshooting IT systems
• Proven customer service/account management skills
• Technical support experience

Customer Support Analyst

Customer Support Analyst – Schoolcomms, Bude, Cornwall
8:30am – 4:30pm Term Time Only (40 weeks)
£17,420 – £20,033 (FTE: £20,000 to £23,000 per annum)

Aim:

Schoolcomms is looking to expand the customer support team. The successful applicant will assist customers with the implementation, functionality, and use of their school communication system.

The Company:

Schoolcomms is an exciting IT solutions company that has enjoyed phenomenal growth over the last few years.  We provide innovative communication and online-payment solutions to schools across the UK and pride ourselves on the quality of our products and services and excellent customer relationships.  Improved communication with parents and students is a top priority for schools and is being driven by Government recommendations.  The next few years provide a huge opportunity for expansion and to enhance our reputation as a first-class supplier in Education.

Objectives:

• Provide accurate and creative solutions to software difficulties to ensure customer satisfaction
• Acquire and maintain current knowledge of relevant product offerings, support policies and methods of support delivery
• Provide proactive training to customers to reduce inbound support in the longer term
• Customers are supported effectively and are confident with all aspects of the product
• Help to drive system usage amongst customers to ensure they are fully utilising the system
• Help the rest of the Schoolcomms team by providing a level of internal support relating to the software

Nature of work undertaken:

The applicant will be an integral member of the Support Team, providing quality customer service and technical support, with excellent interpersonal skills, timeliness, technical expertise, and commitment to the satisfaction of customers. Duties include assisting customers in resolving user queries and troubleshooting technical problems as well as offering support to colleagues. For the right applicant this position will offer the opportunity to grow within the company, undertaking other roles and responsibilities over time. The role is office based and full training is provided.

Required Personal skills and qualifications:

 Essential Requirements:

• Aptitude for providing positive customer service
• A ‘can do’ attitude
• Clear friendly telephone manner
• Strong problem-solving skills with proven resourcefulness in high-pressure situations
• Strong knowledge of MS Windows, and MS Office

 Desirable Requirements:

• Foundation Degree, HND or Degree in IT or similar field
• Prior related work experience
• Practical experience troubleshooting IT systems
• Proven customer service/account management skills
• Technical support experience

Business Administration Assistant

Company Overview:

Creating secure cashless economies in schools, ParentPay is the UK’s leading provider of online payment, income management and dinner money administration solutions for schools, local authorities and caterers. Revolutionising the way schools collect income, ParentPay lets parents make payments to school online or in cash through PayPoint for anything from school meals and trips, to uniform and music lessons. Recognised as the domain experts, ParentPay are schools’ trusted partner for online payments, in an ever-changing world of education, where reputation and recommendation count for everything.

With the growth of the ParentPay group and acquisition of ESS, you will be part of an established organisation that offers benefits, friendly and flexible working schedules, and opportunities to grow and progress.

Job description

To manage the processes and resolve queries in the settlement of funds to our Schools, local authorities and caterers, to look after Settlement Debtors Collections and Client Bank account reconciliation and maintenance.

Tasks include:

• Running weekly settlement debtors spreadsheet
• Chasing settlement debtors
• Resolving settlement queries
• Caterer Change process
• Second bank approval
• Chasing bounced funds and unapproved accounts
• Refund process
• Checking, querying Online – Card payments
• Dealing with Debt/ Refunds cheques

The ideal candidate will be:

• able to work under pressure and towards deadlines;
• able to demonstrate an organised and methodical approach to work;
• able to use a variety of software packages such as Microsoft Excel, Word and Outlook;
• desirably familiar with SAGE software;
• well-organised and with attention to details;
• proactive team player as well as independent in the work environment

Job Types: Full-time, Permanent

Salary: Up to £21,000.00 per year

1st Line Service Desk Analyst

The primary objective of the 1st Line Service Desk Analyst is to provide a single point of contact between the services being provided and the users. Typically this will involve taking phone calls, handling e-mails and web queries whilst providing first class customer service to our customers in the education industry.

This role would suit individuals who have worked in Service, Hospitality or Retail based roles that is used to troubleshooting and general customer services. The ideal candidate would have excellent communication skills either face to face or over the phone. Full training and a clearly defined promotional plan is provided within this role which can open many avenues within the organisation.

You will be part of an excellent team working in a high paced but rewarding environment so its important that you have experience of and enjoy working in close and friendly team.

If you have worked in roles such as Service desk, retail assistant, retail advisor, service Host , receptionist , customer service advisor , hostess or host, IT service , retail supervisor , call centre , telesales executive or anything similar then please take the time to read more about this role

Tasks and main duties:

• Providing 1st class customer service via incoming phone calls, e-mails and through our customer facing portal.
• Managing customer expectation with the use of active listening and telephony skills.
• Be mindfully aware of the volume of work on offer
• Analysing Customer enquiries to determine correct prioritisation and classification.
• Taking ownership of customer enquiries and attempting to resolve new cases at first contact.
• Using remote support tools to attempt to resolve queries at first contact.
• Routing newly created cases to the specific 2nd Line teams where required.
• Educating customers on bespoke software used exclusively in the Education industry and minor Microsoft related issues.
• Assisting 2nd Line teams with their workload where required

Key skills and responsibilities:

• Have an eagerness to learn and develop new skills
• Great communicators in spoken and written English at all levels with an excellent telephone manner
• Computer literate and a confident user of Microsoft based programs
• Ability to work well under pressure and demonstrate a solid logical approach to problem solving
• Capable of asking clear and concise questions in order to ascertain the exact details of a customer query
• Conscientious and self-motivated
• Telephony experience in a Service Desk or Contact Centre environment
• Previous use of a Customer Relationship Management Software eg. Service Now would be ideal
• Previous work within a School and/or Educational Body would be ideal
• Experience of working in an ITIL compliant environment would be ideal

About Education Software Solutions

Education exists to Inform, Engage, Empower, Everyday. Our job is to help make this happen.

As the largest provider of education management software in the UK, we influence the lives of over one million people every day. Our aim is to empower educators, parents and learners to deliver the best school and learning outcomes possible. We do this with a range of web and mobile (iOS, Android) products which are built on the SIMS management information system.