Team Lead, Technical Support

Your role:

The Technical Customer Support team helps ensure our services run correctly and smoothly for each customer. They troubleshoot services and use creative problem solving to get to the bottom of every technical issue. This team is available 24x7 to quickly assist our customers - whether it requires sifting through server logs, configuring software, or troubleshooting an Exchange environment.

The Team Lead works jointly with the Tech Leads to ensure the Support team has the resources and skills required to manage and clear the daily case queue and to proactively train, assess, develop and mentor any and all Support technicians to be proficient in all services and case types.  This role has a focus on Quality Control, Recruitment and management of Tech Admin and less experienced Support Specialists.

The role will also involve delivering ad hoc projects and working with other Support Leads, Managers, and the Support Services Director to drive the growth of the Support team and the business.

Your responsibilities:

People

• Management
• Manage team member time off requests ensuring adequate coverage
• Support the team in the review and improvement of existing processes and procedures
• Co-chair regular department meetings and mediate any personnel conflicts or issues that arise
• Review staff scheduling, peak-period holiday allowances, seating, and break time assignments

• Recruitment
  
  • Assist Manager to manage and forecast the Support recruitment needs, soliciting input and support from the Support Leads, Manager and HR.
  • Interview candidates (CV analysis, personality profiling, and skills assessment/ verification) in technical interviews and direct job shadow activities as needed.
  • Screen resumes, shortlist eligible candidates for employment, and interview candidates (CV analysis, personality profiling, and skills assessment/ verification) via telephone; attend in-person technical interviews and direct job shadow activities as needed.
  • Manage and oversee the probationary period of new hires
    
    
• Personnel development
  • In support of the Manager, contribute to the growth and development of the Support team by providing hands-on leadership and support to Support staff
  • Ensure progression plans, skills matrices, and SMART goals are reviewed and updated quarterly
  • Correlate individual team member skills matrices to identify common training and development needs
  • Maintain the team Skills Matrix for direct reports
  • Coordinate with other Team Leads to ensure ‘defense in depth’ with all services and case types covered by multiple specialists and technicians
  • Coordinate with Support Trainer, Manager and HR to support the team in developing soft skills such as professional communication, decision making, conflict management, resource management, etc.
  • Collaborate with Manager to review on-boarding / training / development programs and manuals on a quarterly basis updating with relevant changes and creating new artifacts as needed.
  • Develop an innate understanding of every employee’s strengths, development needs, goals
  • Mentor Support staff with complicated issues, setups, and integrations; verify proper setup and functionality before deployment to a client
  • Manage the probationary period and annual individual performance assessments of all direct reports including the solicitation of 360 degree feedback from appropriate stakeholders
    
    
• Performance management
  • Ensure all employees have annual SMART goals and manage employee progression against these SMART goals.
  • Deliver comprehensive annual performance reviews (IPAs) for direct reports as scheduled by HR, specifically reviewing past accomplishments and agreeing to future SMART goals
  • Manage team member vacation and time off requests including time in-lieu, ensuring adequate coverage
  • Monitor and proactively manage requests for sick and unpaid time off
  • Approve, monitor, and report on requests for remote work (no more than 2 days per month and not adjacent to a weekend or holiday)

Process

• Current Operations
  • Keep the Manager informed of all high profile cases and issues.
  • Ensure all processes are comprehensively and accurately documented on the internal Wiki (to a disaster recovery standard,; i.e. a newcomer could use Wiki content to complete a standard case)
    
    
• Customer Service
  • Oversee request and workflow queues to ensure all cases and inquiries are triaged and responded to properly and efficiently
  • Assist the team with complex problem solving in technical and/or service-related areas; advise on complex cases; attend client calls; troubleshoot and report
  • Report escalations/customer complaints/incidents, enterprise cases, work flow efficiencies and process development to Manager
  • Manage quality and service expectations for the team

Queue Management

• Case Prioritization
  • Assist and share resources with other Leads to resolve MAP, Message or project-related priorities.
• Oversee request and workflow queues to ensure all events/projects are tackled properly and efficiently
• Use internal reporting systems to help Leads allocate personnel resources accordingly
• Perform duties of a Senior Technician as business needs require
• Handle customer escalations and supervisor calls / manage internal escalations to Operations/Development teams
• Manage relationships with high profile customers, vendors and partners, and other Global Relay departments
• Intradepartmental Support

Systems

• Be the Manager's delegate to attend and contribute to Stakeholder reviews and brief the Manager, as required
• Non-personnel resource management, such as Support's telephone system
• Support tool development, maintenance, and improvements, such as Support's wiki space

Reporting

• Assist Manager in developing and maintain reporting metrics for all Support activities
• Assist Manager on the case quality initiative with the Business Analysts
• Maintain confidence and protect operations by keeping information confidential

About you:

• Experience
  • Minimum of 5 years of experience in SaaS Implementations or SaaS Technical Support
  • Minimum of 5 years customer facing assistance roles
  • A minimum of 1 year of previous training/instruction experience
  • High level working knowledge of Global Relay systems (frontend and backend)

• Management Skills
  • Proven proficiency in personnel leadership and workflow assessment
  • Demonstrated ability to coach staff and provide developmental feedback; provide reporting on this to leadership.
  • Engaging personality and proven ability to instruct a wide range of learning types.
    
    
• Office Skills
  • Very strong professional written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to write and speak English fluently, with strong editing skills
  • Exceptional time-management, organizational, and prioritizing skills
  • Good knowledge of Salesforce and Confluence WIKI
    
    
• Attitude
  • Goal oriented self-starter who can work independently and reliably with minimal supervision and has an appetite for continuous learning
  • Comfortable working under pressure in a fast-paced environment and able to handle challenging situations with integrity, empathy and sincerity
  • Strong work ethic with a willingness to multi-task and be flexible to take on varied responsibilities
  • Detail-orientated and inquisitive with an interest in problem resolution
  • Ability to impact day to day operations and effect change without being confrontational
  • Good judgment to proactively and independently solve problems and make decisions
  • A friendly, “can-do” attitude and customer focused approach

Working conditions:

• Fast Paced/High Stress Internal and Customer Facing Leadership Role
• Dealing with High-Level Client Personnel (Partner/CEO/CCO)
• Delivering instructional courses while standing for extended periods of time
• Weekend and off hours availability for scheduled activities, urgent outages, and ad hoc escalations may be required on occasion.