Customer Care Specialist, Accommodations (Remote - EST/CST Locations only)

Our Customer is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. Founded in 1900, they were created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education. Each year, our Customer helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success—including the SAT, the Advanced Placement Program, and BigFuture. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators, and schools.

We are seeking an Accommodations Customer Care Specialist on a contract basis to help support our Customer's business needs. This role is 100% remote. Candidates must sit in EST or CST time zone.

In this role. you will apply your superior case management skills and proactive outreach in support of a mission-critical operational function. You will be responsible for managing escalated cases, email responses, and certain Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) specific procedures. You will ensure that these cases are resolved within the specified guidelines and policies of the SSD Program. You understand the importance of asking probing questions to pinpoint a customer's needs and for guiding customers to the policies and resources needed to resolve their questions and challenges.


The SSD Customer Care team handles escalations for students with disabilities. This group of students, parents, and educators comprise a group that presents sensitive, nuanced, and complex issues for resolution. This team will deliver high quality customer service across all programs. This role temporarily reports to the Senior Director, Operational Effectiveness but will ultimately report directly to the Director, SSD Customer Care.

Responsibilities:

Provide Customer Service (50%)

• Become well-versed in SSD policy and processes that impact accommodated students, parents, and educators and the operational procedures necessary to resolve customer escalations.
• Establish a strong relationship with SSD Program and SSD Experience.
• Communicate complex SSD Program policies effectively, via email response as well as in written case status format.
• Work within aggressive timelines and with extremely sensitive conversations regarding accommodations for students with disabilities.
• Apply strong decision-making skills on and strong judgment about how to address complex requests and to de-escalate difficult customer interactions.
• Handle high volume caseloads while ensuring that cases are accurately researched and closed out within established timelines.
• Learn multiple customer service and operational system applications required to manage escalated SSD customer service cases.
• Take a hands-on approach to determine root cause analysis of escalations.
• Provide support of other work across the organization as needed to support shared goals.

Execute SSD Operational Processes & Recommend Process Improvements (35%)

• Manage cases and execute SSD pre-administration processes that meet service level agreements.
• Provide status on customer inquiries and trends within escalation categories
• Identify opportunities to improve customer relationships through optimized systems, training, and feedback mechanisms
• Sustain continuous dialogue with colleagues in SSD Customer Care, SSD program and SSD product owner to identify issues and execute process improvements, quality checkpoints to ensure the highest quality service in supporting these processes.
• Provide input to the voice of the customer initiative helping to drive continuous improvement and improved customer experience.
• Execute selected SSD post-administration processes.

Complete Special Projects (15%)

• Manage other self-assigned projects that arise through digital transformation and organizational method changes

Qualifications:

• 3-5 years experience leading and navigating complex customer issues and resolving those cases
• 3-5 years experience providing high quality support while managing assigned cases within service level agreements
• Strong organizational and prioritization skills and the proven ability to move forward within multiple projects in concert, as a leader, independently, and as a member of the team
• Familiarity with accommodations and/or disabilities a plus
• Adept problem-solving skills, including using data to inform decisions and actions
• A proven ability to not only build and manage customer relationships but also to build strong relationships across internal teams that may have conflicting priorities
• The ability to collaborate and provide guidance to teammates on complex cases
• The ability to navigate a rapidly evolving landscape
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office tools: Word, Excel, PowerPoint

We offer a competitive salary range for this position. Most candidates who join our team are hired at the median of this range, ensuring fair and equitable compensation based on experience and qualifications.

Please note: In order to create a safe, productive work environment, our client is requiring all contractors who plan to be onsite to be fully vaccinated according to the CDC guidelines. Prior to coming into our offices, contractors will be required to attest that they are fully vaccinated.

An Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against.