Support Team Leader
Over the coming years, biotech will fundamentally rewrite the way we live. Gene editing and cell therapy are dramatically changing how we treat cancer and other major illnesses. Biofuels and biomaterials are transforming the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, and the makeup of everyday objects. Crop science and synthetic biology are producing sustainable and ethical food. Benchling’s mission is to accelerate the research that propels us towards this reality, and magnify its impact, through modern software.
Every day, scientists around the world use Benchling’s applications, platform, & analytics in their efforts to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. For these scientists, Benchling is the central technology they use to conduct their research. Our customers include pharmaceutical giants, leading biotechs, and the world’s most renowned research institutes.
ROLE OVERVIEW
The Support Manager will provide leadership for a growing and dispersed platform support and customer care team. Over the past two years, Benchling has been rapidly evolving our customer experience organization to meet the needs of the future. We need leaders who are excited by innovation and can help continue this expansion and execution of our rapidly evolving global support strategy. Responsibilities include leading support scalability and communications through well-planned resource management and reliance on key systems and processes.
Ideal match for our cultural and business needs:
- a great “people” person to work with a new team to help them flourish, and work with key business partners for common goals
- someone who embraces technology to solve problems, i.e. has a “clear understanding of the saas world and modern support tools”
- a leader with experience in supporting users/customers and maintaining a high bar of service, handling problems and issues with aplomb
- a person driven by innovation and kaizen
WHAT YOU WILL WORK ON
- Manage the daily operations of platform level support and customer care team providing excellence in service to all customers & academic users, including strategic resourcing & planning
- Manage, track and help improve outcomes for customer needs via various channels (chat/email/social)
- Build out existing training plans for product support and customer care team members
- Define escalation processes internally and externally with business partners to help resolve issues quickly and within service levels - this includes being on call as a key governing resource
- Monitor and report metrics and key performance indicators around support volume and case trending regularly, building influence with voice of the user/customer insights
- Work collaboratively with other functional teams across the company to achieve corporate goals
- Identify and implement opportunities for process improvements in all touch points
- Ability to interact with diverse technical groups, work in rapidly-changing environments
- Attend key stakeholder meetings to continually provide awareness of new and ongoing issues as well as quality improvement initiatives
- Drive post mortems to identify process gaps and take corrective actions to prevent recurrences of similar issues
- Drive overall support readiness for new products and features
ABOUT YOU
- Bachelor’s degree in a life sciences related field (biology, microbiology, genetics, biotechnology, neurology, etc.). Direct research or lab experience is a big plus.
- Experienced manager who loves building and supporting a team in pursuit of great results and professional development with at least 5 years experience in customer support/service management, and a minimum of 3 years directly managing a support/customer care teams of 10+ people.
- Excellent judgment to prioritize customer issues based on their urgency and severity, including understanding context of customer implementation or health status
- Excellent oral and written communication skills to work effectively with others both inside and outside departmental boundaries, at remote locations and/or outside the company
- Superior customer service skills – the ability to be empathetic, accurate, resourceful, conscientious and with a sense of urgency
- Experience working with a support community or forum for users to engage, learn and offer feedback
- Working knowledge of support industry best practices for world class customer service in technical support/services environment - particularly Salesforce, Zendesk or other support system, as well as Jira or similar
- Time management and organizational skills with the ability to prioritize work based on rapidly changing requirements
- Demonstrate ability to analyze and resolve complex problems and rapidly assimilate new knowledge and information - i.e. experience with Tableau, Looker or other analysis tools welcomed
- Experience in a start-up saas environment strongly preferred, but not required
- Systems and process-thinker who loves creating order out of ambiguity / chaos
- Flexible and able to adjust on the fly to new demands; a high sense of urgency, tendency towards action. And comfortable to work independently.
Benchling welcomes everyone. We believe every member of our team enriches our diversity and inclusion by broadening our ways of problem-solving for future challenges. Even if you don't meet 100% of the qualifications for this job, we strongly encourage you to apply.
LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES
- Admit mistakes and shortcomings
- Deliver results
- Disagree and commit
- Obsess over customers
- Rely on work ethic
- Show empathy
- Recruit and develop the best
- Sweat the details
- Think and communicate clearly
- Unite around the mission
PERKS AND BENEFITS
- Work with a talented yet humble team
- Competitive compensation & equity package
- Weekly virtual social events, and annual company retreats
- 401k, Medical, dental, and vision insurance (US Employees Only)
- Monthly health & wellness stipend (Currently US Employees Only)
- Yearly educational stipend (Currently US Employees Only)
- Flexible & Generous Vacation Policy: If you feel you need a break, you can talk directly with your manager to find coverage and support while you are out of the office. Need time off to vote? We've got you covered.
- Quarterly company-wide mental health days off
- Holiday Shut-down: company-wide holiday shut-down between Christmas Even and New Years
- Major US and EMEA holidays observed
- To support remote work conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic, Benchling provides each employee a one-time stipend of $1,000(USD) upon commencing employment, and additional discounted employee purchase plans for home-office equipment.
In following best practices and safety protocols, all Benchling employees are expected to work remotely until we are further advised that it is safe for employees to resume work in their respective office locations.
We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.
