Customer Service Representative at Dow

Job Description

The Dow Chemical Company has a interesting job opportunity for a Customer Service Representative to be located in Nairobi, Kenya.

Receivable Representatives and Customer Service Representative is the customer facing focal point who is responsible for establishing effective relationships with our customers while leading internal and external resolution of all invoicing, payment and accounts receivable issues for the assigned customer base. This role is integral to the success of the Company's cash flow objectives, attaining Company Percent Current & Days Sales Outstanding targets for accounts receivable and in making payment a priority for our customers.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead activity at assigned customer accounts, proactively address issues, and apply creativity to develop and implement solutions.
• Strengthen customer intimacy by developing solid relationships, understanding customer needs and gathering market intelligence
• Manage customer orders through Customer Service work processes and systems.
• Ensure a thorough knowledge of the businesses’ products, businesses, applications, and service offerings.
• Partner with Customer Financial Services (CFS) and Sales to build effective relationships with customers in order to anticipate and deliver expectations.
• Support commercial strategies with customers, Serve as the Account Team lead to improve account management, meet the account plan and team goals.
• Identify and deliver value added services to our customers. Proactively provide differentiated services to our customers by thorough understanding of our service offerings.
• Differentiate between customer requirements and Dow capabilities; choose the best/cost effective solution.
• Actively contribute to the business goals, in particular for Customer Service.
• Ability to continuously seek opportunities to improve and enhance customer payment behaviors, ensure sales adjustments are properly authorized and issued accurately and timely. Knowledge, skill and ability to develop and implement payment and collection strategies in collaboration with the business strategy and corporate financial targets.
• Contacts customer for payment information on all due and near-due invoices. Researches and resolves customer payment discrepancies; works with customer and business to determine what corrective action(s) are required to eliminate future defects.
• Issues customer sales adjustments according to business standards/agreements and validates that adjustments meet internal control compliance by insuring that legal, financial and auditing requirements are met.
• Manages customer account reconciliations (for example, offsets, manual cash applications, and account reinstatements) in order to deliver accurate financial statements for Dow and the customer. Managing complex account receivable scenarios due to customer bankruptcy.
• Proactively identifies expiring payment term agreements with our customers, analyzes customer payment behavior against those terms, and recommends to the business an extension or modification to the terms in order to optimize cash flow.

Qualifications

Your Education/Certification and Experience:

• The most appropriate minimum education for this position is a Bachelors degree.
• Bachelor’s degree Accounting, Finance, Business Management or Business Administration
• Strong fluency in French, English and Arabic written and spoken
• Proven communication (verbal and written), interpersonal, problem solving and negotiation skills. Effective communication skills with others regarding customer issues and problem resolution.
• Ability to build and maintain relationship with designated customers.
• Works effectively as part of a team and contributes to team goals. Ability to work independently in a highly integrated team and communicate well with diverse groups of people across all levels and cultures.
• Consistent positive attitude that adds to our effectiveness and positive culture.
• Ability to effectively negotiate with internal partners and customers to achieve a positive outcome.
• Proficiency in Outlook email
• Proficient use of SAP
• Strong aptitude with Microsoft Excel
• Strong aptitude for data management / working with numbers
• Strong aptitude for attention to detail
• Aptitude for learning new technologies and systems.
• Strong potential to develop skills and competencies required for the job role and beyond.
• Strong multi-tasking skills and ability to handle multiple priorities.