User Support Representative at Ushahidi

We are looking for a passionate user support representative to join our team. You will act as a bridge between users and product, provide users with peace of mind by setting appropriate expectations, and resolve any emerging problems that our users might face with accuracy and efficiency.

You are genuinely excited to help people. You’re patient, empathetic, and passionately communicative. You love to engage people to help them solve problems, especially when they are in a moment of frustration or confusion. You ask questions to better understand their problems, and you are kind in your answers.

New cultures, people and experiences give you energy; you work effectively and efficiently on distributed teams with diverse experience across many time zones. Given the freedom to work anywhere, you are self-guided and can work autonomously with superior communication skills. Chaos gives you joy, order is your satisfaction.

REQUIREMENTS

Responsibilities

• Manage large amounts of incoming customer support and lead inquiries
• Nurture online sales leads and handoff to sales team
• Identify and assess customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction
• Build sustainable relationships and trust with customer accounts through open and interactive communication
• Provide accurate, valid and complete information by using the right methods/tools
• Handle customer complaints, provide appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits; follow up to ensure resolution
• Take the extra mile to engage customers
• Provide reports to the product and sales team of insights from customers such as recurring issues, types of questions, where questions are coming from, etc.

What We’re Looking For

• Proven customer support experience or experience as a client service representative
• Strong writing skills and highly articulate conversationalist
• Strong active listening skills
• Outgoing and enjoys talking and chatting with users
• Familiarity with CRM systems and practices
• Customer orientation and ability to adapt/respond to different types of characters
• Excellent communication and presentation skills
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage time effectively

Bonus Points if you

• have used or deployed Ushahidi’s tools
• have experience working on an open source product
• Have experience working across multi-lingual and multicultural user base

Why You Might Be A Good Fit

• Independence. Ushahidi operates under a de facto system of commander’s intent. That is, the team agrees upon a goal, but how it is accomplished is left largely up to everyone. Nobody will be leaning over your shoulder telling you what to do everyday, we expect you to be able to do that yourself.
• Team oriented. Desire to work with and support other developers in the team. We rely on team members to support each other, and generally help each other keep winning.
• Intrinsically motivated. Ushahidi came from Nairobi, but team members work all around the world. If you need to come into an office and talk to your boss everyday to stay motivated, this job is not for you. If all you need is a crazy cool project, wifi, and coffee, then you’ll fit right in.
• Ability to get things done and ship. We appreciate perfection, but at crunch time: getting things done matters. You’ll need to pick the right balance between doing it right and doing it fast.
• Community driven. Desire to work with the community, dig into their use cases, and help them solve problems. Ushahidi has a large and dedicated community whose needs have evolved.

Why You Might Not Be A Good Fit

• We pay competitively at Ushahidi, however, keep in mind that we are still a mission driven non-profit.
• You only want to wear one hat. Ushahidi is growing (30+ employees) but we take on the goals of much larger organizations. In practice this means that all Ushahidians end up wearing multiple hats and working on multiple
• projects (case in point: I am writing this job description). If that excites you, great! If you are set on never venturing out of your job title, you’re going to get frustrated fast.
• You want to be in an office surrounded by colleagues. You will most likely be operating on your own unless you are based in Nairobi, where about half our team is based.
• We strongly encourage people from traditionally underrepresented populations in tech – such as women, People of Color, People with Disabilities, and LGBTQ+ people, etc – to apply! We have a diverse team and we love it!

BENEFITS

Why Working At Ushahidi Is Awesome

• Our goal in hiring is to find great people first, great skills second.
• We generally don’t care where you live. As long as you have Internet access, live wherever you want. Ushahidi team members currently live all over the world: from New Zealand, to Nairobi and San Francisco.
• We don’t care when you work. There are no “business hours” at Ushahidi, we are milestone based, not a sit-in-your-chair from 9 to 5 company.
• Yearly company retreat. We work remote, but once a year we get the whole company together in one physical location to plan for the year ahead, as well as hang out and enjoy each others company.
• Quality of life. Ushahidi attracts workaholics, so we all work hard to make sure everyone has a work-life balance.
• Other benefits: Take what you want vacation policy (Minimum 25 days a year), parental leave, allowance for health insurance, allowance for a coworking space.