Technical Account Manager at SparkMeter

SparkMeter is a venture-backed company that was founded in late 2013. SparkMeter provides smart metering solutions tailor-made for rural and central utilities in developing markets, where 2.1 billion people live without reliable electricity access. The simple plug-and-play solution enables utilities operating in remote locations to access a range of features - prepaid billing, customer communications, and remote monitoring and control – that improve their operations and help them achieve financial sustainability. Our metering system is being widely adopted by utilities serving customers in Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Technical Account Manager

Location: Lagos
Type of Role: Full-time role with benefits

Description

• Come join SparkMeter’s Customer Success team and help increase electricity access in developing countries. As a Technical Account Manager, you will support our microgrid customers around the world as they set up and operate our smart metering system.
• You’ll engage with our customers over the phone, on video calls, and over email to manage the customer experience.
• You’ll work to improve customer satisfaction by making sure that our customers are getting everything they need as they build and expand their grid projects using our products.

You'll focus on:

• Supporting SparkMeter’s customer base. This is an external-facing role and we provide remote support for our customers around the world. You’re excited to work with customers to help resolve issues they encounter to ensure they are getting the best experience with our product.
• Technically assessing new customers. You are eager to learn what makes a customer a strong fit for our product and will work to better understand our business as a whole to ensure we focus on partnering with customers we can service well and profitably.
• Onboarding new customers. We work closely with our customers to give them a strong start with new systems, and to make sure they have all the information and support needed to keep their systems working well. You’ll take ownership of the various onboarding stages with our customers and ensure that their experience is positive and efficient.
• Managing accounts. You’ll work with existing accounts to understand their needs and how SparkMeter is performing for them. You will work with our Logistics team, Commercial Operations team, and Systems Engineering team to ensure we are delivering on our customers’ needs, whether for new hardware, new features, or additional training. You will help measure customer satisfaction and be a voice for our customers, ensuring their feedback informs our product development.
• Improving processes. You’ll help identify areas where the team can improve to ensure we are an efficient, high-performing team and that we are using the right tools for automation of processes and for reporting.
• Being the customer’s advocate on compliance. Regulations vary from country to country, and our customers turn to us to make sure that our solution will help them grow and be compliant with local regulations and codes. You will build on knowledge from our customers and markets to help guide our compliance team’s priorities and make sure that our customers’ needs are heard and understood.

In your first few months you'll:

• Learn our product and industry. We have a robust onboarding program so that you understand our product, its functionality, our market, and how to help customers understand it. And you’ll bring your own knowledge and experience in the process.
• Participate in and then lead onboarding calls with new customers. You’ll jump right into our work by joining calls with new customers to learn about our standard customer onboarding processes. After you become more familiar with how our products work, you’ll help us conduct remote training for new customers.
• Respond to support tickets. You’ll respond to customer support tickets in order to keep customer satisfaction high.
• Take part in managing accounts. You will work with our Commercial Operations team to understand the needs of our customers and to join in (and improve!) our account management touchpoints with new and existing customers, from sales calls with prospective customers, to product training, to post installation check-in calls, to customer satisfaction surveys and more. As you get more comfortable, you will start owning relationships with some customers.
• Create support documentation. You’ll review articles in our customer-facing knowledge base to make sure they are up to date.

Where You'll Work:

• You will be an early member of our Lagos, Nigeria office. Outside of time with customers in Lagos, you can expect occasional travel to meet with regional customers, likely no more than twice a month. Travel will typically be to visit customer offices, with less frequent travel out to remote sites.

Requirements
You'll be a good fit for this role if you have:

• Experience working with customers in account management, technical product training, or customer support. You are comfortable engaging with customers via email and over the phone and owning outcomes to solve their problems. You are passionate about building, testing, and validating systems to improve customer satisfaction.
• Comfort with technology: While you don’t have to be an engineer to do well in this role, you should be comfortable with computers, science and engineering concepts. You are excited to learn more about the technical concepts behind SparkMeter’s product. A background in energy or software are examples of experience that will help you grasp our product’s changing capabilities and limitations and ensure our clients can meet their objectives.
• A connection to energy and energy access: Our mission is to increase access to electricity in underserved communities, and your connection to our mission will inform your work and connect you to your mission-driven colleagues.
• Uncommonly organized problem-solver. You’re not intimidated by a challenge! You’ll use your knack for gathering information and collaborating with colleagues to create solutions to our customers’ unique challenges.
• Disciplined self-starter: You love devising new systems and getting all things in their right place. We’re a startup, which means we are building systems as we grow and require leadership from everyone in our company for this.
• Empathy: Our customers and partners are based in over 20 countries all over the world and come from many different backgrounds. You should be comfortable and enjoy talking with people who come from cultures different from your own.
• Strong communication skills: In order to connect to customers, understand their needs, and create great documentation, you should have excellent written and verbal communication skills in English.

We’d also like to see (but don’t require) experience with:

• Experience using a ticketing system. We use Zendesk to track customer support requests. Ideally, you should have some experience with Zendesk or another ticketing system.
• Industry experience. Whether you are interested in renewable energy, sustainable development, or energy access, having some exposure or interest in the field in which we work will help you better understand our customers, where they are coming from, and their needs.
• French language skills. Speaking French would be highly advantageous, as we have many French-speaking customers (and see a lot of growth in Francophone countries!)

Application Closing Date
Not Specified.

How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should:
Click here to apply online