Senior Support Specialist, Merchant Advocacy (Remote, Canada)

Merchant Advocates handle exceptional cases where a merchant complaint has escalated beyond a standard support interaction. As experts in finding creative solutions, you are comfortable navigating difficult conversations and stretching outside of the standard processes to produce positive outcomes for merchants and Shopify. You'll also use merchant complaints and incidents to identify trends and partner with Support teams and leadership to implement long-term root-cause solutions to problems that create barriers for merchants.

Responsibilities and Duties:

• Resolve merchant complaints received from unconventional sources - BBB, Attorney General, front desk, executive emails, working collaboratively with other internal teams as needed.
  
• De-escalate and handle sensitive interactions, issues, initiatives and non-technical incidents (e.g. instances of abuse and harassment and/or threats of harm, or large initiatives like covid relief or black lives matter in frontline conversations), prioritizing the well-being of Shopify employees and merchants.
  
• Consistently and accurately record complaints to gather data and find trends.
  
• Utilize trend data in compelling ways to promote organizational influence.
  
• Support the post-incident analysis process by facilitating Root Cause Analysis meetings, ensuring problems are addressed at the root cause and actionable steps are identified to resolve them.
  
• Use sound judgement to make great decisions quickly, and understand the larger impact (positive or negative) of your choices ahead of time.
  
• Champion and contribute to projects which may involve other disciplines or crafts, building reciprocal relationships to positively impact Support.
  
• Manage multiple priorities and tasks with the appropriate level of detail and planning, prioritizing your time with minimal guidance..
  
• Inform team strategy through technical expertise and involvement in projects.
  
• Analyze all sides of the situation, understand context without being burdened by analysis paralysis or the emotion of a situation.
  
• Execute tasks related to merchant advocacy (ex. developing training for Support teams, doing research on merchant needs, etc).
  
• Display self awareness in identifying strengths and weaknesses in your own work.
  
• Provide clear, actionable, and creative feedback to others.
  

Some things you should be excited about are:

• Gaining exposure to a wide variety of teams at Shopify, including working directly with executives.
  
• Opportunities to act as a mentor in Support, helping others gain confidence in their de-escalation and problem solving skills.
  
• Looking beyond the process and operating in the grey - we believe in doing the right thing, not doing the thing right. Is there a process standing in the way of a great merchant experience? Let's find a better way.
  
• Joining a highly collaborative team with a diverse set of skills - we've got it all, from SQL to master wordsmiths.
  

Qualifications

• This role changes and evolves regularly - you'll need to thrive on change and be motivated by continuous improvement.
  
• Proven experience working in ambiguity and making strong decisions without processes to follow.
  
• Strong ability to engage productively and effectively in difficult conversations. You can confidently navigate discussions and make sure all parties feel heard and understood both in writing and orally.
  
• You connect the dots between individual events to see the big picture and what it means.
  
• Strong facilitation skills - you can bring a diverse group of people together and provide the structure needed to reach a common goal.
  
• Ability to recognize and understand multiple perspectives in a situation without getting blocked by analysis paralysis.
  
• You're a relationship builder who can flex your communication style and approach to suit different situations and personalities.
  
• Able to identify problems and create innovative solutions.
  
• Highly organized with strong attention to detail.
  
• Expert in time management.
  

Schedule:
EST - Sun-Thurs or Tues-Sat, 7am-3pm
PST - Sun-Thurs or Tues-Sat, 11am - 7pm

Along with your resume and cover letter, please and in the "Message to the Hiring Manager" section your answer to the below question:

You work as an ice cream scooper at Delicious Ice Cream Shop. A girl and her father visit the shop every Friday and the girl always chooses the same flavour, Superhero. However, this week when they visit, you tell the family that unfortunately Superhero is sold out this week. The girl begins to cry which makes her father angry, and he demands that you do something to fix the situation. What would you do to turn their experience around?

Closing Date: This posting will close September 22, 2021 (or once we have received enough applications).

You can expect to hear back from us within approximately 2-3 weeks after submitting your application.

Shopify is now permanently remote and working towards a future that is digital by default. Learn more about what this can mean for you.

At Shopify, we are committed to building and fostering an environment where our employees feel included, valued, and heard. Our belief is that a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion enables us to truly make commerce better for everyone. We strongly encourage applications from Indigenous peoples, racialized people, people with disabilities, people from gender and sexually diverse communities and/or people with intersectional identities. Please take a look at our 2020 Sustainability Report to learn more about Shopify's commitments.

Experience comes in many forms, many skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. If your experience is this close to what we're looking for, consider applying. We know that diversity of thought makes for the best problem-solving and creative thinking, which is why we're dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and encourage everyone to apply.

#LI-TJ3 #LI-REMOTE

How we hire

At Shopify, we put a lot of care and time into who we hire. We believe that in order to build the best products, we need to build high impact teams. Our recruitment process centres around what we call the Life Story interview, a conversational-style interview where we get to learn more about you.
Learn more about our hiring process