Customer Experience Team Lead

Whatnot | $90,000-$100,000

Steph's Notes:

Work hard, have fun & do what you love to do.

So that's two red flags and we haven't even gotten past the header on the Careers page. I'm sure it'll be fine.

Another "Why work here?" section that's just "we're growing really fast!!!"

we’re hiring forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas.
The Customer Experience team is responsible for driving the best possible user experience through process improvement, order management, and problem-solving.

So you're saying there are a lot of problems?

As a leader of this team, you will be responsible for ensuring that our team of agents dig into every ticket to the lowest level of detail

I do know what they mean here, but this is just funny.

You’ll take those insights and make Whatnot 1% better every day by partnering with driving cross-functional teams to fix gaps in our product or experience that negatively impact our customers.

Lowest level of detail, indeed.

You are a leader with a strong desire and natural ability to motivate a team

This is not how professional leadership works. It's never a good idea to lean on charisma to manage teams rather than skill gained through training and experience.

Also, if you've taken a shot every time they mention performance by this point, you are now sloppy drunk. Drink some water.

The salary is decent for a Lead role, but this isn't really that. Given the responsibilities, this really should be a Director, making the salary middling at best.

However: now that I've gotten all my snark out of the way (oh, who am I kidding, *some* of my snark out of the way), let's talk about the benefits (other than health/dental/401k), which are freaking amazing:

$150 monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
Care benefits
-$450 monthly allowance on food
-$500 monthly allowance for wellness
-$5,000 annual allowance towards Childcare

That food allowance! The childcare allowance is probably an FSA based on the amount, but still, it's nothing to scoff at. In this economy, these benefits might make up for the middling salary, ngl.

However part deux: while this feels like it could be a young company still trying to figure out its culture and hiring practices, there are still some red flags that are hard to ignore, including asking for salary expectations in the application and an indication that it's been open for a long while, so I think it still belongs in Tread Carefully.

Original Job Description: Customer Experience Team Lead

🚀 Whatnot

Whatnot is a livestream shopping platform and marketplace backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and CapitalG. We’re building the future of ecommerce, bringing together community, shopping and entertainment. We are committed to our values, and as a remote-first team, we operate out of hubs within the US, Canada, UK, and Germany today.

We’re innovating in the fast-paced world of live auctions in categories including sports, fashion, video games, and streetwear. The platform couples rigorous seller vetting with a focus on community to create a welcoming space for buyers and sellers to share their passions with others.

And, we’re growing. Whatnot has been the fastest growing marketplace in the US over the past two years and we’re hiring forward-thinking problem solvers across all functional areas.

💻 Role

The Customer Experience team is responsible for driving the best possible user experience through process improvement, order management, and problem-solving. As a leader of this team, you will be responsible for ensuring that our team of agents dig into every ticket to the lowest level of detail so they can best solve customer issues and provide critical user insights to the business. You’ll take those insights and make Whatnot 1% better every day by partnering with driving cross-functional teams to fix gaps in our product or experience that negatively impact our customers. You will also be responsible for driving team productivity through performance metrics while delivering a quality experience, ensuring our users are getting a quick, and quality experience.

• Open to 12-9pm PST Sun-Thurs schedule
• Lead team performance and drive results in team productivity, quality, and customer experience 
• Manage, coach, encourage, and be responsible for the performance and culture of a team of agents
• Maintain functional knowledge of, and act as a subject matter expert of processes, product, and projects related to day-to-day operations
• Drive accountability on policies and other guidelines
• Create new and use existing reporting to identify areas to improve performance metrics and productivity 
• Build a culture of insights generation to improve product, process, experience and overall business by reviewing Sigma & Zendesk metrics regularly 
• Identify and report on trends early and often. 
• Partner with training and content to reinforce compliance with new launches, processes, and policies. 
• Address and resolve critical issues from partners and other teams
• Identify and call out areas of opportunity for Whatnot, helping improve or develop new processes to improve the user experience and business by understanding customer needs
• Other ad-hoc project work as the business requires

Team members in this role are required to be within commuting distance of our Phoenix, AZ hub.

👋 You

Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that low ego, a growth mindset, and leaning into action and high impact goes a long way here.

A hungry individual looking to continue their career in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment. Someone willing to take on any role or task, learn new skills, and be a part of building a great company. A customer service mentality with passion to reach the best possible outcome. Here’s what we’re hoping to see in your background:

• You have 5+ years of support operations experience managing support KPIs such as CSAT.
• You are a leader with a strong desire and natural ability to motivate a team, set and achieve targets, and manage career growth and team performance
• You have driven operational excellence, quality improvements, and performance-managed multiple agents.
• You are analytical and data-driven, with experience distilling large data sets to actionable insights.
• You are an owner, always looking for opportunities to better your work, team, product or customer experience
• You are comfortable making tough decisions that balance the trade-off between quality and quantity
• You have knowledge of Zendesk, data platforms such as Sigma, familiar with excel/google Sheets (Knowledge of SQL preferred) 
• You have experience in startups, marketplaces, or e-commerce (preferred)
• You have worked within multichannel support operations (chat, email, sms, phone) 
• You have familiarity with working with large, diverse customer support, and operations organizations (preferred)
• You have the flexibility to occasionally work shifts, holidays, and outside of standard schedule 

💰Compensation

For US-based applicants: $90,000/year to $100,000/year + benefits + equity

The salary range may be inclusive of several levels that would be applicable to the position. Final salary will be based on a number of factors including, level, relevant prior experience, skills and expertise. This range is only inclusive of base salary, not benefits (more details below) or equity.

🎁 Benefits

• Flexible Time off Policy and Company-wide Holidays (including a spring and winter break)
• Health Insurance options including Medical, Dental, Vision
• Work From Home Support
  • $1,000 home office setup allowance
  • $150 monthly allowance for cell phone and internet
• Care benefits
  • $450 monthly allowance on food
  • $500 monthly allowance for wellness
  • $5,000 annual allowance towards Childcare
  • $20,000 lifetime benefit for family planning, such as adoption or fertility expenses
• Retirement; 401k offering for Traditional and Roth accounts in the US (employer match up to 4% of base salary) and Pension plans internationally
• Parental Leave
  • 16 weeks of paid parental leave + one month gradual return to work *company leave allowances run concurrently with country leave requirements which take precedence.

💛 EOE

Whatnot is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We value diversity, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, parental status, disability status, or any other status protected by local law. We believe that our work is better and our company culture is improved when we encourage, support, and respect the different skills and experiences represented within our workforce.