Senior Technical Support Account Manager at SAS

You will:

Serve as an advocate and escalation point for the customer acting as a liaison between all SAS divisions. Provide input and guidance during the customer lifecycle and contributes as a stakeholder to the success of the customer’s relationship with SAS.

• Act as a strategic technical advisor to customers on SAS support related activities
• Proactively communicate carefully and effectively with customer and experts across SAS during the problem resolution process. Accurately document and specify information in the tracking system during the entire track life cycle. Provide status updates for all outstanding issues.
• Consistently set and manage internal and external expectations and project pressures at all levels of technical and business management including coordinating/managing problem escalation activities and communications (outside business hours for business-critical problems as appropriate). Follow defined Standard Operating Procedures to ensure consistent delivery of standard and services. Co-ordinates SAS resources as required to deliver support services. Often perform these duties under pressure where decisions have a significant business impact for SAS and/or customers.
• Routinely build knowledge of SAS and specialized technical and business domain knowledge with an understanding of the business problems that are addressed by SAS applications and/or solutions. Apply expertise in multiple areas of the SAS system to help customer understand and solve their specific business problems, vision of business solutions, unique requirements, and operational capabilities and limitations. Help customer understand where risks exist, suggest strategies for mitigation, and recommend resources to help reduce risk. Facilitate the timely and sufficient resolution of all customer issues and requests. Work remotely or on customer site as necessary to deliver the services.
• Keep abreast of other vendors’ products. Advise users how SAS software offerings compete, and/or how to most effectively use SAS in conjunction with the vendors’ products. Contact vendors to report problems and obtain information.
• Collaborate with experts across technical support departments, SAS divisions, and partners when necessary. Keep internal and external stakeholder groups informed of problems, suggestions and general comments and concerns related to the software, the business domain, and the account, as appropriate. Act as an advocate for the customer.
• Identify and share account intelligence with sales account teams, identifying new software or services sales opportunities. Contribute to the proposal definition and sales of new support service opportunities. Solicit feedback on technical support services.
• Suggest, manage, and implement special projects to assist Technical Support, users, or other teams.

What we’re looking for

• Strong communication skills
• 7-8 years of experience in a leadership role
• Expert knowledge of SAS products and their applications or specialized products related to the assigned customer
• Excellent organizational skills, ability to communicate clearly, and strong problem resolution skills
• Has a proven understanding of corporate account business needs and knowledge of the support industry
• Ability to use unique skills to contribute to the development of company objectives and principles and to achieve goals in creative and effective ways
• Has ability to deliver presentations to various audiences including colleagues, customers, and industry experts
• Travel as business requirements dictate at management discretion

Other knowledge, skills, and abilities

• Strong conceptual abilities
• Creativity and project management skills
• Technical account management skills
• Ability to take initiative by suggesting, managing and/or implementing special projects to improve the level of support offered by the entire Technical Support Division.
• Ability to act as a positive role model for others in their department and division.
• Ability to diplomatically handle issues with customers by working within and across departments and divisions.
• Ability to anticipate needs (e.g. training or documentation) within their department or the Technical Support Division as a whole and takes action to meet those needs.
• Ability to provide guidance and input to others on how to handle escalations. Can manage expectations at all levels of business. Manages multiple escalations simultaneously.