Senior Associate, Escalations (United States)

The Community You Will Join: 

The Airbnb Senior Associate, Escalations supports one or more internal CS services. This is a full time position based in Remote-USA or Remote-CAN. The Senior Associate, Escalations functions on the front line interacting directly with both customers & internal stakeholders. The Senior Associate, Escalations needs strong communication skills, problem-solving abilities, and customer service expertise. The Senior Associate, Escalations should also be adaptable and responsive in our fast paced environment, sometimes under pressure, while remaining flexible, proactive, resourceful, efficient and demonstrating a high level of professionalism and confidentiality.       

As part of this role, you are required to be flexible and may be required to move to different teams within Community Support and/or take up different responsibilities from those set out below. The ideal candidate will be open to a role which will evolve based on business needs and will be flexible to meet those needs.            

The Difference You Will Make:

The responsibilities listed below are not exhaustive. Given the fast-moving nature of this work, the responsibilities set out below may change and additional duties may be assigned as needed.

Complex case management: Provide the highest level of service to our community in each and every case

• Interact with Airbnb customers and community members through all current and future channels, both inside and outside of Airbnb tools, including livechat, social platforms, messaging, and directly through the phone
• End-to-end management of complex cases with the objective to resolve customers’ issues based on the totality of circumstances and evidence gathered, with established workflows & management guidelines as secondary assistance.
• Recognize case type/severity and work cases correctly according to your service’s scope, escalating accurately to other teams when appropriate.
• Skillfully guides to resolution cases that require greater judgment or deviate from the workflow more, including those that do not even have a clear workflow 
• Operates with little support from your leadership on most casework tasks
• Ability to take a step back from the case handling to de-escalate a situation and assess the best resolution taking into account user communications as well as behaviors & unsaid elements - “read through the lines” 
• Collaborates cross-functionally within CS and outside of it to resolve issues related to complex cases
• Explains and simplify complex information, provide appropriate context, and address complex questions with confidence

Combining efficiency with quality: 

• Efficiently and to a high degree of quality balances consistently higher volumes of cases and cases with higher severity/complexity casework than lower levels (depending on service). 
• Familiar with concept of trauma, how it manifests in our users and understands best practices around reducing retraumatization; deploy that understanding in your casework
• Ability to deescalate user complaints via live phone calls, showing both genuine empathy and clear acknowledgement of a perceived poor user experience.  

Participating in your service’s improvement: Leverage your functional operational knowledge to proactively support the team success

• Provides ongoing guidance to your teammates in improving the quality and efficiency of their work
• Provide insights about community experience and continuous improvement opportunities to your Management
• May support Management on initiatives as assigned, such as to drive performance improvements, supporting Management on consultations, acting as a subject matter expert, etc.
• Support management in conveying messages & driving outcomes in the rest of the team

Stakeholder engagement: You have gained the trust of internal & external stakeholders through effective relationship management and delivering results

• Demonstrates a high degree of approachability and integrity when resolving sensitive/complex issues relying on management when in doubt

Your Background & Experience:

• 4+ years of relevant experience in customer service, mediation, social media response, front desk, or a similar role operating in a contact center environment making calls and handling customer/client contacts
• Hospitality experience is a plus, in particular working for technology platforms. Prior experience using phone, messaging, or live chat to interact with users/customers is preferred.  
• Experience collaborating with internal stakeholders and/or third party providers to resolve conflicts in a detailed, effective and timely manner
• Ability to work weekend days and public holidays, as well as early morning / evening shifts. Your schedule can change to meet business needs

Your Expertise:

• 4+ years of relevant experience in customer service, mediation, social media response, front desk, or a similar role operating in a contact center environment making calls and handling customer/client contacts
• Hospitality experience is a plus, in particular working for technology platforms. Prior experience using phone, messaging, or live chat to interact with users/customers is preferred.  
• Experience collaborating with internal stakeholders and/or third party providers to resolve conflicts in a detailed, effective and timely manner
• Ability to work weekend days and public holidays, as well as early morning / evening shifts. Your schedule can change to meet business needs

Your Location:

This position is US - Remote Eligible. The role may include occasional work at an Airbnb office or attendance at offsites, as agreed to with your manager. While the position is Remote Eligible, you must live in a state where Airbnb, Inc. has a registered entity. Click here for the up-to-date list of excluded states. This list is continuously evolving, so please check back with us if the state you live in is on the exclusion list  If your position is employed by another Airbnb entity, your recruiter will inform you what states you are eligible to work from.

Our Commitment To Inclusion & Belonging:

Airbnb is committed to working with the broadest talent pool possible. We believe diverse ideas foster innovation and engagement, and allow us to attract creatively-led people, and to develop the best products, services and solutions. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply.

We strive to also provide a disability inclusive application and interview process. If you are a candidate with a disability and require reasonable accommodation in order to submit an application, please contact us at: reasonableaccommodations@airbnb.com. Please include your full name, the role you’re applying for and the accommodation necessary to assist you with the recruiting process. 

We ask that you only reach out to us if you are a candidate whose disability prevents you from being able to complete our online application.

Offices: Canada, United States